I'm in Irmo and it appears that the Lexington Simulcast site (PAL800) does NOT carry all the RCSD or CPD tg's. When I program my PSR500 to the Richland site it seems that isn't carrying all the Lexington County tg's (not sheriff, but EMS, town police, etc.). It also seems that the Harbison site isn't on the air. What would you recommend I do to receive BOTH the Lexington County tg's and those in Richland County? Thank you.!
Lexington/Harbison/Richland site question?
- Thread starter ChuckinSC
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What I do is create two separate TSYS objects in the PSR500 - add the control channel frequencies for the Richland simulcast site into one TSYS and the Lexington simulcast site in the other. Add talkgroups from Richland Co AND Lexington Co into BOTH TSYS objects. And, of course, add other agencies talkgroups (SCHP, state agencies, helicopters, other counties, etc) to each TSYS as well. IE, you'll duplicate the same talkgroup list in both TSYS objects.
Assign talkgroups from both systems into your scanlists: for the Columbia FD scanlist, you'll have talkgroups from both the Richland and Lexington TSYS objects. In the Lex Co FD scanlist, you'll have LexCo FD talkgroups from both TSYS objects in it, etc. This allows you to continue to use the same scanlist arrangement, and you deactivate entire agencies (talkgroups from both TSYS objects) with one stroke when you disable a scanlist.
With both TSYS objects enabled (not locked out), you'll hear traffic from both the Richland site and the Lexington site. If you've appropriately tagged the TSYS object with something like "Palm 800 Lex" and "Palm 800 Rich" then you'll see that tag display alternately with the talkgroup tag in the display when the talkgroup is active.
If you prefer to only receive traffic from one TSYS, navigate to the TSYS object - easiest way to do this is to navigate to a talkgroup object in that TSYS and press the F2/TSYS button - then press Func+L/O to lock the TSYS object. Now, you'll only hear talkgroups carried by the other unlocked TSYS object.
If you want to use a wildcard to search for unidentified talkgroups in each TSYS, you'll want to program adjacent counties into each TSYS object. Like Fairfield Co into your Richland TSYS, and Aiken and Orangeburg into the Lexington TSYS. You can add those to scanlists, or disassociate them from any scanlist (essentially putting them into the NS (not scanned) scan list). Then your wildcard won't hit on these talkgroups.
Alternatively, you can program frequencies from both sites into a single TSYS, and set the Multi-site mode to STAT. This will force the radio to check each active CC it finds in the TSYS object. Checking the "Check all CCs" option will force the radio to check each active CC on each scanning "pass" through the object, so it will scan both Richland and Lexington sites on each scan cycle.
There are several downsides to this method. First, it slows the effective scan speed for any other objects you might be scanning (like conventional objects), but it's no worse than having both TSYSs enabled as mentioned above. Next, with this method, you can't easily deactivate talkgroups from one site or the other like you can by locking out an entire TSYS object. Thridly, you don't know which site an unidentified TG was carried on when it is found while using the Wildcard.
Hope that helps.
Assign talkgroups from both systems into your scanlists: for the Columbia FD scanlist, you'll have talkgroups from both the Richland and Lexington TSYS objects. In the Lex Co FD scanlist, you'll have LexCo FD talkgroups from both TSYS objects in it, etc. This allows you to continue to use the same scanlist arrangement, and you deactivate entire agencies (talkgroups from both TSYS objects) with one stroke when you disable a scanlist.
With both TSYS objects enabled (not locked out), you'll hear traffic from both the Richland site and the Lexington site. If you've appropriately tagged the TSYS object with something like "Palm 800 Lex" and "Palm 800 Rich" then you'll see that tag display alternately with the talkgroup tag in the display when the talkgroup is active.
If you prefer to only receive traffic from one TSYS, navigate to the TSYS object - easiest way to do this is to navigate to a talkgroup object in that TSYS and press the F2/TSYS button - then press Func+L/O to lock the TSYS object. Now, you'll only hear talkgroups carried by the other unlocked TSYS object.
If you want to use a wildcard to search for unidentified talkgroups in each TSYS, you'll want to program adjacent counties into each TSYS object. Like Fairfield Co into your Richland TSYS, and Aiken and Orangeburg into the Lexington TSYS. You can add those to scanlists, or disassociate them from any scanlist (essentially putting them into the NS (not scanned) scan list). Then your wildcard won't hit on these talkgroups.
Alternatively, you can program frequencies from both sites into a single TSYS, and set the Multi-site mode to STAT. This will force the radio to check each active CC it finds in the TSYS object. Checking the "Check all CCs" option will force the radio to check each active CC on each scanning "pass" through the object, so it will scan both Richland and Lexington sites on each scan cycle.
There are several downsides to this method. First, it slows the effective scan speed for any other objects you might be scanning (like conventional objects), but it's no worse than having both TSYSs enabled as mentioned above. Next, with this method, you can't easily deactivate talkgroups from one site or the other like you can by locking out an entire TSYS object. Thridly, you don't know which site an unidentified TG was carried on when it is found while using the Wildcard.
Hope that helps.
Brian, thanks for such a complete explaination of what to do. For now I have simply added the control and alternate frequencies from Richland to my existing TSYS that had contained only the Lexington channels. I also enabled STAT. Since I don't normally scan conventional objects at the same time, I wonder if this method will be just as suitable as setting up the two totally different TSYSs (I don't understand what you are saying in the 1st sentence of the last paragraph)? Also, do you know if the Harbison site is down - and does it normally carry both Lexington and Richland traffic? Thanks again.
I don't know anything about Harbison. I believe it does carry some talkgroups from both Richland and Lexington Counties - probably more from Richland than from Lexington.
When I create a configuration, I break up the Palmetto 800 sites into groups of 2 or 3 sites per TSYS and program the talkgroups according to what I think is carried on each of those sites. So in a typical configuration I'll have 4 TSYS with 8-12 sites total. As an example, for the config I just recently made for the Columbia area, I included a TSYS with the Newberry and Fairfield sites, one for the Richland and Harbison sites, 1 for the Lexington site, and one with sites in Kershaw, Lee and Sumter Cos.
Using the first method in my previous message, I can start down I-26 in Newberry Co and listen to the TSYS with Newberry and Fairfield sites, As I get closer to the metro area, I can enable the Richland TSYS and Lexington TSYS and eventually lock out the Newberry TSYS. If I'm headed downtown, I can lock out the Lexington TSYS and only monitor the Richland TSYS. If I'm passing through, I can continue to monitor just the Lexington TSYS until I get in range of the Sandy Run site, when I'll switch to a V-folder that contains the Orangeburg & Calhoun Co TSYS.
It gives me the flexibility to listen to whatever agencies I want (determined by which scanlists I enable or disable) on whichever TSYS I want to monitor. This method offers more control over which sites one monitors, and the TSYS tag tells me which group of sites I'm listening to.
I you're just worried out two sites, STAT probably works just fine and is much more efficient in terms of the number of talkgroup objects that have to be programmed.
Regarding scanning "speed," the number of talkgroups you scan doesn't affect the apparent "speed" of scanning, or how long it takes to pass through one "pass" of the enabled objects. The time of each pass is determined by the number of conventional objects, seach and sweeper objects, and TSYS objects that are enabled. More TSYS objects = more CCs to check on each pass = longer cycle = conventional objects not beening scanned as frequently over time.
If you program two TSYS objects with 1 site in each and enable both, it's going to sample both CCs in each pass. If you program 2 sites in one TSYS object and enable STAT and check "Check all CCs" then it will sample both CCs in each pass. If you uncheck "Check all CCs" it will check 1 CC in each pass, but alternate between the two sites it checks in each pass. STAT is probably the way to go with 2 sites, or even three sites. If you don't have conventional channels to worry about, it doesn't really matter.
With 8-10 sites in a configuration, I prefer to separate them into separate TSYS objects. But with 300+ talkgroups in each TSYS, I can quickly run up against the memory limit available in a single configuration. That's why V-folders are so valuable to me.
Hope that helps.
When I create a configuration, I break up the Palmetto 800 sites into groups of 2 or 3 sites per TSYS and program the talkgroups according to what I think is carried on each of those sites. So in a typical configuration I'll have 4 TSYS with 8-12 sites total. As an example, for the config I just recently made for the Columbia area, I included a TSYS with the Newberry and Fairfield sites, one for the Richland and Harbison sites, 1 for the Lexington site, and one with sites in Kershaw, Lee and Sumter Cos.
Using the first method in my previous message, I can start down I-26 in Newberry Co and listen to the TSYS with Newberry and Fairfield sites, As I get closer to the metro area, I can enable the Richland TSYS and Lexington TSYS and eventually lock out the Newberry TSYS. If I'm headed downtown, I can lock out the Lexington TSYS and only monitor the Richland TSYS. If I'm passing through, I can continue to monitor just the Lexington TSYS until I get in range of the Sandy Run site, when I'll switch to a V-folder that contains the Orangeburg & Calhoun Co TSYS.
It gives me the flexibility to listen to whatever agencies I want (determined by which scanlists I enable or disable) on whichever TSYS I want to monitor. This method offers more control over which sites one monitors, and the TSYS tag tells me which group of sites I'm listening to.
I you're just worried out two sites, STAT probably works just fine and is much more efficient in terms of the number of talkgroup objects that have to be programmed.
Regarding scanning "speed," the number of talkgroups you scan doesn't affect the apparent "speed" of scanning, or how long it takes to pass through one "pass" of the enabled objects. The time of each pass is determined by the number of conventional objects, seach and sweeper objects, and TSYS objects that are enabled. More TSYS objects = more CCs to check on each pass = longer cycle = conventional objects not beening scanned as frequently over time.
If you program two TSYS objects with 1 site in each and enable both, it's going to sample both CCs in each pass. If you program 2 sites in one TSYS object and enable STAT and check "Check all CCs" then it will sample both CCs in each pass. If you uncheck "Check all CCs" it will check 1 CC in each pass, but alternate between the two sites it checks in each pass. STAT is probably the way to go with 2 sites, or even three sites. If you don't have conventional channels to worry about, it doesn't really matter.
With 8-10 sites in a configuration, I prefer to separate them into separate TSYS objects. But with 300+ talkgroups in each TSYS, I can quickly run up against the memory limit available in a single configuration. That's why V-folders are so valuable to me.
Hope that helps.
The Harbison site is currently using an alternate control channel-856.4875
Brian and evan covered everything already, but just remember that Harbison does NOT carry all the traffic that Lexington and Richland simulcast sites do, so you will miss out on a lot of other talkgroups.
I really prefer the Lex co site as it carries lexington and richland plus orangeburg and aiken county traffic. richland is primary richland with some lexington.
so yes, create different banks with the other sites to help keep you from missing out on other traffic unless you prefer to only listen to the irmo area talkgroups...
I really prefer the Lex co site as it carries lexington and richland plus orangeburg and aiken county traffic. richland is primary richland with some lexington.
so yes, create different banks with the other sites to help keep you from missing out on other traffic unless you prefer to only listen to the irmo area talkgroups...
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