Forcing a Control Channel

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bneilson

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Wow how we get off topic...

There are some really long winded people here :p

So in summing it up it doesn't sound like there is a way to lockout and individual control channel.

As JoeyC says you could simply create multiple systems, but we have the issue of duplicates

rickak made a good suggestion of just deleting the un-needed control channels and then using V-Scanner to restore them. This is probably what I will end up doing on mine.

As to all the other comments about listening to a system or a talk group, it really depends on your personal preferences. There are very specific reason that I purchased my PSR-500 and it was the only scanner on the market that would meet those needs.

Just remember: Everybody's listening habits are different and the systems they listen to are different. One size does NOT fit all...
 

rvawatch

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instead of temporarily deleting a frequency from the cc list, you could just change one of the numbers in the freq so that it was a non-existent cc, then change that number back when done. i agree tho that a lockout feature would be nice.
 

RKG

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RKG - I understand your post, as that's how statewide smartzone systems have worked for ages, but I don't understand how you explained that the radio will scan a completely different SYSTEM as you note above. How would it scan a control channel from a different SYSTEM? I've NEVER had that happen since day 1 with this (or any other) scanner...

One day, I decided to put in all 28 channels for the dozen-plus zones on a SmartNet system. I then let the radio play while sitting next to an XTS on the same system. I noticed that on occasion the PSR would be silent while the XTS was giving voice.

After checking around, I discovered that one of the control channels for the system in question, used in a far western part of the state, is also used by a commercial TRS here in my area, and that the PSR was, intermittently, locked on that control channel. However, since it did not decode any OSWs addressed to the TGs I had programmed, it sent no voice. I then confirmed with GRE that the "ROAM" feature does not mask a control channel for SysID; if it detects RF, it stops. Since the apparent purpose of the "ROAM" feature is to emulate (to at least some extent) the SmartZone function, my understanding is that GRE is considering putting SysID masking into a future upgrade.

Don't get me wrong; I don't regard this as a major issue. If I'm in the hinterlands, I just go to this wide zone I programmed, to a TSYS/ANALYZE, and step through the control channels, looking for one (or more) with data and the proper SysID (which the PSR does decode on "Analyze"). Based on what I see and my knowledge of the system, I can determine which "zone" I should listen to, and then I go to where I have programmed that "zone" as a separate SmartNet system. Works just fine.
 

Mike_G_D

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SysID

RKG,

Similar situation here. I live in north San Diego County and can pick up some San Bernardino system traffic pretty well from here. It just so happens that one of the control channels for the SB Motorola system is also used by the SD system. Very frequently I can get the SB control quite well and sometimes at comparable or even better quality than the SD control. Now, on my 96 what that would do is (just as in the example you described) cause the radio to occasionally (say when the SD control would occasionally drop out while the radio was moving) stop on the SB control. If some TG numbers might happen to match some valid ones from the SB system I might get voice traffic though it would be random stuff from the SB system, of course, otherwise it would be pretty dead until I discovered the situation and restart the radio (or manually restart the trunked scanning). On the 96, if I ran into this I would usually lock out the offending control channel frequency since it might not be used by the SD system anytime soon (or belonged to a zone I was not near at the time - I can't remember which, I have to look back over this). However, I recall wishing that the radio could recognize the SysID of the system I wanted so that it would not accidentally park on the wrong system.

On the 500, I know you could use the ROAM feature to look for the highest quality CC but if the "foreign" system CC is at or near the same quality as the desired CC then this is not ideal. Of course, as others have said, there are other workarounds but it just seems logical to me to use the SysID as a filter IF practical. That "IF" is there because I've brought this up before with the response that it would not be practical because the scanner could not effectively scan trunked systems due to the fact that the SysID is not transmitted frequently enough. If so, ok, understood, but I'd really like to know how the "real" subscriber radios do this effectively! Is it a much faster and more efficient CC decoder on the professional units that allows this or is it a question of how a scanner is used versus how a subscriber radio is used that just makes the scanner SysID masking impractical? My ignorance here.

But, at the very least - CC lockout would be nice!

-Mike
 

wm8s

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How many of those 700 talkgroups do you really listen to?
How many of those 700 actually have traffic on them on a regular basis?
How many of them actually carry traffic that you are interested in?
Does one really need to know the identity of every radio that transmits across a system - especially when it doesn't even give the information 100% of the time?
How many simultaneous conversations can you expect to follow with 700 talkgroups programmed? Even if only 5 of the talkgroups have a conversation on them at one time it might take minutes to return to the first one anyway and you will have missed a good portion anyway.

Which ones do I want to listen to? No matter where I am, all of the statewide and regional TGs are of interest to me. When I'm in location A, add to that all of the stuff near location A. When I'm in location B, add the stuff near location B. Etc. I can accomplish that with V-folders acceptably well.

How many are active in any given week? From location A, perhaps a hundred or so. From location B, a different 100. But I don't know which ones in advance. Maybe the state fire marshall is active today. And maybe the medical examiner will be active tomorrow. And maybe... That's the problem. I can't possibly narrow the focus by anything other than geography, because I don't know in advance which will be active and which won't.

Within my daily routine, which is a pretty humdrum commute of about 10 miles, I pass through four trunked systems that I want to monitor. One is this statewide system, and I'm within range of at least three of its towers, each of which has different traffic [i.e., different TG affiliations], all of which I want to monitor. Doable for this moto system. If I put in just the statewide, regionwide, and local TGs, that's about 250 objects before I start putting RIDs in. But I also pass within range of three towers of AEP's EDACS system, and there are about 50 active TGs (of the many hundreds systemwide). That's >= 150 objects just to monitor a small part of one system, without any RIDs.

(As for following simultaneous conversations, there are only 5 voice channels on each of the two local towers, so that sorta sets an upper limit on that.)

Obviously it is impossible to have every talkgroup, radioID and system in an entire state and surrounding areas programmed into a scanner and actually have any success in monitoring and following everything on the system with just one scanner.

My point. I just want to know why. It's not like it's a law of physics that we can't have 50K objects to program! I'm greedy ;^)

If I were you I'd be the least concerned with programming the RadioIDs or I would break down the talkgroups region-wide and have separate v-scanner folders for the regions.

I agree. And you're right, the radio hardly ever decodes them well on this P25 system (although EDACS on the local two chemical plant systems works great, even if decode on AEP's EDACS system stinks [like the P25 system, it blinks the RID up really quick at PTT, but then it disappears; anyone else seeing this?]). So I've given up on RIDs until that's a little less glitchy.

...R
 

JoeyC

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For what you are trying to accomplish, you need to listen to more than one scanner. Even if the scanners had 10 times the memory they have now, you'd fill it up and you STILL won't hear much of the traffic trying to listen to all those talkgroups with one scanner at the same time.
 

rvawatch

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i was just thinkin about this today..and it would be neat to see these 2 things done to the scanner..

1. when in roam mode, display the currently chosen control channel not only during a transmission, but also when the scanner is scanning the system and there is no traffic.

2. this would prbly only be feasible if number 1 was implemented, but allow the user to force the scanner to drop the currently selected cc, and continue on searching for a different cc that meets the threshold requirements. you could now select which cc you wanted to listen to if more than 1 meets the threshold hi requirements.
 

bneilson

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One of my buddies has the Uniden BCT15 and it will display the Site that is currently being monitored by name...

So when he programs it he puts a Site name in and then corresponding frequencies for that site. I would love to be able to see the site name, right now I have to try and remember the frequencies and where they correspond.

I just hope GRE looks at the lockout ability and names for sites/control channels for a future software update...
 

bneilson

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So JoeyC you have made two suggestions:

1) Multiple TSYS
2) Multiple Scanners

The second one is of course a great solution but isn't always practical to take multiple scanners with you. Not to mention the cost.

As to item one the multiple TSYS... This would (and does) work. You can program it up and then enable and disable the various TSYS as needed. You do have to duplicate talk groups as a result of doing this.

For me specifically multiple TSYS is not an option (the majority of the time). The main reason I went with the GRE was the ability to load all of the Talk Groups into one TSYS. This allows me to open up widlcards and search for "unknown" talk groups. The multiple TSYS option is how my Uniden is programed.

The challenge in searching for unknown talk groups is that if a Talk group is programed in TSYS 1 and not in TSYS 2, it will act like the Talk Group is unknown when TSYS 2 is active. This was very frustrating for me with my Uniden as I would start taking notes and determining what the Talk Group was, only to find out it is already known. With my GRE, everything is in there so if the scanner alerts on a new Talk Group, it really is new.

That being said, I will likely duplicate my existing programing into another VScanner and modify the Control Channels accordingly. It would still be a TON easier if we could just lock them out and even better if there were names stored with them.
 

detroit780

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Frocing a Control Channel

As long as you have a copy of what you are listening to in a V-Folder you can press manual and up and down arrows until you get to a TG on the system you want. Press PGM EDIT CURR Scroll down to Frequencies SEL Right arrow. Delete all control channels except the one you want. Save it and you will only have the one you want to listen to. When you want to go back to the others pull up the V-Folder and bring it into memory.

A bit complicated but it will accomplish what you want.

Les




I was just curious if anybody had figured out a way to force which control channel is being used at any given time?

I live in an area that on the same system I can copy multiple control channels that carry different traffic. From time to time, it would be nice to be able to force my PSR-500 to only listen to a specific channel and not search for any of the other that are programed.

On my Uniden, I could L/O control channels. This would cause the scanner to skip the ones that are locked out, essentially forcing me to use the unlocked ones. I cant seem to see a way to do this in the GRE...

Any thoughts?
 
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