SDS100/SDS200: Favorite List Setup - Hierarchy Ideas

[LukeB]

Finally had a chance to play with the SDS100. It took a little bit but I also began to wrap my head around DMA and favorite list setup which is quite different from anything I'm used to. I clearly have quite a bit to learn as far as assigning quick keys and such. I used the Sentinel software to grab some local systems/channels. I've done some searching and have seen a few different answers but was not successful in finding a more specific response to my questions.

I have a few questions:

• How have you set up your favorite list? By state > county > police or fire, etc.? What other ways have you set up your SDS?
• Currently, I have 4 favorite lists. All for the same county but different systems, then departments then channels. I created a new/separate favorite list for conventional channels, Moto trunking channels and P25 channels. My scan rate seems to be slow as I'm missing conventional transmissions. Would it be a better idea to create 1 favorites list and use the subsequent "departments" for each of the above to improve scan rates?
• Profiles... I created a 2nd profile for a different state for when I travel. Am I approaching this the right way or should I just have the other state as a favorite list and avoid it when I'm not there?
• Have you found 3rd party software to be easier to work with in terms of customization? I plan on trying out FreeScan and Butel but found the Sentinel software to be easier to use than expected.

Before I get too committed, I wanted to see how others have created their favorite lists. I already see I made a mistake with naming a list and cannot seem to go back to change it, unless I create a new favorite list and start over. I could be missing something but trying to save my insanity early on

 

[doctordialtone]

I plan on trying out FreeScan

Rule out Freescan

 

[tvengr]

If you are scanning all 4 favorites lists, there is no doubt that the scanning is slow and you are missing things.. You are scanning 4 favorites lists each with its own system. If each system has multiple sites, you are scanning multiple sites multiple times. Put all of the departments and sites in one system on one favorites list. If the system has multiple sites, minimize the number of sites, using only one if possible. You can create a separate conventional system and put it in the same favorites list as the trunked system. That will make quite a difference in the scanning speed. If you want to select systems, departments, and sites, you can do it from the keypad using quick keys. Let me know your city county and state and what you want to monitor.

 

[TailGator911]

I have different Profiles for different areas that I travel. I also have my SDS100 (and all digital scanners) set up like old school scanners where I turn systems and talk groups off like banks. Just import your systems and number your Favorites Lists accordingly - put the number in the tag - (1) Local PD - (2) County Sheriff - (3) EMS Fire - etc etc. Assign QKs just as your lists are numbered. Don't worry about departments and channels and so forth, as all of the numbers and sub-numbers and decimals are is a pain to keep track of. Make a Favorite List for each object you want to monitor and add them with an assigned QK. I probably have more FLs than some, but it's easy to navigate with just one number identifier for each system you want to listen to. Turn them off and on just like banks on an old school scanner. There are many different ways that people have their digital scanners set up, and its each to his own how they want to program and arrange their radios for their own personal preference. Whatever works for you is what works. My system is simple and fast and efficient when major things are happening, and 3 times now I have monitored total chaos with all of my radios on this FL/QK system and the system works great. I don't miss a thing they way I have it arranged. You have to experiment and set up different 'beta' systems just to see what works for you. Try this system for simplicity

JD
kf4anc

 

[LukeB]

Thank you for the advice and feedback. It makes sense that having to flip through different favorites lists would slow things down. The P25 system is a multi-site system so i thought separating that from the others would actually help. I didn't think it would be such a difficult concept to wrap my head around.

@doctordialtone I guess that makes the decision easier lol I had not dug deep into software just yet but thanks for saving me time.

@tvengr I figured I was missing something. I'm still trying to get a better understanding of the Quick Keys and numbering each system, department, etc.

@TailGator911 This definitely seems like a solid approach to the hierarchy. I like adding the number to the name for easy visibility to toggle things on and off. I still need to grasp this better so I can make it work more fluidly.

What would be an example of needing to create a new favorites list?

 

[jonwienke]

You only want to scan a trunked system once--it shouldn't be in a favorite list multiple times, or be in multiple favorite lists. If you don't want to hear all of the traffic on a system, use Service Type filtering, or assign quick keys to Departments to toggle all of the channels in a Department on or off together.

 

[LukeB]

Currently, the Moto trunked 800 system is being simulcasted to the P25 system, both of which are in separate favorite lists. There are only maybe 10 TG's being simulcasted on the P25 system at the moment. In the Moto 800 trunked system, I added most PD and FD TG's only, nothing else. Would the service type filtering still apply?

 

[jonwienke]

Service type filters apply to all channels in all favorite lists.

 

[LukeB]

Service type filters apply to all channels in all favorite lists.

Many thanks. I'll have to educate myself a little more on service filters.

Is sentinel capable of allowing me to move these departments into the same favorite group or will Butel be required? Will I have to start from scratch?

 

[hiegtx]

Many thanks. I'll have to educate myself a little more on service filters.

Is sentinel capable of allowing me to move these departments into the same favorite group or will Butel be required? Will I have to start from scratch?

In Sentinel, you can add or move systems & departments by using the Append option. But, you do not have 'drag & drop' ability in Sentinel.

ProScan does have drag & drop functionality, so you can move systems or departments around as desired. Or, you can copy & paste. I don't have the Butel software, but I believe you can do the same with it.

 

[TailGator911]

Do yourself a favor and try every method that interests you, find what suits you best. Some people will say this and that and tell you 'it doesn't work that way'. Just like my TRX-1 does not trunk track DMR and decode it 'properly' yet it pulls in some DMR systems better than my Unidens with the DMR upgrade. If it's bringing in the system and I am hearing it, who cares if it's not 'properly' tracking DMR? I am hearing it, so it works. My system works for me the way I have my scanner desk arranged, and how I have my scanners programmed - for me. Might not work for you, but your blues ain't like mine! Try it, ya never know!

 

[trentbob]

All Sage advice here Luke. The sds100 is not exactly a turboscan radio. This apparently is because of the nature of the radio itself and is not expected to become any faster with any updates.

The advice here is helping you too scan as fast as possible.

As far as organization and hierarchy of how you do it that's totally up to you. We all have our methods and favorite ways of doing it for our own reasons.

Like JD says, try different methods, experiment before you settle on anything.

You might like assigning an alert light for each favorites list so you know what you're listening to with a quick glance.

 

[LukeB]

@Heighty I plan to play more with sentinel today. I will also have a closer look at Butel to see if it will help programming any easier.

@TailGator911 I plan on experimenting a bit with this. I thought separating things by naming each favorite list by county would keep things clean but quickly realized that my understanding of the favorite lists was not what I thought it was. I knew I was missing something and felt a little silly for asking the question but glad I did because there is a good amount of education for me within this post.

@trentbob That was mostly the point of me asking my original question... To get ideas for how others were setting up their scanners . I thought I had a decent idea but it seems I'm still missing a few important nuggets of info to allow me to adopt an ideallogy or structure based on what more seasoned owners have done and found successful. I also think I am used to that turbo scan mentality and thought a top of the line scanner would handle scanning faster with no issue. I now see why it's not.

It's been quite some time since I've purchased a new scanner. Its taking me a little longer than I expected to grasp the concept but this thread has certainly been helpful as well as several other threads and videos I've come across on here.

Again, thank you for chiming in.

 

[jonwienke]

Many thanks. I'll have to educate myself a little more on service filters.

Is sentinel capable of allowing me to move these departments into the same favorite group or will Butel be required? Will I have to start from scratch?

A favorite list is a collection of Systems.

Systems contain Departments and (trunked systems only) Sites.

Departments are a collection of channels. In a conventional system, each channel is a frequency, and in a trunked system, each channel is a talkgroup. Departments are geotagged with thier location and service radius--a circle describing the service area served by the entities in the Department--typically a city, county, or state. Keep that in mind when reorganizing channels into different Departments.

Sites are groups of frequencies in a trunked system. They are also geotagged with a transmitter location and a service radius--the distance from the transmitter you can receive a signal from the site.

When you enter a ZIP code, the scanner uses the geographic center of the ZIP code as its location, and then searches the database and favorite lists for things within range, and scans those. If you set a Range greater than zero in the scanner location settings menu, the scanner menu Range setting is added to the range setting for Departments and Sites. Increasing the scanner menu Range value will increase the amount of stuff you scan, but NOT the amount of stuff you can actually hear.

 

[LukeB]

I have not messed with geotagging or zip code stuff yet. I did rebuild the favorites lists. I deleted the 4 previous ones I had and combined them all into 1 favorite list. I then added the several departments, with numbers in the alpha tag and assigned each system and department with a QK number (fire conventional, pd 800 trunked and P25) as I was trying to compare what was being heard against another radio (non-digital).

I forgot to add, it is definitely scanning faster with everything being in the same favorites list. I realize it will be a little slower as I'm scanning 2 different trunked systems as well as a P25 system but that will change once they P25 goes into full service.

I will run with this for a little bit to see how this works out. The closer I can get this to a conventional scanner, the better I think I'll be and feel like less of a moron lol.

Additionally, I'm very early into the exploration of this radio but my 1st impressions of the speaker audio is not great. It sounds very tinny and cheap. I will get to reading up on that eventually to see if there is anything I'm able to do to help that after I wrap my head around the QK's.

Thank you for the ideas and I am still open to hear the ways you set up your favorite lists, sites, depts, etc.

 

[trentbob]

I have not messed with geotagging or zip code stuff yet. I did rebuild the favorites lists. I deleted the 4 previous ones I had and combined them all into 1 favorite list. I then added the several departments, with numbers in the alpha tag and assigned each system and department with a QK number (fire conventional, pd 800 trunked and P25) as I was trying to compare what was being heard against another radio (non-digital).

I forgot to add, it is definitely scanning faster with everything being in the same favorites list. I realize it will be a little slower as I'm scanning 2 different trunked systems as well as a P25 system but that will change once they P25 goes into full service.

I will run with this for a little bit to see how this works out. The closer I can get this to a conventional scanner, the better I think I'll be and feel like less of a moron lol.

Additionally, I'm very early into the exploration of this radio but my 1st impressions of the speaker audio is not great. It sounds very tinny and cheap. I will get to reading up on that eventually to see if there is anything I'm able to do to help that after I wrap my head around the QK's.

Thank you for the ideas and I am still open to hear the ways you set up your favorite lists, sites, depts, etc.

Well Luke I'm supplying a photo of my radio and on the next post I will give you some ideas of how I do favorites list.

 

[trentbob]

Keep in mind that everybody does things differently and you should customize things the way you want them. People think my way of doing things is a little strange but I use a Motorola apx 7000 everyday and I kind of set things up the same way I do on that radio.

I always used quick keys from the time they were first available going way back but I no longer use them. I keep things simple.

Consistency is the key, since I've lived where I'm living now where I grew up, moved away for 15 years and then returned about 35 years ago I have been doing my favorites list and programming the same exact way.

I go by county, I live in Bucks County PA. Forever, favorites list number 1 has been Bucks Disp, 2 has been Buck's dispatch 2... 3 has been Burco, 4 has been Mercer, 5 has been state, 6 has been Phila, 7 has been Montco, 8 has been Marine, 9 has been rail... 0 has always been a working list to move things around or just a miscellaneous junk list.

These are short customized favorites list, they give me just what I need for those counties and where I travel in those counties. We always had a saying in The Newsroom... The less you scan the more you hear.

11 through 19 is set up the same way but I add lib after the county which stands for library and that is the entire County system programmed into that favorites list so if I need an unusual TG or frequency that I don't normally hear I can go to the library of that County and maybe transfer it over to a favorites list 1 through 9 or just sit on it.

That's how I do it. Consistency is the key. As you can see I also customize my display and clear off all that crap that I don't feel I need to see or use. I find the SDS screen extremely cluttered and the lowercase abbreviated Alpha tags in the database are difficult to read so I replace them with all capitals and have as much open space on the screen as possible by just having what I feel I want on the screen.

On the screen you see the word simulcast that's where I put the site that I'm listening to and that system only has one site called simulcast and 26 Towers that you can't turn on and off. Other systems have multiple sites but I usually only listen to one or possibly two, again to speed up scanning. It all depends on what kind of system we're talking about. I move things all around so the favorites list is up in the right-hand corner and the favorites list there is called BUCKS DISP.

Hope this gives you a glance into my scanning world. We are all different.

 

[LukeB]

Many thanks @trentbob for sharing. I've always had in interest in how others set up their equipment. I like to refine my setup if I see someone has a more practical way to achieve things. I had always set up radios by county and than groups depending on how many channels I needed. I typically kept police, fire and EMS separate so I could lock things out. Mind you, this is on old school memory scanners that had a limitation on the number of frequencies a bank could contain.

I'm of the camp that I want everything in a radio and turn on/off what I can hear based on where I am. I mostly listen to PD and Fire but I would have every frequency available. I don't end to scan a lot as I like to hear what's going on. The downside as you noted, you tend to miss things when you scan a lot.

Having 2 way radios, being as though there was typically a limit on how many channels you could program, I would separate things by battalion or division or what I could hear when I was at my primary location. I was not aware you could customize the displau that much. I'll definitely be looking to tweak my display once I get more comfortable with favorites lists and setup.

 

[trentbob]

Many thanks @trentbob for sharing. I've always had in interest in how others set up their equipment. I like to refine my setup if I see someone has a more practical way to achieve things. I had always set up radios by county and than groups depending on how many channels I needed. I typically kept police, fire and EMS separate so I could lock things out. Mind you, this is on old school memory scanners that had a limitation on the number of frequencies a bank could contain.

I'm of the camp that I want everything in a radio and turn on/off what I can hear based on where I am. I mostly listen to PD and Fire but I would have every frequency available. I don't end to scan a lot as I like to hear what's going on. The downside as you noted, you tend to miss things when you scan a lot.

Having 2 way radios, being as though there was typically a limit on how many channels you could program, I would separate things by battalion or division or what I could hear when I was at my primary location. I was not aware you could customize the displau that much. I'll definitely be looking to tweak my display once I get more comfortable with favorites lists and setup.

Yep, use RR as your resource it's like a huge expanded manual for the SDS series. Just Google what you want to know and it'll take you right to the threads that address that issue, you can also search right on RR. I don't think there's been a topic that hasn't been addressed and some of them have been addressed ad nauseam LOL.

I'm a retired newspaper man so We only listen to what's pertinent for your catchment area. Never understood people scanning multiple counties at once or 300 objects at once as you were clearly going to miss everything. The only way to do that properly is have multiple radios which I do.

I wouldn't want to miss a bank robbery 5 minutes down the street because I'm listening to a car stop in the next County LOL.

 

[trentbob]

Okay Luke, check your personal messages, I sent you some Sentinel screenshots that will demonstrate the way I do it.