HP 1 question

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KB9WPC

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Eau Claire WI
Hi, I have an hp1, one thing that I have come across is that if I have two different agencies on the same freq. just different pl or dcs codes why does the scanner pick up both no matter what freq it is on. Example, my local rural fire for Eau Claire County WI is 154.445 dcs 445 Jackson County fire is on the same freq. but with a PL of 123.0 So I will be listening to EC County and Jackson County will come through just with the different pl displayed on the bottom of the screen
 

n4yek

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1) Just lockout the agency you don't want to monitor.
2) In the HP, you can set the range in miles from you home on what you want to monitor, just set your range to a smaller one in the scanner
 
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BillMcE

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It sounds like you only have the frequency & not the PL programmed in. If you want to monitor one channel, & not the other, then you should go into Sentinel & enter the PL of the channel you want. Make sense?
 

KB9WPC

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HI thanks of the reply. I have the milage set to 8 for both no way that they come even close. Both the DCS for Eau Claire is Set and the PL for Jackson County is set. If I am listening to Eau Claire, Jackson will sometimes somehow come up. I also am running with the GPS and have the radio set to run via the gps. I do travel through both counties for work. Thanks again for your help
 

Jay911

Silent Key (April 15th, 2023)
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If they're both in the full database, you can't edit the PL/DCS. What you can do, though, is submit the tones to the appropriate county in the RR database, and by the next Monday's update of the database in Sentinel, the problem should go away.
 

SCPD

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AKA If they're both in the full database, you can't edit the PL/DCS.>>>>You can do whatever you want if you have Extreme or really good software.
 

KB9WPC

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Eau Claire WI
I tried locking out the pl tone but it still for some reason will come thru even though I have it programmed in DCS. Also use Bu-Tel ARC software, as I do for most of my other radios. Did I miss a step some where that would fix this? Thanks Dave
 

SCPD

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Hi, I have an hp1, one thing that I have come across is that if I have two different agencies on the same freq. just different pl or dcs codes why does the scanner pick up both no matter what freq it is on. Example, my local rural fire for Eau Claire County WI is 154.445 dcs 445 Jackson County fire is on the same freq. but with a PL of 123.0 So I will be listening to EC County and Jackson County will come through just with the different pl displayed on the bottom of the screen

if its a custom favorites list you can click the < next to department and click save sub audio when it shows the 1 you want :)
 

Jay911

Silent Key (April 15th, 2023)
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You can do whatever you want if you have Extreme or really good software.

Only until the next database update when it gets overwritten. And you can't edit the full DB with Extreme, either. This "really good software" (I'm presuming you are talking about ARC-HP, but I have not seen any "really good" software from BuTEL in years) just lets you edit things you shouldn't be editing in the first place.

Furthermore, instead of having to edit your full DB every week, or create a favorites list for just those two channels, why not submit the tones to the RRDB and let everyone else in your area share the improved data?
 

KB9WPC

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Eau Claire WI
HI again, thanks for the info, yes I use the ARC-HP program and also use the Uniden one also. Both counties are listed in RR with the right info. I can't figure out why two counties so close to each other would have the same freq. This is the first time something like this has come up, so I was wondering if I missed a program step or something like that. Both my GRE 600 and the RS 160 do not have this issue. Nor does any of my 2 meter ham gear also. Otherwise I have no complaint with the HP unit, works great, Tracking via the GPS is super.
Dave
 

Jay911

Silent Key (April 15th, 2023)
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I see now that they're listed with their proper tone codes - several times in several different towns, in fact. I have no idea why the radio is doing this, unless your database isn't up to date *and* this change was made since the database you are using was downloaded. I presume you go each week (or at least, from time to time) into Sentinel and do "Update>Master HPDB" and then write it to the scanner, right?

I don't see this behavior in my radios in my area, and I have a number of agencies here that have the same frequency but different PL codes. As for why places do this, it's probably just congestion (all other frequencies are in use).

And your range setting at 8 miles isn't recommended if you're using GPS. What you're telling the radio is "tune in things that can be received for 8 miles around my current location". It's kind of complicated to explain, but the best practice is to set your radius at 0 miles when you're using a GPS.

Here's a link that explains - How it Works: Location, Location, Location
 

KB9WPC

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Eau Claire WI
HP 1

Hi Jay, thanks for your suggestion I was just wondering if I had somehow missed a step or didn't set something right. So I will change all locations to 0 and see how that works. Just wondering however, since I have pretty much the whole western part of Wisconsin's WISCOM P25, will it just pick up the freq. that are close to me?
Thanks again
Dave
 

Jay911

Silent Key (April 15th, 2023)
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Trunking systems are a bit trickier and even more reason to change your range on the scanner down to zero (the range after you tap the 'range' icon on the screen, not the 'radius' in a system in the favorites list).

Professional trunked radios listen to the data a trunk site sends out and only affiliate/listen if the site number matches the site they plan to be on. (That's really simplified again, but it serves the point.) However, multiple sites around the state can have the same frequencies. For example, the WISCOM site in Jackson County is Black River Falls, and according to the RRDB, the control channel is on 139.1125. However, that frequency is also on the Milton site in Rock County, and on the Squirrel Hill site in Oneida County, and Iron River in Bayfield County, and a bunch of others. The HP1 (and generally all scanners) don't bother checking to see that the site broadcasting on 139.1125 is actually site 020-020 (Black River Falls), it just checks to make sure that the system ID is correct, and then lets you hear whatever is going on (based on your programming). So, if you have your range set far enough so that one of these other sites using the same frequency is "unlocked", the scanner could be telling you that you're picking up the more distant site, even though you're not.

As for the actual transmissions from various agencies, trunk systems tend to transmit traffic to a site only if there is a radio registered (or "affiliated") to that site to hear them. So if nobody from Eau Claire DOJ, for example, is on the Black River Falls tower, you won't hear anything from that talkgroup on that tower, even if it's really busy on the tower closest to Eau Claire. The exception to this is, system designers can configure a talkgroup to be present on all (or a subset of "all") towers. That's probably what the "travel" talkgroups on WISCOM are for - they are probably configured to always broadcast on their home area's tower, plus whereever radios are affiliated.

Hope this doesn't confuse things too much. As always the wiki will have some good info if you want to know more.
 
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