Steve,
Thank you. We are located in Long Beach, MS (Harrison County) and we would like all of the groups under Harrison County Public Safety. The Talkgroups include Harrison County Sheriff, Harrison County Fire/EMS, Mutual Aid, and Long Beach.
Do we need to download the Sentinel software in order to add these?
You definitely need to download & install Sentinel. It's free, and needed to update the database in your scanner, as well as apply any firmware updates that might be released. The database your scanner had when it was shipped is likely months, if not more than a year out of date. Database updates, barring some sort of system malfunction at Uniden, are usually available by mid-morning on Mondays, and contain the data as existed the preceding Sunday. If you don't already have the link to get Sentinel, you can find it on this web page:
info.uniden.com
There is an online, 'Easier to Read' manual for Sentinel
here. There is also one that covers your
536HP.
You can find information on your county in the
database. Your city, Long Beach, as well as most Harrison County public safety agencies are on the county's trunked system:
Harrison County EDACS That system has both analog and
ProVoice talkgroups. The ones that are ProVoice have the letter
D in the
Mode column on the trunked system's page. It appears that Fire, EMS, and the county agencies, such as Public Works, use Analog on the system, which your536HP can receive right out of the box. However, most law enforcement, both at the county and city levels, are using ProVoice. The 536HP, as well as other late model Uniden scanners, cannot receive ProVoice as shipped. However, there is a paid upgrade available that enables ProVoice reception as long as it is not encrypted. (Nothing on your county's system is currently tagged as encrypted.) There are comments on the current system's
page as well as down in the Mississippi Regional
Forum that eventually, the county's EDACS system will be upgraded to P25. When is not specified, and that comment first appeared several years ago. Someone in the Mississippi forum might have more accurate information on a timeline, but I did not see one on a quick look through the forum. The EDACS format has been discontinued, and is no longer supported by the manufacturer, Harris. In many areas, including mine (DFW Metro) EDACS systems are being replaced with P25 (digital) systems, either Phase I or Phase II. If and when your system moves to P25, the 536HP will still be able to receive it, excepting any talkgroups that switch to encrypted.
To receive the current ProVoice talkgroups, you would need to purchase the
ProVoice Upgrade. The cost is $50.00. Uniden charges a fee because they have to pay a royalty, for each upgraded scanner, to the owner of that format. I added the upgrade to one of my scanners as, at that time, DFW Airport was still using a ProVoice system. While the airport has since changed to a P25 Phase II system, Abilene & San Antonio/Bexar County (here in Texas) are still using ProVoice, though both plan to eventually move to P25.
You can append the current Harrison system to a Favorites list in Sentinel. Once you've installed, and updated, Sentinel then open the program and click on the Database at the upper left corner of the main screen.
Click on the '+' (plus) sign besides USA to open the list of states.
That expands the list of states.
Scroll down to your state, Mississippi, then click the
+ sign by the state to open the list of counties.
Scroll down to your county and click to open it as well.
Click on County Systems.
Now, you can see the systems in your county. The entry labeled simply Harrison has the conventional frequencies for the county and a few other entities, Farther down, you'll find Harrison Public Safety, the system you need for your local and county law enforcement.
To add that system to a Favorites list,
right-click on it to select. You'll get a pop-up menu. Choose the one that says
Append to Favorites List
You are then given the option to add to an existing list, or create a new list. Once you've made your choice, the system, as well as all of it's departments and sites, will be available on the list you chose. You can then oen the list in the Favorites Editor, either choosing that option from the drop-down Edit menu, or by clicking on the icon that resembles a star with a pencil on it, just under the lower case
w of the
View drop dwn menu. In the editor, you can then delete agencies not of interest, such as public works or utilities, edit tags tags, or assign alert colors to individual talkgroups. I use Red for Fire Department TGIDs, for example, but you can use whatever you want.
Be sure and review the active Service Types in your profile. As shipped, only the
Dispatch types are active for Public Safety (Law, Fire, EMS, and Multi). But you should also enable the
Tac and
Talk types as well (Law Tac,
Fire Tac, etc).
There is a wealth of other information available here in the forums, as well as in the Wiki. Start with this
page, as well as the links on it,
