EZ SCAN: How to move a Scanlist??

[Machria]

You do know you can enable/ disable scan lists by just entering in the list number, no need to scroll to find them.

That’s also fantastic, but also unfortunately I’m not a savant, and can’t remember all the intricacies of 150+ scanlists, and what is in each one of them, and specifically exactly what number that scan list is!! Hell, I just had problems remembering my password to get on this dang site via my iPad!! LOL!!

How about instead, Whistler spends 10 minutes of programming time to make a MOVE SCANLIST function in EZScan???

 

[Wackyracer]

That’s fantastic!! But unfortunately that does not help this situation. EZScan is not an “app” which can be installed on the TRX scanner, so therefore we can’t sort nuttin!!! ;-)) What do I do with all the scanlists on the scanner, if they are not organized properly? Answer: Go into EZScan, and re-arrange MANUALLY almost by one by one moving EACH AND EVERY frequency/TG object! I have thousands of them(can’t even tell you how many!), in over 100 scanlists.... sorting them doesn’t help unfortunately.

Sorting like that doesn't help the trx scanner work any better. You need to get away from the old habits of wanting to sort and arrange on your old scanner or learn to start the alpha tag with 001,002, 003 etc. DO it all in EZSCAN. not via the keypad on the scanner.

You can sort each system type into their own scanlist such as DMR in scanlist one, nxdn in Scanlist 2, analog in its own. Doing this will help performance. Having too many scanlist filled with hundreds of frequencies each will hurt performance and cause you to miss calls as it takes longer to cycle back around.

 

[Machria]

Sorting like that doesn't help the trx scanner work any better. You need to get away from the old habits of wanting to sort and arrange on your old scanner or learn to start the alpha tag with 001,002, 003 etc. DO it all in EZSCAN. not via the keypad on the scanner.

You can sort each system type into their own scanlist such as DMR in scanlist one, nxdn in Scanlist 2, analog in its own. Doing this will help performance. Having too many scanlist filled with hundreds of frequencies each will hurt performance and cause you to miss calls as it takes longer to cycle back around.

Wackyracer, thanks for the suggestion but you need to re-read the issue. It has nothing to do with EZSCAN, speed of scanning, or finding freq's/systems/talkgroups on the scanner. FYI, I don't do ANYTHING on the scanner itself, except turn on/off scanlsits and scan. The issue is solely based on turning ON or OFF a scanlist, on the scanner, that is it. To turn on or off a scanlist, you need to press MENU, then select SCANLISTS, then scroll thru them and click them on or off, then hit scan. Well, I have over 100 scanlists, so scrolling thru them takes quite a bit of effort to find the one I'm looking for. So all I'm trying to accomplish is to get the scanlists arranged together by type in the list which makes it considerably easier to scroll thru and find what I'm looking for.

 

[N8IAA]

Wackyracer, thanks for the suggestion but you need to re-read the issue. It has nothing to do with EZSCAN, speed of scanning, or finding freq's/systems/talkgroups on the scanner. FYI, I don't do ANYTHING on the scanner itself, except turn on/off scanlsits and scan. The issue is solely based on turning ON or OFF a scanlist, on the scanner, that is it. To turn on or off a scanlist, you need to press MENU, then select SCANLISTS, then scroll thru them and click them on or off, then hit scan. Well, I have over 100 scanlists, so scrolling thru them takes quite a bit of effort to find the one I'm looking for. So all I'm trying to accomplish is to get the scanlists arranged together by type in the list which makes it considerably easier to scroll thru and find what I'm looking for.

As KevinC mentioned, you just need to press the number key to disable the scanlist/scanlists. If you have a hard time remembering the number of the scanlist, do what I do, write it down on an index card that you keep with you.

Just to remind you, the word MOVE is in caps in your OP. Not turning the scanlists on and off. Use the software to arrange the scanlists. Keep them in order of how often you use them. Makes it easier to remember. That's what I do with my 1088. I've been dealing with SD card scanners from GRE and Whistler for 7+ years. The more familiar you are with the software, the easier and faster it becomes. Don't get too discouraged

Also, if you are trying to monitor 100+ lists, the scanner will pick them up as first come, first served.

But, just so you know, WhistlerWendy does monitor suggestions for the TRX series. There is a specific thread just for that reason.

HTH,
Larry

 

[Machria]

As KevinC mentioned, you just need to press the number key to disable the scanlist/scanlists. If you have a hard time remembering the number of the scanlist, do what I do, write it down on an index card that you keep with you.

Just to remind you, the word MOVE is in caps in your OP. Not turning the scanlists on and off. Use the software to arrange the scanlists. Keep them in order of how often you use them. Makes it easier to remember. That's what I do with my 1088. I've been dealing with SD card scanners from GRE and Whistler for 7+ years. The more familiar you are with the software, the easier and faster it becomes. Don't get too discouraged

Also, if you are trying to monitor 100+ lists, the scanner will pick them up as first come, first served.

But, just so you know, WhistlerWendy does monitor suggestions for the TRX series. There is a specific thread just for that reason.

HTH,
Larry

Larry, I appreciate the help, but you guys just are not understanding the issue at hand. Maybe I'm doing a terrible job at explaining it, it's a hard thing to describe. Let me split the problem into parts, maybe this will help.

1st, the actual problem I have is, I did poor planning when I set up my scanner and transferred stuff from old files and the RR database. So what I ended up with is 150 scanlists, which is fine (I ONLY LISTEN TO 3 OR 4 SCANLISTS at a time!!!), BUT, the scanlists are not grouped together in any meaningful manner. For example all my "Marine" stuff is in scanlist 5, scanlist 37, scanlist 64, scan list 142. I need each of those scanlists separately as they are different things involving marine (Coast Guard, recreational VHF, commercial VHF, Dive boats, Marine PD...). Now, in EZ scan this is not an issue, I can easily select whatever scanlist I want to view and sort the objects in that scanlist and do whatever I need to do. No problem here. BUT, now I am on my scanner (TRX1), and I am listening to my local FD which is in scanlist 2, and I no longer want to listen to FD stuff, I want to listen to the Coast Guard, and Dive Boats. How do I do that? I have to click menu, then select Scanlists, then scroll thru the list to scanlist 2 and uncheck it (to turn off FD). Then scroll thru the rest of the list to #64 (the coast guard) and turn it on, then keep scrolling to find the DIVE BOATS list (#142) and turn it on. Then hit scan. You can imagine scrolling thru 142 items can take a long time.

Now sure, I could go back in time to 1952 and carry a couple index cards in my pocket, and look up the scanlist #'s and turn them on via the numbers, but do I really want to do that? No thank you!

So how do I solve the issue. I simply RE-ARRANGE my scanlists, using the EZScan software so that they are grouped together with all Marine stuff in close proximity to each other. AND put the scanlists I use most often at the top of the list so they are easy to get to, No problem right? Until you try to move scanlists in EZscan, NOT an easy task when objects are in many different scanlists. You can't just highlight all objects in a scanlist and click on the scanlist column and uncheck the old # and add the new #, unless they are all in the exact same scanlists. Otherwise they get all screwed up, trust me I've been there a few times already.

Ok, so that is the basis of the problem. The only way to solve this "problem", is for Whistler to add a "MOVE SCANLIST" functionality to the EZScan software. This would be a very easy thing for them to do, it's not a complicated thing to do in software. And the result would make life a lot easier when you need to move a scanlist. If you needed to move all the objects in scanlist 2 to scanlist 10, your could click on MOVE SCANLIST, select MoveFrom and select #2, and then select MoveTo and select #10. Click GO and the software removes scanlist #2 from all objects, and adds scanlist #10. DONE in 5 seconds, what took me most of 5 hours yesterday.

This is just one dumb example, which makes it easy to explain. The reality is, I need to do this all the time. I constantly add new things to my scanner, new objects and new scanlists, and remove other scanlists I no longer want. Each time I do this, I have to do it all manually, instead of using the handy dandy new feature, MOVE SCANLIST!

Hopefully that helps explain it?

 

[norcalscan]

Maybe I'm doing a terrible job at explaining it, it's a hard thing to describe. Let me split the problem into parts, maybe this will help.

Don't worry - I get you, because I had the exact same issue. It is hard to convey in words, especially if they aren't mobile or deal with hundreds of scanlists. Very heavy scanner user here that got dumped into the Whistler/Object Oriented Scanning world kicking and screaming. After getting a hang of how the scanner sings, I realized I wanted to rearrange all of my scanlists also for the exact, same, reason. So I went through your pain the first time. Needed to do it a second time and refused to go through that pain again. So now I use Excel to manage all of my conventional objects. Sorting, Find and Replace, mass changes etc are all a breeze now. Export it to CSV and import into EZScan. I only use EZScan to manage the trunked stuff for now. I travel through California often and need to turn on/off scanlists as I geographically move, or change the discipline of what I want to scan. (I attached a screenshot of my "index card"). I also have to keep a lot of things updated throughout the state so excel makes that easy. You might want to look into excel if you have 100+ lists in a very busy area.

I arranged my scanlists to be easy access from either the scanlist menu in the scanner (local stuff on one side of my dial, highway patrol down the other side of my dial), by memory of groupings of numbers, and by name, like what @Wackyracer said, put the 001, 002 in front of your scanlist alpha names so if I know I'm at 20 Glenn County and I hit the next county south on my drive, I turn on 21 Colusa County and turn off 20. I just walk up or down numbers depending on various routes I take through the state.

A lot of people here are probably unaware they let technology dictate their actions. I see it in their replies here and other threads. In our IT world, if technology starts dictating my actions, it quickly becomes a door stop or target practice on range day. The tail does not wag the dog. Every one of my scanners sings a golden song, since 1992, except my Whistler. It is deaf and dumb and tries to push me around. In 2019 I should not have to change what have become the very fundamentals of my scanning hobby to make a little box of silicon do something basic. If the silicon can't do it, hardware or software, then it is not engineered/developed to its fullest capabilities. Period.

 

[Machria]

Don't worry - I get you, because I had the exact same issue. It is hard to convey in words, especially if they aren't mobile or deal with hundreds of scanlists. Very heavy scanner user here that got dumped into the Whistler/Object Oriented Scanning world kicking and screaming. After getting a hang of how the scanner sings, I realized I wanted to rearrange all of my scanlists also for the exact, same, reason. So I went through your pain the first time. Needed to do it a second time and refused to go through that pain again. So now I use Excel to manage all of my conventional objects. Sorting, Find and Replace, mass changes etc are all a breeze now. Export it to CSV and import into EZScan. I only use EZScan to manage the trunked stuff for now. I travel through California often and need to turn on/off scanlists as I geographically move, or change the discipline of what I want to scan. (I attached a screenshot of my "index card"). I also have to keep a lot of things updated throughout the state so excel makes that easy. You might want to look into excel if you have 100+ lists in a very busy area.

I arranged my scanlists to be easy access from either the scanlist menu in the scanner (local stuff on one side of my dial, highway patrol down the other side of my dial), by memory of groupings of numbers, and by name, like what @Wackyracer said, put the 001, 002 in front of your scanlist alpha names so if I know I'm at 20 Glenn County and I hit the next county south on my drive, I turn on 21 Colusa County and turn off 20. I just walk up or down numbers depending on various routes I take through the state.

A lot of people here are probably unaware they let technology dictate their actions. I see it in their replies here and other threads. In our IT world, if technology starts dictating my actions, it quickly becomes a door stop or target practice on range day. The tail does not wag the dog. Every one of my scanners sings a golden song, since 1992, except my Whistler. It is deaf and dumb and tries to push me around. In 2019 I should not have to change what have become the very fundamentals of my scanning hobby to make a little box of silicon do something basic. If the silicon can't do it, hardware or software, then it is not engineered/developed to its fullest capabilities. Period.

NorCal,
You hit it on the head! And my scanlists look similar to yours. I think folks that are not familiar with “big city” type area’s like most of Cali, or Long Island / NY Metro area, they just don’t get it. And I too get annoyed a bit on here with the constant backlash from users defending these developers when we simply “ask” for better technology. I’ve said this many times on here, and get absolutely hammered for it; The technology being used on the interface of these scanners is from the 70’s and 80’s. There is very little difference between my 1985 Bearcat 100XLT’s user interface, and these 2018/19 scanner interfaces. Yes, they’ve added more memory, and they have added digital trunking and other broadcast technologies, but very little work has been done on the interfaces for the most part.

Having said that, I do love the TRX1 and it does everything I need it to do fairly easily (although it took quite a while to get the hang of it at first due to the 1980’s interface we have to deal with). The bigger issue for me is the lack of ergonomics and simple functionality in EZScan. To me, that is embarrising. A simple import export? Copy Paste? Move a SCANLIST? ... these are just basic things that are in ALL software in 2019. Hell, they were ALL software in 2000 for heavens sake! Why do I have to fuss around with CSV files?? Oh, I forgot, we are still in 1985!!

I’ve thought about trying the CSV stuff, but my scanlists are just too mixed (Mot II and P25 systems) mixed with conventional freq’s. So doing some of it with Excell, and some with EZScan would just be too difficult.

Here’s an idea, how about Whistler releases the source code to EZScan, I bet within one month there would be 10 or 20 better versions released with all kinds of cool features!!

 

[Ed6698]

This is pulled from a post in 2016. So you will just have to deal with EZScan the way it is.

the copy/paste/import/export restrictions were not the product of lazy or inconsiderate programming, but the licensing restrictions and protection of the RR data.

 

[Machria]

This is pulled from a post in 2016. So you will just have to deal with EZScan the way it is.

the copy/paste/import/export restrictions were not the product of lazy or inconsiderate programming, but the licensing restrictions and protection of the RR data.

Thanks for the info Ed6698. Wow, that is absolute NONSENSE if true. There is already an export/import, it just uses CSV's, so if you want to steal something, you can already do it! I'm not sure what RR or Whistler is protecting, because all the data is already public, it's out there, and shared. The actual data itself is NOT what needs to be protected by RR. It's the functionality of auto-loading the data into scanners. I can get the data 10 different ways till sunday. It's on the FCC db, it's in books, its on forums, its in XLS downloadable sheets all over the web.... that horse left the barn a L-O-N-G time ago! The value of RR is the functionality, not the data, so that is just plain old REDCULOUS!

In addition, I would rate the data in RR about a 6 out of 10. Most of the tags are written poorly, with no standard, many wrong/incorrect, many missing... So to protect data that is incomplete, incorrect and often missing would be pretty dumb.

I'd put my money on it is not "laziness or inconsiderate programming", it is being CHEAP. They don't want to pay a programmer the extra couple of hours to do it right.

 

[RDGDigital]

There is already an export/import, it just uses CSV's, so if you want to steal something, you can already do it!

As far as I can tell, there is no export function in EZ Scan. However, it is pretty easy to copy & paste the information directly from the web site.

 

[Wackyracer]

As far as I can tell, there is no export function in EZ Scan. However, it is pretty easy to copy & paste the information directly from the web site.

Yes but you visited RR which has ads that pay them when you visit....it is ALL about MONEY!!!

 

[picscan]

That is quite the cheat sheet! I don't have mine as intricate as you do, I just keep my first 10 scanlists with the ones I use the most and keep the bulk of the least used up top. I can't remember all those three digit numbers anymore

 

[Machria]

That is quite the cheat sheet! I don't have mine as intricate as you do, I just keep my first 10 scanlists with the ones I use the most and keep the bulk of the least used up top. I can't remember all those three digit numbers anymore

That looks EXACTLY like the back of my old backup Uniden BCD scanner, amazing! I’ve been doing that since the early 80’s with my old scanners. I bet a lot of us do this, which just shows you how old the technology is they are using in these scanners!! It’s 2019 and we still need a “cheat sheet” taped to the back to the unit in order to use it successfully/conveniently. Just rediculous. Imagine having to do that on the back of your iPhone? I have 3000+ contacts in my iPhone, all with 3 or 4 phone numbers and 2 or more email addresses not to mention address, notes, and other stuff. And yet I need no “cheat sheet” to access any of them, at any time, in seconds!

What do we need to do to get scanner companies to invest in a new interface that is not 1970’s based?

 

[norcalscan]

Imagine having to do that on the back of your iPhone? ... And yet I need no “cheat sheet” to access any of them, at any time, in seconds! What do we need to do to get scanner companies to invest in a new interface that is not 1970’s based?

And after all that, every calendar app you can find for the smartphones have weekly and monthly views that don't start on today. Apps that directly mimic the dang analog calendar hanging on the wall, instead of taking advantage of being smart and starting your weekly view at "today", or your monthly view at "today." Nobody has done that yet. Who cares what happened yesterday?! If it's Friday, stop showing me what happening Monday through Thursday, instead show me today through next Friday. Or if it's the 25th, stop showing me the 1st-24th! It already happened and will never happen again. Show me 30 days out from today.

Look at the live scanner apps of today. Some have improved, but some used to look like a dang handheld radio. Why waste so much digital interface real estate on a useless picture of a dang speaker grill of a handheld radio?! Why waste decades of digital advancements just to recreate the physical analog form? Skeuomorphism can be a huge hindrance in thinking ahead.

That's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that should be occurring with the development of new radios. Are we at the peak of what can be done (since little change has occurred in last 30+ years?) Or are we just extremely stagnant in development, or is the market so small/tight that there is no room for funding that development. Of course all we're doing is yelling out a problem without a suggestion for a solution at the moment. I've had some in the past, but it'll require a beer over a campfire to regurgitate them out of the abstract part of the mind. If some of us have great ideas to bring to the table, it'd be worth making a new post in the general scanning area of the forums to start the ball rolling. A place where Uniden and Whistler could grab some ideas from for future development...

 

[Machria]

And after all that, every calendar app you can find for the smartphones have weekly and monthly views that don't start on today. Apps that directly mimic the dang analog calendar hanging on the wall, instead of taking advantage of being smart and starting your weekly view at "today", or your monthly view at "today." Nobody has done that yet. Who cares what happened yesterday?! If it's Friday, stop showing me what happening Monday through Thursday, instead show me today through next Friday. Or if it's the 25th, stop showing me the 1st-24th! It already happened and will never happen again. Show me 30 days out from today.

Look at the live scanner apps of today. Some have improved, but some used to look like a dang handheld radio. Why waste so much digital interface real estate on a useless picture of a dang speaker grill of a handheld radio?! Why waste decades of digital advancements just to recreate the physical analog form? Skeuomorphism can be a huge hindrance in thinking ahead.

That's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that should be occurring with the development of new radios. Are we at the peak of what can be done (since little change has occurred in last 30+ years?) Or are we just extremely stagnant in development, or is the market so small/tight that there is no room for funding that development. Of course all we're doing is yelling out a problem without a suggestion for a solution at the moment. I've had some in the past, but it'll require a beer over a campfire to regurgitate them out of the abstract part of the mind. If some of us have great ideas to bring to the table, it'd be worth making a new post in the general scanning area of the forums to start the ball rolling. A place where Uniden and Whistler could grab some ideas from for future development...

I've done exactly that... and was almost thrown off the planet for it. People on this very forum acted as if I was a terrorist or something for simply suggesting these companies (Uniden, Whistler, AOR...) do better. I gave easy suggestions on how to implement them. The ONLY decent argument they have against re-designing these interfaces you touched on, that is the small market scanners have. I understand that, but I think that market would greatly increase if the interface was "fixed/modernized". Not toe mention, they probably waste just as much time and resources trying to develop and program these things because they are using outdated techniques, software and hardware.

 

[TailGator911]

I think some of us have evolved with the hobby and now own too many scanners to keep track, therefore I think there will always be a need for cheat sheets. I have a station handbook that I use to list all scanners on my desk and all of their Favorite/Scan Lists, and I keep a cheat sheet for each mobile scanner on index cards on a ring that I keep in the divider consoles of each vehicle. Just listed is the FLNS on each scanner for quick navigation (FLNS=Favorite List Numbering System) haha I love my new acronym Did I make that up, or am I plagiarizing someone else's work here?

JD
kf4anc

 

[KevinC]

Have you sent a suggestion to their suggestions email?

https://forums.radioreference.com/t...quests-and-suggestions-see-email-link.334941/

I don't know if it would help, but it's worth a try.

 

[norcalscan]

Have you sent a suggestion to their suggestions email?
https://forums.radioreference.com/t...quests-and-suggestions-see-email-link.334941/

I have before yes. But like removing ex girlfriend's numbers from your phone to avoid the drunken 1am text mistake, I'm not sure if this is safe to have on my phone after a beer over a campfire under the stars listening to 3 scanners. Maybe I'll apologize to Wendy in advanced of any radio field trips with friends. Once the abstract portion of my brain is unlocked, it gets fun.

 

[Machria]

Have you sent a suggestion to their suggestions email?

https://forums.radioreference.com/t...quests-and-suggestions-see-email-link.334941/

I don't know if it would help, but it's worth a try.

Oh, they have and get my list on about a qtrly basis, and I'm sure the whistler developers know my name by now. ;-)