There are other programming software available. Freescan is one and another is Butel ARC. Freescan is free and Butel costs. Butel touts itself as an add-on to Sentinel where it does most all of what’s needed but leaves out a couple of things. Sentinel has the ability to download and install firmware and software to your scanner (SDS100/SDS200) where Butel doesn’t. (I don’t use Freescan so I can’t speak for that program.) The Butel is an editing program that does just about all that Sentiinel can do IF you pay a small subscription to Radio Reference in order to allow downloads from RR’s database into the Butel programming software, and once there, it can be loaded into the scanner. But wait to see what others post concerning Freescan. (If it does more or less than Butel ARC.)
FreeSCAN does not work for the database scanners, such as the x36HP & SDS series scanners.
For these scanners, such as the OP's 436HP, the choices, besides Sentinel, are
ProScan &
ARC536. I prefer
ProScan, since it has more features than the others, and also works on other models of Uniden scanners such as the P2 & XLT DMA series, as well as even older models.
I'm having issues with the Uniden Sentinal software. There are a few abnormalities I notice with my computer where it does act as shown on other systems and so forth. I use other radio programming software and maybe I'm getting them confused or maybe I have a box unchecked somewhere. So when i want to select an item from the DB or favorites I have to select one at a time, i cant select multiple items by using CTRL key. In a p25 system for example, I may want a few items for a county lets say. I can only select one to add to my favorites, at which put im taken to the very top on the lists meaning i have to scroll down to find a single item to add to favorites before starting the whole process over... its very frustrating. Second issues. Say I add an item from a systems list, even though I can only transfer one item at a time the software will copy over every single site frequency in the whole system which means i have to manually delete each unneeded site... which can be timely beacause just like before I can select multiple item.
I would like to upgrade mu BCD436HP and older GRECOM/Whistler with a SDS100 but not it programming is a nightmare.
Regardless of how you select what Departments you want to append in Sentinel, Sentinel will still append
every site of a trunked system. You can selectively avoid the unneeded or undesired sites, but that takes some time. You could, instead, use Location Control and let that disable the extra baggage. But if you do that, makes sure you have your desired location & range set, as well as insuring that
all systems in that specific Favorites list have location details. If you manually entered any system, site, or department, then the location, initially, is blank. That corresponds to something off the the coast of Africa, in the Atlantic Ocean, obviously out of range.
I prefer to delete the extras, since they are unwanted & unneeded for monitoring in your specific area, Should I need them at later date, I can always append them to a 'dummy' system, then use the Favorites editor to move the ones I need back to a Favorites list.
The better solution is to use specific software, such as ProScan or ARC536, which allows you specify only the Sites & Departments that are wanted. A Premium subscription is required for importing that way, but you already are at that status. Importing via either of these programs will also carry over location data in case you intend to use a GPS. Both programs have a 30 day free trial period, before you have to either purchase a license or discontinue using them.
