BCD436HP/BCD536HP: How to quickly scan police?

[radioroo]

At the moment when I want to scan just the police I have two options.

1. I let the scanner scan through everything until it finds action on the police freqs then I hit hold on that dept and it will continually scan the provincial police. This takes a while.

2. Desable everything but Police. This takes a while too and is annoying to keep going in and turning everything else off.

I'm sure there must be a way to at any moment quickly access just the Police and scan only those freqs. I'm new to scanning and just had a BCD75 Bearcat analogue scanner for about a week before upgrading to the 436HP

Thanks!

Oh and I don't use programming software. I do it all on the radio.

 

[JamesO]

Set up a Favorites List for the Police system you want to monitor and turn the Favorites list on.

The other option is to use Tags so you can quickly get to one of the Police frequencies or talkgroups.

 

[radioroo]

I'm not really sure what I'm doing with the favourites list feature. I don't know how to simply add a single department so I can scan just that department.

 

[radioroo]

Say I Hold on a certain dept, for instance Ontario Provincial Police, is there no way to add that dept to a list or a quick key or something so I can quickly scan just that dept in future?

On my analogue 75xlt I could hold on a frequency and add it to a list to come back to any time later. Wouldn't it make sense if we could do that with departments on this scanner?

 

[Jay911]

You should look through the Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual for the section on Startup Keys, Quick Keys, and Number Tags. They're a little complicated to initially set up right - I have been using QKs since Uniden introduced them years ago in other radios, and it took me some time to figure it out on this radio - but once you get the hang of them, you'll find them immensely useful and tailored to do exactly what you're looking for.

If the police agency you want to hear is a single frequency or talkgroup, you can use a number tag. Hit CHAN, then type in the number tag, then hit CHAN again, and the radio will park on that channel or talkgroup. (If you want to listen to multiple channels in a single department, you can probably do the same kind of thing with the DEPT key instead of the CHAN key, but I haven't explored that yet.)

If you're talking about listening to all of Ontario Provincial Police in a region, the above may not necessarily work for you, since you'll need to listen to several departments on several different trunk sites. In that case, a dedicated favorites list would be ideal. You would put OPP in a favorites list all by itself, and avoid it (lock it out) in the full database. When you wanted to listen only to the OPP, you would use the menu function to turn off the full DB and any other favorites lists, using only the OPP favorites list.

I do something similar when I'm at work. I listen to Calgary's trunk system and only want the one or two towers closest to me to be monitored (if it listens to a more distant tower, the transmissions are weak and unreadable). I put all the towers in the system - there are only seven, so it's not as big an effort as say the Ontario provincewide system - on quick keys, 1.1.1 thru 1.1.7. So when I want to listen to only sites 5 and 6, I hit: 1.1.1 Enter, 1.1.2 Enter, 1.1.3 Enter, 1.1.4 Enter, 1.1.7 Enter. That may seem like a lot of keypresses, but you can get it done in about 10-15 seconds.

 

[LIScanner101]

I put all the towers in the system - there are only seven, so it's not as big an effort as say the Ontario provincewide system - on quick keys, 1.1.1 thru 1.1.7. So when I want to listen to only sites 5 and 6, I hit: 1.1.1 Enter, 1.1.2 Enter, 1.1.3 Enter, 1.1.4 Enter, 1.1.7 Enter. That may seem like a lot of keypresses, but you can get it done in about 10-15 seconds.

With these scanners is it possible to just create a favorites list for site 5 and site 6, and assign them to their own single quick keys, similar to what you would do on an XT scanner? Your way requires 20 key presses. Not being argumentative, that just sounds like an awful lot of key presses to just listen to two sites.

 

[Jay911]

With these scanners is it possible to just create a favorites list for site 5 and site 6, and assign them to their own single quick keys, similar to what you would do on an XT scanner? Your way requires 20 key presses. Not being argumentative, that just sounds like an awful lot of key presses to just listen to two sites.

Yeah, probably, or set them up with a startup key or quick key combination. If this was the only situation where I'd want to turn off other sites, I might do something where all of the "other" sites are on QK 1.1.1 and sites 5/6 are on QK 1.1.2. Then I could just walk into work, turn off 1.1.1, and be done with it. The issue with that plan is, if I'm somewhere else in the city, I may only want site 4. Etc.

Creating a separate favorites list for just those two sites is not something I'd want to do, because a system can't span favorites lists - it's not like GRE radios where a scanlist can have one talkgroup from a system, and another scanlist has another talkgroup, and both of those point to the same system (TSYS). I'd have to duplicate the system in order to put it in multiple favorites lists, and that means that if I wanted to avoid/lockout, update, or delete a talkgroup for example, I'd have to change it twice - once for the favorites list for 5/6 and once for the other entry for sites 1-4 and 7. I hope my description makes sense.

If I understood Startup Keys better, I might be able to set up something where I could power up the radio with a particular startup key and listen to only sites 5 and 6, or power it up with no keys pressed and listen to everything like normal.

There's yet another alternative where I could force the radio to hold on one specific site by hitting Func+DEPT, but it's not beneficial to me because some traffic I'm interested in that's carried on site 5 isn't carried on 6 and vice versa, so holding on one site won't let me hear it all.

 

[LIScanner101]

Creating a separate favorites list for just those two sites is not something I'd want to do, because a system can't span favorites lists - it's not like GRE radios where a scanlist can have one talkgroup from a system, and another scanlist has another talkgroup, and both of those point to the same system (TSYS). I'd have to duplicate the system in order to put it in multiple favorites lists, and that means that if I wanted to avoid/lockout, update, or delete a talkgroup for example, I'd have to change it twice - once for the favorites list for 5/6 and once for the other entry for sites 1-4 and 7. I hope my description makes sense.

Thanks, your description makes perfect sense. I have an XT scanner and a GRE scanner and yes, it's pretty flexible how you can just dump a ton of stuff in the GRE and assign each item to a scan list. It has its weaknesses too.

 

[detroit780]

Start up key

I think I am doing what you are thinking about doing. I created two favorites lists for the county I live in. Startup 0 brings up Home which is the MSPCS system in Michigan and I avoid all but statewide TG's, local TG's and the state police district I live in. I also avoid all site except the two site I am closest to. Start up 1 has a few more sites selected (all that I could hear driving around the county plus all the TG's turned on. This one is favorite list Livingston. So if I am home I listed to 0 if I am out and about the county I can turn off the radio and turn it back on holding 1 or Press Menu, set scan selection, select lists to monitor and tun off home and turn on Livingston.

Is that what you want to do? I create a favorite list first with all sites on. Then copy that to the next favorite list then it's easy to set all sites to avoid and scroll through and just select the ones you want. It's pretty fast and easy actually.

I've done this for work too and various ares I travel in.

I hope that's what you meant and didn't end up taking this in a different direction.

Les

Yeah, probably, or set them up with a startup key or quick key combination. If this was the only situation where I'd want to turn off other sites, I might do something where all of the "other" sites are on QK 1.1.1 and sites 5/6 are on QK 1.1.2. Then I could just walk into work, turn off 1.1.1, and be done with it. The issue with that plan is, if I'm somewhere else in the city, I may only want site 4. Etc.

Creating a separate favorites list for just those two sites is not something I'd want to do, because a system can't span favorites lists - it's not like GRE radios where a scanlist can have one talkgroup from a system, and another scanlist has another talkgroup, and both of those point to the same system (TSYS). I'd have to duplicate the system in order to put it in multiple favorites lists, and that means that if I wanted to avoid/lockout, update, or delete a talkgroup for example, I'd have to change it twice - once for the favorites list for 5/6 and once for the other entry for sites 1-4 and 7. I hope my description makes sense.

If I understood Startup Keys better, I might be able to set up something where I could power up the radio with a particular startup key and listen to only sites 5 and 6, or power it up with no keys pressed and listen to everything like normal.

There's yet another alternative where I could force the radio to hold on one specific site by hitting Func+DEPT, but it's not beneficial to me because some traffic I'm interested in that's carried on site 5 isn't carried on 6 and vice versa, so holding on one site won't let me hear it all.

 

[N9JCQ]

do these help you guys out?
BCDx36HP Sentinel Creating Custom Favorites List - YouTube
Uniden Bearcat BCD536HP Favorite List Programming - YouTube

There are more out there

 

[radioroo]

Thanks N9JCQ

 

[JoeyC]

Oh and I don't use programming software. I do it all on the radio.

You should probably rethink that. You are trying to accomplish complex tasks on a complex radio. Doing so on the radio keypad alone is akin to mowing the lawn with just a pair of scissors.