Kent County Profile to Share for BCD436HP & Unication G5

[robert8450]

Hello, I'm new to P25 listening and have a couple of shinny new scanners that I'm still trying to figure out. One is a Uniden BCD436HP and the other is a Unication G5 Radio Pager that should be here any day now.

I'm having a heck of a time figuring out the favorite list with Sentinel Programming (currently reading the manual to figure it out) and wondering if anyone else here in Grand Rapids / Kent County is having similar issues and or maybe has a profile they want to share with me to help maybe make sense of the programming software. ?

I'm also quite overwhelmed with how to configure the favorites and how to organize them. I guess a band plan that someone has already configured would be really helpful so I can see how people tend to organize systems into favorites. There are so many systems and sites and when I try to create a favorite and then go edit it, it's pretty confusing to me.

....And if that wasn't enough to worry about and confuse myself with, I just bought a G5 that I will need to figure out when it gets here in the next few days as well lol

For some reason, the programming videos that I've seen for the G5 seem to be much more straight forward and easier to figure out than the BCD436HP. Albeit, I don't yet have the G5 yet, so I don't know that yet for certain but it does seem easier to program. (aside from the zip code function of the Uniden of course.

SO anyway, if anyone in GR or KC has either of these radios that they want to help guide me along with, I'm all ears. If you're up to it, I wouldn't be opposed to meet up and compare notes to maybe learn a thing or two first hand.

I've been playing with radios a long time (25+ years), but this new digital trunking stuff seems to bring with it a new learning curve.

 

[jonwienke]

For the 436, start by setting your location, turning on the Main Database and all Service Types, and listen from that for a while. That will give you ideas about what systems and frequencies you want to copy to a Favorite List, and what stuff you're not interested in.

 

[robert8450]

yep, understood. I have an idea what I want to listen to (save to favorites), it's just that I don't yet have the hang of how to make those favorites work, i.e the quick number thing. Also, when I save to favorites, it seems to be a duplicate of the main DB that the radio starts up every time I turn it on. Not sure if that's avoidable or not - hence the reason for the quick access number that I'm suppose to save for each favorite list.

Also, I don't really understand how to properly organize networks and sites into proper groups. For example, if I create a FL for KCFD and put only dispatch and related fire channels and sites, then there are a bunch of analog VHF frequencies that I feel like should also be added, but the more I ad, the more I'm confused about what I really need in there. And then even if I have something saved, then turn the radio off and back on, it defaults to the main DB anyway.

I guess I'm just really showing my ignorance here with these questions, which leads me back to the original question about maybe looking at what someone else has programmed for a "normal band plan" to listen, that might make more sense - who knows.?

 

[robert8450]

UPDATE - What I've Learned so far

UPDATE:
Ok, so one of the things that was really frustrating was to create and save some favorites but then have the scanner reload everything all over again when powered off and back on.

What I realized last night is that I can turn on and off not only the main DB but the favorites I just created - YAY lol Seems like a no-brainer, but I guess I'm just a little slow... And for those of you that are also learning the BCD436HP / BCD536HP...

MENU > SET SCAN SELECTION > SELECT LISTS TO MONITOR >

FULL DATABASE : OFF
SEARCH WITH SCAN : OFF
(YOUR NEW FAVORITE LIST) : ON

MENU > MENU > MENU : (to get out of programming mode)

I guess I'm a little slow, but with the "FULL DATABASE" set to "ON", it will always load and scan that every time you power up the scanner - quite annoying for me. Another thing that was very annoying was the "SEARCH WITH SCAN" set to "ON" as that would scan frequencies not even in the DB and stop on them too - also frustrating...

So when the light bulb went on in my brain last night, I turned those off and TA DA - i could then only load and scan the new list that I just created - YAY lol

...ok, so now - I just need to figure out how to properly add and create favorite lists - that is, how to create appropriate band plans that I want to listed to... In other words, which P25 systems and sites to listen to and where to organize them.. I mean I know what I want to listen to, I just don't really know "what's what" and where to put it in the list.