Maybe this is my lack of understanding or something but how does one find which site(s) a department or set of TGID's uses? For example there happens to be a wiki page for Houston Fire Department P25 that tells me they're on site 005. How does one find that info for other departments? What site(s) would a rural department in say...Brazos County use? Is it just knowing the names of the sites and guessing where they're physically located and if a system might use it?
Finding P25 Sites
- Thread starter drguitarum2005
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Yeah I'd definitely take a look. Im also interested in learning how you deduce which site or sites are most likely to be used too. Any insight there?
jonwienke
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It can change on a daily basis, depending on how the administrators have configured the system. You can't assume that a talkgroup has an ironclad association to any particular site.
So is it common to just scan all sites within a system or at least county? Doesn't that slow down the scan?
I do just 3-05 for hpd and hfd, and all other talk groups i do about 4 sites ne, nw, se, sw simulcast and all of they primary and alternative freq. The red and blue ones only
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jonwienke
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You don't want to try to scan every site in the system. On a large statewide system there may be dozens or hundreds of sites, and most of them will be out of reception range.
You do want to scan all the nearby sites you can receive clearly. Some traffic will be broadcast on multiple sites, and some traffic will only be broadcast from one site. If you only scan one site you will likely miss traffic, and if that site fails in a disaster, you won't hear anything from the system.
You do want to scan all the nearby sites you can receive clearly. Some traffic will be broadcast on multiple sites, and some traffic will only be broadcast from one site. If you only scan one site you will likely miss traffic, and if that site fails in a disaster, you won't hear anything from the system.
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I think that is the essence of my misunderstanding. How do you know what's close and what you receive clearly? Just time and familiarity with the system?
jonwienke
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What scanner do you have?
If it's one of the database scanners, all the sites are tagged with GPS coordinates. If you tell the scanner where it is, it can figure out which sites to scan.
BCD436HP - GPS coordinates I could do. I also want to explore the location based some more. For now I have a wide radius and picking common sites.
This was very helpful to me thank you. I have a BCD436HP and also just received my SDS100. I was wondering about this as I am still learning. I am in Michigan and the counties use a P25 system (MPSCS). When I set a favorite I had the same problem, just many sites it is scanning so missing transmissions at times. So you are stating that if I have my GPS coordinates entered into my scanner it will only scan nearby sites with the radius I have set? I am pretty sure my GPS coords are set but it is scanning all sites, I will have to check this again later when I get home from work. I still need to investigate this more but as I scan I see site names come up such as Sault Ste. Marie which is several hundred miles from me but I see my city that I have in favorites uses that site. I have not checked the GPS coord on this site but by name its way far out, does that make any sense?
jonwienke
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If you are scanning every site in a statewide system, it is because you have location control turned off in your favorite list settings. Turn location control on, and only nearby sites will be scanned.
Ok I had tried turning it on from the scanner itself last night and got "nothing to scan". I will go in Sentinel and give it a try. Does it make any sense why my local police are using a site (Sault Ste. Marie) that is so far away, at least based on the city title, have not looked at GPS coords yet?
jonwienke
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They aren't. MPSCS has sites all over the state, but every site does not broadcast every talkgroup. That would overload the system, and it would be a complete waste of bandwidth to broadcast Petoskey police in Sault Ste Marie, and vice versa.
If turning on Location Control gives you a "Nothing to Scan" error, then you've committed the classic noob mistake of deleting stuff from the system that you shouldn't have. Specifically, the sites that are actually in your area, so there isn't any scannable site within range. The scanner can't scan the system, so you have nothing to scan. Delete the system from your favorite list, re-import it from the database, and do not delete anything. Turn on Location Control in the favorite list, and make sure your location is set accurately. GPS is best, but entering a ZIP code is accurate enough most of the time.
Ok thank you for the location control info and will give it a try as soon as I get home. The reason I asked about Sault Ste Marie is because when listening to the local police when I get a transmission it shows on my scanner the site is "Sault Ste. Marie" which puzzled me.
Update - I reset up a favorites list with location control on and double checked my GPS coordinates and now it is only scanning the sites in my range (30 miles). I am still stumped on why I was getting transmissions last night that showed Sault Ste Marie. Thanks again for the assistance.
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