Help newbie with set-up

[PA-RVr]

I am new to scanning and would like some help with set-up of my scanner.

I recently purchased a Pro-97 scanner and I am comfortable using RR to upload frequencies into my scanner. But, with so many channels and banks, how do all of you organize your frequencies?

I have been using two banks for my county's frequencies, then one frequency for each of the neighboring counties. Am I going about this all wrong? Should I instead split the banks based upon service...i.e. police, fire, state PD, hospital, etc?

Also, how do you guys manage your frequencies on the channels? For example, I loaded banks 3 and 4 of my scanner with the frequencies for all the services in my county. There are some channels that are used heavily and others that are used little if at all. How do I "mark" the channels that contain frequencies that are "dead" so I can reprogram those instead of wasting the channel on a "dead" frequency.

Any thoughts from the more experienced people out there?

Thanks!

 

[KG7JEV]

What I did with my 97 was set up:

Bank 1 -Police
Bank 2 -Sheriff
Bank 3-Fire
Bank 4-EMS
Bank 5-Mutual Aid
Etc..
Etc..

For not using the "dead" channels with not much activity, you can lockout those channels. When in manual ("man") so to the channel you don't want and press the L/OUT button at the bottom in the middle. To put it back in, press L/OUT again and it will scan that channel. Not sur ewhat software you use, but I Win97 from starrsoft (starrsoft.com) that cost $25 and had the activation code e-mailed instantly. I hope this helps. I was in your boat once too and still learning how to use my digital scanner.

 

[KG7JEV]

Also, part of scanning is to be creative. If you dont like how its setup, save the files and create a new setup. Then if you don't like the new one, you can go back to the old settings without much work.

 

[Jeff82]

Maybe you guys can help me PRO_:

(Durn, hit enter before I was ready!! "PRO-96")

I'm new to this too.

In a week or so me and the wife are taking a road trip to see in-laws in NC. I'd like to program Richmond County, maybe Scotland County (if it will fit), and the State Highway Patrol helicopter in my PRO-96. I have Win96.

Could you give me a step-by-step for temp use? I'll just load the file I've saved now for when I get back to "home turf".

 

[gmclam]

Ascending frequency order

I have my banks set up as follows:
0 - FIRE (all conventional frequencies in freq order)
1 - CAL FIRE (freq order)
2 - USFS & Forests & Parks (freq order)
3 - CHP - geographic order
4 - Sacramento TRS (freq order, TGs grouped by function)
5 - Roseville TRS (freq order, TGs grouped by function)
6 - Law enforcement (conventional frequencies in freq order)
7 - Law enforcement (conventional freqs, in order by agency)
8 - Amateur & Marine channels (freq order)
9 - Aviation (freq order)

There are times when I wish I had things set up in total geographic order, such as by county (when I am traveling). But my mindset is typically to monitor fire channels 24/7 and then enable LE channels depending upon how busy it is. During the day I can only handle what is fairly close to me. After midnight, when things get quiet, I can turn on a lot more LE channels and not be overloaded. This is why I have LE channels organized like I do.

 

[PA-RVr]

Thanks

Thanks for your input everyone. So much to learn...love this forum...

 

[adamsdawson]

If you want to hear all of you local Public Safety ,EMS, Police, Fire, and Sheriff. Than what I did was
I like my sheriff's dept. more than anything so i setted my scanner to the way there channels on there radios are. For example, Ch 1 Sheriff channel one, Ch 2 sheriff car to car channel two, channel three EMS/Fire sheriff channel three, Ch 4 Sheriff channel four, and Ch 5 Sheriff Secure channel five and so on....... Then my police, fire TAC and other.