Fleetnet on BC246T

[als_medic]

I am having some trouble setting up Fleetnet on my new BC246T an have some questions if anyone can help. (My interest is primarily EMS)

Should I program in the frequencies for more than one tower? I want to use the scanner in my car. Will it work if I have frequencies for more than one tower programmed?
I was thinking to put in the frequencies for all the towers in a given dispatch centre's area, along with the appropriate talkgroups i.e. Toronto, King City, Edgar (for Georgian CACC) and the York EMS an Simcoe EMS talkgroups.
Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks for your help.

 

[EJB]

The best way to do this is to separate towers that are close 2 gether. If you dont and, for example you have Toronto and King City in the same bank in that order, you will still get transmissions on Toronto even though you are travelling and would be in a better location for King City.

I have my towers as folows
bank: Toronto, N.Falls
bank: King City, Welland,
bank: Miss, Dyers Bay, etc
bank: Hamilton, Wiarton, Ballinafad
bank : Grimsby, Owen Sound, Guleph

etc
The idea is to load in towers relevant to you but far enough away from one another, this way the scanner will scan stuff in Toronto and then move over to King City, to Mississauga, etc.


Hope this helps

 

[EJB]

In your case, make a bank for:

King City, another for Edgar, and maybe another for the northern towers as well as banks for Ballinafad. Skip Toronto, I rarely hear Georgian CACC stuff hitting the T.O. tower.

 

[als_medic]

Can I not put them all in one bank?

 

[EJB]

Dont. Separate King City from Edgar. If you can hear King City and Edgar for example put each in its own bank.

 

[als_medic]

OK. Thanks,
This is waht I was thinking of trying.

Bank: Mississauga, Edgar
Bank: King City, Kimberley
Bank: Primrose, Penetang

You see my P/T job is taking emergency services photos so I want to know about whatever is going on locally. I regularly travel within the regions of Peel, York, Simcoe and Toronto and am trying to catch the most while I travel.
I have the Toronto Public Safety System programmed with no problems...Although...should I only be entering control channels? or all of them?
And I have all of the Toronto PSS on one bank.......that is OK?
I will start working on the YOrk Region system once I am done with the Fleetnet stuff.....
Everything else was easy as it is still conventional channels for EMS in Peel.

Thanks.

 

[als_medic]

If all I want to hear are the Georgian CACC talkgroups (which I have programmed) I don't understand why I can't have all the towers in one bank. If I hear a transmission, i don't care which tower it came from, as I know who it is from anyway?

 

[mikewazowski]

If all I want to hear are the Georgian CACC talkgroups (which I have programmed) I don't understand why I can't have all the towers in one bank. If I hear a transmission, i don't care which tower it came from, as I know who it is from anyway?

Your scanner will stop on the first control channel it finds and then move onto the next bank.

IOW, you will actually only hear activity from one tower. All those other towers will be ignored.

If you want to listen to multiple towers in the same geographical area, then you must separate them into different banks as Eric has already explained.

Uniden scanners (and Radio Shack) were not designed to handle multiple systems in the same bank.

 

[EJB]

Let me give u an example. Recently the family and I went up for a drive into York Region. I have a bank for King City/Welland in one but nothing for Edgar.

Once you get north of Newmarket King City starts to weaken. Lets say I had both King City and Edgar in the same bank; King City occupying channels 101-8 and Edgar 109-116.
The scanner will stay with King City until it absolutely cannot keep the signal. It would not allow me to hear comms on Edgar, a better choice for those up in Keswick where I was.

If I had King City and Edgar in separate banks all I would have to do is shut out the King City bank when it gets weak and switch over to a bank with Edgar, where the comms would be stronger.

Moral.. keep towers on your scanner far away, dont put King City and Edgar in the same bank, dont put Primrose and Guleph in the same bank, dont put Essex and Windsor, spread 'em around.

:-0

 

[akroeze]

Although he's using a 246T so if I understand it correctly from programming mine he doesn't have to worry about that stuff as much does he?

 

[EJB]

No, he doesnt. I am not sure, someone who actually has the 246 can help him out cause the 246 doesnt really work on banks like the 245, 296, Pro 92-95, etc. It allows you to put in a lot of (50?) towers so basically he can put in separate towers for pretty much every tower in Zone 1 or at least all the towers in and around his area for seemless travel.

That is why many of us are excited about the 396 right?


E

 

[als_medic]

Thanks for all the help. Now I need to go for a drive and see if this works.
One last question.......
Does it make a difference wether I enter all the frequencies for a tower, or just the control frequencies (which is an option on the 246T)?

Thanks,

Simon

 

[akroeze]

AFAIK, only inputting the control channels will only work for a Type I Motoroal system and Fleetnet is a Type II. So I would say no. But I'm fairly new to this...

As far as the putting all the towers in Zone 1 on I wouldn't. It takes too long to scan through them all!

 

[als_medic]

I tried Control Channel Only on the Toronto Public Safety System, a Motorola Type 2 SmartZone System and it seems to work. Now I'm thinking that it will work for FleetNet.

 

[mikewazowski]

Depends on the scanner. I believe only Radio Shack scanners support control channel only trunking on vhf. The older Unidens such as the 796 and 296 do not support it on vhf, only on 800 (and possibly 900).

Things might be different with the 246T though.

 

[tonsoffun]

Hey Guys
I think it is only 800mhz:
This is from the manual, but it just says Motorola Systems, so you might be able to.

Setting Control-Channel Only
(Motorola Systems Only)
program system E
Select the system E
Edit Sys Option E
Set C-CH Only E
This setting determines the frequencies you need to enter
for Motorola systems. Select your setting, then press E.
Off - you must enter all voice and control channel
frequencies.
On - you only need to enter control channel frequencies.
Note: The scanner defaults to Off.

 

[lightsandsirens]

I still preffer to enter all the frequencies for the given system. The scan rate seems to improve considerably, no matter what scanner you use.
However, if you do not have the frequencies, then the control channel only feature comes really handy.

 

[mikewazowski]

I still preffer to enter all the frequencies for the given system. The scan rate seems to improve considerably, no matter what scanner you use.
However, if you do not have the frequencies, then the control channel only feature comes really handy.

Keep in mind we were initially discussing the Fleetnet system and the BC246T. Unless somebody can prove otherwise, I don't believe it does control channel only trunking on vhf. For that feature, you'll need to get a Pro-96.

 

[dhollands]

On My 246T, I found I needed to add all of the Frequencies for the King City tower for Fleetnet. Have not had to on 880Mhz systems.

 

[paramedic101]

Hi Guys; on this topic, I am trying to scan fleetnet in Sarnia/london area and having trouble ...is the pro 95 capable of trunking these frequencies...141 range?