Michigan State Police on SDS200

[BobW55]

I currently have 2 HP1's
When I programmed in the Michigan state police (plan 25) , or should I say selected, The scanners would scan the entire state and not just the towers in my area.
We are talking a Looooong time.
To get around it. I actually deleted out the towers not in my area. really sped up the scan time.
Because the SDS200 pretty much shares the same database layout, am I going to suffer the same issue, of has the geo location gotten better?

 

[hiegtx]

I currently have 2 HP1's
When I programmed in the Michigan state police (plan 25) , or should I say selected, The scanners would scan the entire state and not just the towers in my area.
We are talking a Looooong time.
To get around it. I actually deleted out the towers not in my area. really sped up the scan time.
Because the SDS200 pretty much shares the same database layout, am I going to suffer the same issue, of has the geo location gotten better?

Location only works if (1) you have the location details (latitude, longitude, & range) in your programming, and (2) you have that Favorites list set to use location control.

If your HP1's were scanning the whole state, then you apparently did not have location control enabled. For the HP-1 & HP-2, the option of whether to use location control on a given Favorites list is set in your profile, where you also set which lists you want downloaded from Sentinel, as well as which ones will be monitored by default.

For the SDS200, if you want to use location control, set that option in the list itself. If using location on a list, create that list by appending systems from the main database (to ensure that location data is in place). If manually creating a Favorites list (or when manually adding an item to an existing list), be sure to also enter location information for the system's sites (on trunked systems) & departments for both trunked and conventional systems.

 

[BobW55]

I will have to check. This was eons ago when the HP1 first came out. Was easier to delete the other towers than it was to figure out why it insisted on scanning the entire list. I remember emailing Uniden about it at the time, but don't remember where we left off with it.
I also remember most counties around here had not switched over to plan 25 at the time. I think our fire dispatch still uses the old FM system due to being such a rural area, many small towns cant afford the upgrade.

 

[hiegtx]

I will have to check. This was eons ago when the HP1 first came out. Was easier to delete the other towers than it was to figure out why it insisted on scanning the entire list. I remember emailing Uniden about it at the time, but don't remember where we left off with it.
I also remember most counties around here had not switched over to plan 25 at the time. I think our fire dispatch still uses the old FM system due to being such a rural area, many small towns cant afford the upgrade.

In Sentinel, you can selectively append Departments from the main database to a Favorites list. You can also append a conventional system, along with it's departments) to a list. But for trunked systems, when appending even a single department, it also appends all of the sites from that system. If it is a statewide, or large regional, system, that can be dozens of sites that you may not want or use.

There are three schools of thought on how to handle this. One group says to leave them there, and use location control to have the scanner ignore the distant locations. Another group prefers to go through and manually avoid the extraneous sites. I prefer the third option- delete the unwanted sites. I don't use location control in the areas where I am most frequently, and I have a good idea of what will, or will not, be in range. Were I going on a trip, to an area I was unfamiliar with, then I would create a new list, with all the sites & departments in place, and use a GPS to control what was active. Of course, if using a GPS, you can simply use the entire database, and let the GPS determine which sites & departments to enable.

As you are a Premium Subscriber, you can simply use ProScan or ARC536 to import only the systems, sites, and departments of interest.

 

[werinshades]

I see 1 site and a handful of talkgroups for Sanilac County (I'm assuming Fire is on VHF as I don't see any assigned talkgroups). As hiegtx mentioned the three different methods of programming and we both prefer the "do it ourselves" method. You can create your own Favorite List, 1 site, talkgroups you want and place it in ID Scan (if you just want to isolate it to your programmed talkgroups), or ID Search (See what other talkgroups your monitored site carries). This can be applied for both scanners and the appending and deleting and location control can be confusing and very time consuming.

 

[mc48]

Simply export the program file from the HP2 and import the file into the SDS200 and it will work the same way.
You can also avoid the sites or use site hold by pressing Function>Site (Dept), this will also allow you to scroll to other sites if you want, and also lock them out.