Lowndes County

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Santacarl

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It copied traffic in the clear on MSWIN
Thanks for the response. I take it you were using the settings from the RR database...I am too but NEVER hear anything....I can hear other things on MSWIN (Clay County Sheriff & Lowndes county volunteer fire dispatch for example)so I know the scanner is working on MSWIN and since I get the VFD I know the transmitters in Lowndes are up...but what used to work for Lowndes sheriff dispatch no longer does..... Are you sure it was Lowndes county sheriff you were monitoring? I only ask because the first time I heard Clay county I thought it was Lowndes...until I checked my display and saw clay.....
 

Santacarl

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Thanks for the confirmation....Since I'm not the only one here that's having the problem I suspect it's something in settings that changed....But since you're using the same settings I don't understand.... One day it was there loud and clear and a few days later crickets....and I didn't change a thing on the scanner.....I'm about ready to give up trying to figure it out..... I even deleted all the old settings in Sentinel AND the scanner and reloaded everything from the RRDB just in case....no luck.
 

INDY72

Monitoring since 1982, using radios since 1991.
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Have you tried a search in 700 and see what CC's you get? Are you logging everything to see what your getting that you might be missing?
 

Santacarl

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Have you tried a search in 700 and see what CC's you get? Are you logging everything to see what your getting that you might be missing?
Wow....you're about 10 feet over my head....Haha... What's a 700 search and what's a CC? I'm not a scanner guy on a regular basis and have done just enough study to figure out how to program channels from the RRDB..... How do you do a 700 search ( BCD436HP )? Is that a search of talkgroups on the P25 MSWIN system....or is searching for talk groups even possible...

Sorry for the dumb questions....but I really don't know what I don't know...or what questions to ask in some cases... ;)
 

INDY72

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Do a limit search in the 700 MHz band for Control Channels of the MSWIN.
You have to have the sites frequencies programmed in correctly before you can receive any talk groups. And yes, once you can receive the Control Channels, then you CAN indeed do a search for talk groups. Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual I can almost guarantee that you do not have something programmed correctly. Either by a simple mistake, or they changed the CC's up and no one has logged it yet.
 

Santacarl

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Do a limit search in the 700 MHz band for Control Channels of the MSWIN.
You have to have the sites frequencies programmed in correctly before you can receive any talk groups. And yes, once you can receive the Control Channels, then you CAN indeed do a search for talk groups. Easier to Read BCD436/536HP Digital Scanner Manual I can almost guarantee that you do not have something programmed correctly. Either by a simple mistake, or they changed the CC's up and no one has logged it yet.
Thanks for the response milf...

I'm peddling about as fast as I can to keep up....Haha... I'm struggling, even with the easier to read manual, to understand what I'm trying to do...

Here's something odd..... I mentioned in a post or 2 above that I CAN pick up the Clay County Sheriff on MSWIN....but I DO NOT have them in the favorites list that I'm scanning....and never even appended them to ANY favorites list EVER.....but the scanner stops on them and identifies them just the same......

I'm pretty sure the sites frequencies for the Lowndes sheriff dept are programmed in correctly since I used to be able to receive their dispatcher to car traffic and car to dispatcher also. So unless they physically changed something, as you inferred could have happened, I should still be receiving them since I haven't changed anything.

So...another dumb question...where do I find the CC's in the database... I don't see anything with that name in the DB.... The only thing I see is the TGID number and the frequencies assigned to this particular TG... How does one go about finding CC's if they're not in the database?

I'm so confused I might be better off running, screaming into the night...Haha...

I do appreciate you folks trying to coach me up.....
 

INDY72

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On each site you will see freqs in red, and blue. Those are the control chans. If they have switched them to another setup, then you will need to put all the freqs in the site. One way to find them fast is to do a site analyze. Here are the sites in Lowndes County:

2 (2)021 (15)CrawfordLowndes769.21875a769.46875a769.71875a769.96875c774.45625774.73125


2 (2)025 (19)ColumbusLowndes771.50625771.88125774.03125a774.28125a774.53125a774.78125c

The ones marked c are the primary control chan. The ones marked a are the alternate control chan. There are no freqs assigned to a TG. Freqs go with sites. The TG's can be heard on ANY of the freqs in a site. When you have time, you might want to do some reading in the wiki on trunking basics, as much as you can on the BCD436HP so you learn all the tricks of this powerful tool.
 
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Santacarl

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Thanks for explaining and pointing out the control channels. I had the ones for Columbus/Lowndes in my scanner but not the ones for Crawford/Lowndes. I just added the Crawford ones to see if that's where they migrated to.... A couple of more questions if you don't mind...

1. In Sentinel do I need to designate one of the frequencies as the Control or just include the frequency in the list?

2. Is it okay to make one long list of frequencies for the Talk Group by combining the two lists of frequencies (Columbus and Crawford).....or Do I need to keep them as separate lists? I'm wondering if it will be an issue having 2 frequencies designated as control channels in the same list?

Thanks again for the help...much appreciated.
 
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INDY72

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Every SITE is unique, and should not be joined to other sites. The freqs go in the SITE portion. All you need is the Control Channels nothing else for each site. You have ONE PRIMARY CC, and the others are ALTERNATE CC's that can be rotated to by the system for each SITE. You need only the CC's and ACC's as the BCD436HP uses what is called CONTROL CHANNEL ONLY trunk tracking. The TG's go in a list by themselves and are used at multiple sites. Some TG's are in fact statewide in use. You have ONE SYSTEM: MSWIN, You need at least ONE SITE, preferably BOTH of the SITES for your County. Then you put the TG's in their spot. Make sure all types are enabled, all the sites your going to monitor are not locked out etc... Make sure the Favorites List is set up correctly and the Quick Keys enabled if you have any set. Again: FL, System, Sites, TG's. If you wish, you can send me the hpd file and I can look at it and see what needs changed, then send it back to you.
 

Santacarl

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Wow....best explanation I've heard....You have a way of making the system understandable to the low knowledge user....

So, I was experimenting and created a new favorites list for my LE types....I put both sites in as you suggest. I monitored for several hours but didn't pick up anything....but that's not unusual for this area from my past monitoring experience.

What is an hpd file and where do I find it? It wouldn't hurt to have some take a peek to make sure I'm not doing something dumb....I appreciate the offer....
 

INDY72

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I meant hpe file. In the file drop down menu in Sentinel, there is an option to export as an hpe file. Do that, and e-mail it to me. I will take a peek and see whats going on. Do you have latest firmware, and newest db library updated? New library came out today.
 

Santacarl

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I meant hpe file. In the file drop down menu in Sentinel, there is an option to export as an hpe file. Do that, and e-mail it to me. I will take a peek and see whats going on. Do you have latest firmware, and newest db library updated? New library came out today.
Well...for some reason this site won't populate your email address in my email program (I assume the little email icon on the top right of your post does that) ....It only copies this thread url. Well....DUH on me...just noticed that area is for sharing threads....Doah! :oops:

I do have the latest firmware and DB loaded.....I have the hpe file exported just waiting for where to send it now that I can't via this site... I must be missing something....it can't be this hard....Haha

I tried to attach it here but that extension isn't allowed.
 
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hiegtx

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Well...for some reason this site won't populate your email address in my email program (I assume the little email icon on the top right of your post does that) ....It only copies this thread url. Well....DUH on me...just noticed that area is for sharing threads....Doah! :oops:

I do have the latest firmware and DB loaded.....I have the hpe file exported just waiting for where to send it now that I can't via this site... I must be missing something....it can't be this hard....Haha

I tried to attach it here but that extension isn't allowed.
Use Windows Explorer (File Explorer on Win 10) and go to where you saved your *.hpe file on your PC.

Right-click on your file.
You'll get a pop-up menu. One of the choices will be labeled as "Send to"
Select the option to send to 'compressed (zipped) folder.
1623121662812.png
That will create a file with the same name as your hpe file, but with file extension *.zip instead of *.hpe.

You can attach the zip file to a post
 

INDY72

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I will take a look at the file today and try to get it back to you tonight. :)
 

INDY72

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Only other thing I can think of that could be tweaked besides what I did would be your scanner's settings. I wish you had the DMR upgrades to check the LCSO UHF's, and check the Teletec TRS as that system is now licensed for DMR ONLY, no analog. So I am willing to bet its an pure MotoTRBO Connect Plus, or Capacity Plus system now.
 

Santacarl

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Well..since I still scan those UHF freqs wouldn't the scanner stop on those channels even if they are DMR? Right now the scanner blows right by those channels and never pauses on them at all. Or is there a setting I should change for it to do that? I think in one of our exchanges you mentioned that I would hear the digital 'noise' on those frequencies....but I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast so maybe I'm 'mis-remembering' again.... Haha
 

INDY72

Monitoring since 1982, using radios since 1991.
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Indianapolis, IN
Well..since I still scan those UHF freqs wouldn't the scanner stop on those channels even if they are DMR? Right now the scanner blows right by those channels and never pauses on them at all. Or is there a setting I should change for it to do that? I think in one of our exchanges you mentioned that I would hear the digital 'noise' on those frequencies....but I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast so maybe I'm 'mis-remembering' again.... Haha
You have to have any Tones removed from the freqs for it to stop on digital noise. Just plain NFM. You could also do a limit search with just the the 2 main freqs, as they are in same set of 460.xxxx. Put the 460.0250 as low, and the 460.2500 as high.
 
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