How are grouping things you listen to?

[522]

Curious how you guys are grouping things into your scanner. Meaning, here in Salt Lake Valley, are you breaking it down by city? For instance, putting each individual city together, so you can just listen to a particular region? Or do you have it grouped so all FIRE is together. All PD on its own... such and such.

Personally, I have it broken down as the latter. But curious how anyone else does it.

 

[Hit_Factor]

I group by police, fire, EMS, DOT and such. Always using location control, so cities turn on and off automatically.

Special interest get their own group.

 

[bneilson]

I do the following for Salt Lake County:
- Unified and Metro fire are in one bank
- My City TGs including PD are in a bank
- Surrounding cities are in a bank
- Unified PD is in a bank
- UHP is in a bank
- SLC PD and FD are in a bank
- Other major cities are in a bank
- Ops a& Event channels are in a bank
- Favorites with the stuff I like to listen to in a bank

 

[TailGator911]

This thread I started up might be of some help to you, others showing how they grouped things together on their 'cheat sheets' according to how they have their scanners programmed.

Cheat Sheet Comparison

I hear people talk about their 'cheat sheets' for their scanner's programming lists and was hoping to get a few folks to share their systems, how they make their lists, what they use, etc., etc. Just thought it would be interesting to see your different methods. Maybe give each other some useful...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[kc7rhw]

out side of the Salt Lake county, i just use the county level for my lists.
but in side salt lake county i am trying to get list for each city in the county ,
but i am having trouble getting that set up properly.

 

[kc7rhw]

I do the following for Salt Lake County:
- Unified and Metro fire are in one bank
- My City TGs including PD are in a bank
- Surrounding cities are in a bank
- Unified PD is in a bank
- UHP is in a bank
- SLC PD and FD are in a bank
- Other major cities are in a bank
- Ops a& Event channels are in a bank
- Favorites with the stuff I like to listen to in a bank

well unfortunately it is not possible to due that in banks on the bcd536hp
i am having problems getting the favorites and systems to work the way i want.

 

[jonwienke]

You can't mix talkgroups from multiple systems in a single department. But within a system, you can organize channels into departments however you please.

 

[N0GTG]

I generally monitor the area I am in, so that determines how I organize my programming.

I set each county as a Quick Key, in general, with regions grouped together by 'tens'. So metro Denver is 0-19, another region is 20-29, another is 30-39, etc. If a city has a separate trunk system, I set that as a separate Quick Key in that region.

I separate Law districts and other logical groupings in each QK into separate departments, with EMS as Dept 8, and Fire as Dept 9.

I know of another person who groups them by State Patrol districts, but I felt that was less intuitive, especially if you are not very familiar with those boundaries.

Maybe that will give you some ideas you can adapt to your preferences.

 

[Paysonscanner]

Most of my programs for metro areas have fire and police separate. My travel programs differ from my home programs as in some rural counties where radio traffic is low I combine the two and organize banks by area. In travel programs I have banks for federal/state natural resources, a highway patrol bank, a state DOT bank and then others usually by county. In rural areas I have the highway patrols and DOT's in one bank. In metro areas I have programs for each city or groups of cities and always separate fire from LE. All programs have four banks in common, one for fed and state natural resources, one for state large fires/incidents, one for federal large fires/incidents and one for all the NIFOG, FEMA, mutual aid frequencies. If I'm driving and spot a smoke, the large fire bank is a good way to start listening to at least some of the frequencies assigned. My primary interest is wildland fire and natural resource agencies so I organize things so we can shut off the LE traffic quickly.

 

[Motoballa]

I organize mine by location, if the city is small enough and border another city I'll combine them into 1 zone. Here are the zones for example:
-Dallas PD (14 channels)
-Dallas FD (16 channels)
-Dallas Sheriff/Fire Rescue (7 channels)
-Sachse & Wylie PD/FD (13 channels)
-Balch Springs & Seagoville PD/FD (16 channels)
-Plano Police & Fire (16 channels)
etc.

edit: this is for a radio but could be used in the same format for a scanner