ID Tracker II - TrunkTracker III Support?

[brscanning]

I had originally posted this in the Uniden group but got no feedback.

I have been toying with the idea of adding TrunkTracker III (BCT8, BC250D, BC296D, BC780XLT, BC785D, BC796D, BC898T) support to ID Tracker II. Since the TrunkTracker IV scanners support "systems" rather than "banks", I was thinking of adding a way to map banks to systems. For example, if banks 1 and 2 are programmed to follow the same trunked system but different talkgroups, both of these banks would map to the same system file in ID Tracker so that only a single system file would need to be maintained. The bank selection from the original ID Tracker (not II) would be maintained.

The advantage of doing this would be to add the additional recording, logging, etc. capabilities of ID Tracker II not available in the original ID Tracker.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[jpryor]

I had originally posted this in the Uniden group but got no feedback.

I have been toying with the idea of adding TrunkTracker III (BCT8, BC250D, BC296D, BC780XLT, BC785D, BC796D, BC898T) support to ID Tracker II. Since the TrunkTracker IV scanners support "systems" rather than "banks", I was thinking of adding a way to map banks to systems. For example, if banks 1 and 2 are programmed to follow the same trunked system but different talkgroups, both of these banks would map to the same system file in ID Tracker so that only a single system file would need to be maintained. The bank selection from the original ID Tracker (not II) would be maintained.

The advantage of doing this would be to add the additional recording, logging, etc. capabilities of ID Tracker II not available in the original ID Tracker.

Any thoughts on this?

Sounds good to me. And even if it's just fixed "Bank 1" "Bank 2" style systems that would work for what I normally monitor. It would not be critical to combine different banks into one system, but I could see how it may provide some use. At best I'd be able to use my BC780 and BC796 with the latest logging and recording functionality of the ID Tracker II platform. Any word if the limited Pro-2052 support would also be included? In that case there are twenty banks with the Pro-2052.

 

[brscanning]

Sounds good to me. And even if it's just fixed "Bank 1" "Bank 2" style systems that would work for what I normally monitor. It would not be critical to combine different banks into one system, but I could see how it may provide some use. At best I'd be able to use my BC780 and BC796 with the latest logging and recording functionality of the ID Tracker II platform. Any word if the limited Pro-2052 support would also be included? In that case there are twenty banks with the Pro-2052.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't plan on supporting any scanners prior to the TrunkTracker III series.

After further thought on adding TrunkTracker III support, I was thinking that I could make the
"systems" be the bank tags but also allow that mapping two or more banks to a single system. I have not totally thought this through so this may change.

 

[loumaag]

David, I am a little confused (as this is normal I don't usually make note of it).

I am assuming this would be an update to the original ID Tracker and hence probably an opportunity to bring some of the other updates (that aren't DMA affiliated) into the original software. If so I think it would be useful, but I also think it needs to be able to be configurable so that you could combine only select banks (or not) as the user wished. If this is your intention, I would sure like it.

 

[brscanning]

David, I am a little confused (as this is normal I don't usually make note of it).

I am assuming this would be an update to the original ID Tracker and hence probably an opportunity to bring some of the other updates (that aren't DMA affiliated) into the original software. If so I think it would be useful, but I also think it needs to be able to be configurable so that you could combine only select banks (or not) as the user wished. If this is your intention, I would sure like it.

Lou,

What I am doing is adding the code to ID Tracker II necessary to support the TrunkTracker III scanners. TrunkTracker III scanner will get all (or at least most) of the features in ID Tracker II. This will almost make the original ID Tracker obsolete.

Right now I am leaning toward allowing the user to decide whether to merge one or more banks into a single system. By default, each bank will be treated as a separate system but I have not worked out the finer details yet.

 

[jpryor]

Right now I am leaning toward allowing the user to decide whether to merge one or more banks into a single system. By default, each bank will be treated as a separate system but I have not worked out the finer details yet.

Sounds good to me. Maybe the easiest method is to just base systems off the bank name. So if I want banks 1, 2 and 3 to all be one system, I need to name all three "Conventional". But if I want three systems, I can name them "VHF Conv", "UHF Conv" and "800 Conv", etc. This would seem to minimize the need to any additional interfaces to manage the bank to system linking process. Then this can work the same way for trunking systems. Not sure how you'll handle conventional and trunking in the same bank, you might just need to continue to enforce the one type or the other rule.

 

[brscanning]

Sounds good to me. Maybe the easiest method is to just base systems off the bank name. So if I want banks 1, 2 and 3 to all be one system, I need to name all three "Conventional". But if I want three systems, I can name them "VHF Conv", "UHF Conv" and "800 Conv", etc. This would seem to minimize the need to any additional interfaces to manage the bank to system linking process. Then this can work the same way for trunking systems. Not sure how you'll handle conventional and trunking in the same bank, you might just need to continue to enforce the one type or the other rule.

I was thinking along those lines. The code I have right now creates a system name using the following order:

1 - User Defined Name (defined in software, not scanner)
2 - Bank Tag
3 - Create name "Bank 1", "Bank 2", etc.

The bank tags do not necessarily need to be the same if the user defined names are defined to be included in the same system since the user defined names overrides the bank names.

The bank must match the system type. There will be no mixed system types. If there are identical names with different system types, the program will display some sort of error.

 

[loumaag]

Okay David, I understand the concept now.

IMHO, you should go for the most customizable method, that is require the user to designate banks into systems (or the other way for that matter just in case the users switches radios). Automated, parsed, name recognition methods will fail somewhere down the road. You can still put the safety features of not allowing mixed systems as a safety method to idiot proof combinations.