I spend a lot of time driving around and want my SDS200 to only receive signals pertinent to where I am currently. Our county uses a trunked system. When I inspect my favorites, I see that a whole bunch of towns show the same location. Obviously it's the tower or licensee location. If I take the time to go through and put accurate lat/lon for each town, what happens when the database is updated? Does it overwrite all my work? Thanks!
SDS100/SDS200: Manually set locations for trunked municipalities
- Thread starter Takoateli
- Start date
Can you post a link to the system?
Favorites list do not change when updating the database using Sentinel.
wtp
Member
the one thing i have seen on here is to turn the coverage down to 0 to be sure to get the real local stuff.
found it
A good application of this feature would be to set the longitude and latitude for each multi-site system transmitter as usually you can receive at least a handful in any given location. Set the scan range to 0 for your location and the scanner will automatically Avoid or Unavoid Sites when in and out of range.
found it
A good application of this feature would be to set the longitude and latitude for each multi-site system transmitter as usually you can receive at least a handful in any given location. Set the scan range to 0 for your location and the scanner will automatically Avoid or Unavoid Sites when in and out of range.
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If you mean this, that's normal. They would all have the same info as they all serve the county.
Circles are used for the radius and Bergen has an odd shape so the center point has to encompass the whole county. Does suck that the range will also protrude into Fairfield Township.
This is how it looks on a map.
@ProScan software lets one use rectangles which would clean that up nice
Circles are used for the radius and Bergen has an odd shape so the center point has to encompass the whole county. Does suck that the range will also protrude into Fairfield Township.
This is how it looks on a map.
@ProScan software lets one use rectangles which would clean that up nice
The Bergen system, which only covers that county, only has three sites sites, all in your county. All three sites are noted as being simulcast, but that won't hamper the SDS. Appending that system would bring over those three sites, but you likely would need to have them available as you through various parts of the county.
Since you mention "other cities", not in your county, tt sounds like you may have appended the statewide system, NJICS which is used across the state, with sites in individual counties. I see that some Bergen County agencies have talkgroups on this system. Whether they use both systems at tines (the State system as well as the Bergen County specific system, I have no way of knowing as I'm obviously well out of range. You'd more likely get an answer to that question in your state forum. While you can select & append one or more individual departments (in a statewide, or large regional system, to a Favorites list, the append process brings over all of the sites in the system, statewide, with many, if not most, of the sites elsewhere out of range.
There are several ways to deal with this:
Use location control on that list. Based on the range (and location) that you set, and the range and location for each of the sites. The scanner will only use the sites that are 'in range'. The rest of them will be ignored.
Go through and manually set the out of range sites to avoid. That leaves them in the list, in case they are needed later, but they will not be scanned.
Or, you can simply delete the ones that you do not want. That removes them from the list. If you do that, you can append additional departments from the database in Sentinel, but that will not allow you to add one or more sites.
How did you get the last map on the bottom with the towers and coverage plots/circles? Thanks.
Ah ok. Thank you.
#1 All of the location information is already in the RR database. Just use Sentinel to load what you want and all that info is put in for you.
#2 No - as someone above said, the weekly database update can be safely downloaded and it will not change any favorite lists.
BUT..... If you customize location (or any) information in a favorite list and then use Sentinel to append information to an existing favorite list, it WILL overwrite your customizations, so you have to be very careful. Back-up regularly - ALWAYS before you do any changing of your favorites. Trust me on this. I have blown away hours of work on very detailed location data in the past by not paying attention.
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ve1sef
Member
When I started to create my favorite lists, I found that glitch in the data base with several sites having the same
GPS co-ordinates. Then I saw a Youtube video by K4DPS on a web site that you could use to fine tune GPS info.
It was called "I Touch Map.com" not sure when the name changed but web address below. I've used it to figure out
tower location plus co-ordinates for towns, airports or other places that might have slipped thru the cracks.
GPS co-ordinates. Then I saw a Youtube video by K4DPS on a web site that you could use to fine tune GPS info.
It was called "I Touch Map.com" not sure when the name changed but web address below. I've used it to figure out
tower location plus co-ordinates for towns, airports or other places that might have slipped thru the cracks.
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While it certainly is possible that the database has erroneous location data, I'd like to make sure that this isn't a possible misunderstanding of what a site is. Single tower is a site. Simulcast (multiple "towers" all using the same control channel and acting in unison) are also "sites". But... the lat/long for a simulcast site is the approximated geographic center of all of them. Maybe post a link and someone can take a look?
Remember, the data in the RR database is only as good as what has been submitted to it. If you find an actual error, document it and submit it to RR for correction.
Oh.... The best tool I have found for fine tuning the exact lat/long of an actual tower site (not to be confused with a simulcast site) is good old Google Earth. If you know the general vicinity, (FCC license, etc), you can visually find the actual tower site, drop a pin, drag it right on top of the site and there you go, you now have it's actual lat/long.
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Thanks everyone. I was actually confusing a listing for discreet frequencies with the one for the trunk system.
For the listing with discreet frequencies I went through and changed the locations to the center of each town and reduce the radius to 5 miles. Now that system works really great. I only hear the towns I am interested in as I'm over around.
I was just wondering what I could do with the trunking system. Is there some way I could separate out the different talk groups and have each talk group set with its own location which I would set to the center of the municipality?
For the listing with discreet frequencies I went through and changed the locations to the center of each town and reduce the radius to 5 miles. Now that system works really great. I only hear the towns I am interested in as I'm over around.
I was just wondering what I could do with the trunking system. Is there some way I could separate out the different talk groups and have each talk group set with its own location which I would set to the center of the municipality?
Because of the shape of that county, a center point with a radius covering most of the county would pretty much be where its at.
Not without some effort.
Location control only goes down to the department/site level.
You can go through the work of building separate departments for each, with the individual trunkgroup(s) under them.
But like I said before, you have to be very careful when writing to the radio if you do, or you will accidentally blow away all that work.
The other downside is that scanning then becomes inefficient (slower).
Then there are rectangles. As others have pointed out, those circles have to be big enough to cover an entire county / city / whatever. Very imprecise. Rectangles are a way to much more precisely define state and county lines, city limits etc. By defining a box, or multiple boxes, you can now have your radio switch right when you cross into another jurisdiction. Very cool. Sites, because of how radio waves propagate, remain circles.
For example. I spend time in MN in the summer. As I toodle around the state, I only listen to the sheriff in the county I am in. The big box is for the state patrol. Note that even the indian reservations have their own rectangles (they have their own cops too).
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TGID's you have loaded in your fav list are not scanned... Only the Control Channel for the trunked system your monitoring...
The TGID in use comes from the Control Channel's info...
If your scanner is in "ID Scanning" mode your display will show the TGID info if you have it in your fav list. Otherwise it will ignore it...
If your scanner is in "ID Search" mode your display will show all TGID's... The TGID's not in your fav list will show as "Unknown"...
All the verbage you see for a system, channet etc on the display comes from RR's database... Not the Control Channel...
So if you run your scanner in ID Search mode for awhile you might find other TGID's of interest to you on the System...
Then you can lookup those TGID's in the Database to see what they are...
So if you run your scanner in ID Search mode for awhile you might find other TGID's of interest to you on the System...
Then you can lookup those TGID's in the Database to see what they are...
And yes, you can have multiple departments in the same fav list. You can also have multiple departments with in a system. If using quick keys, you are limited to only 100 of each.
My county has 7 police precincts. They all fall under the department of County police which has gps info attached to that dept which covers the whole county. So when enabled, all 7 precincts will come over the scanner.
What I did was I created a dept. for each precinct, and populated with the appropriate tgid. Using a GIS viewer for my county, I was able to see the geographical boundaries for each precinct. With that info, and the use of rectangles in @ProScan , I gave each precinct the gps info that covered its area of operation. I ended up doing the same with the many fire depts also. So when I use that fav list and drive around Long Island with my gps hooked up, I will hear exactly what's in the area I am in and can leave all enabled and they will turn on or off based on where I am.
My county has 7 police precincts. They all fall under the department of County police which has gps info attached to that dept which covers the whole county. So when enabled, all 7 precincts will come over the scanner.
What I did was I created a dept. for each precinct, and populated with the appropriate tgid. Using a GIS viewer for my county, I was able to see the geographical boundaries for each precinct. With that info, and the use of rectangles in @ProScan , I gave each precinct the gps info that covered its area of operation. I ended up doing the same with the many fire depts also. So when I use that fav list and drive around Long Island with my gps hooked up, I will hear exactly what's in the area I am in and can leave all enabled and they will turn on or off based on where I am.
