Mobile MARCS Monitoring Question

[treeclimber]

Is it possible to program the MARCS system in the BC296 / 796 for use during travel. I'm on the road most of the day and want to monitor the system as I drive. Do I have to program each site as a seperate system? Anyone else doing this? Thanks for any info.

 

[jimlawrence]

I started out by loading the control channels for each separate site into separate banks in my Pro-96 but eventually switched to putting all the control channels in one bank and that seemed to work ok too. Of course, I got the traffic for every talk group because I didn't program those in. It was chaos around Columbus (!) but worked pretty well driving down I-90 from Ashtabula to I-271 to I-71 and then west on I-70 out towards Dayton. From what I can tell, OSP in Lake Co. and around Ashtabula is still using low band as well.

Hope that helps.

 

[scannerfreak]

The problem with using Control Channel only mode in the 796/296 is you have to select the correct"Plan". I haven't looked at all the MARCS sites, but something tells me they are probally not all the same plan number.

If you figured out and wrote down all the plan numbers, you could put all CC's into one bank, program the plan number for the one you are monitoring at the time and then just L/O all the other CC's.

Or just put them in seperate banks and program the plan numbers and make it easier on yourself!

 

[ka8scp]

I have a similar issue... I am driving to Ohio from Massachusetts and will be be on the pike coming down I-90 from Erie. I am headed to Lucas County for a week.

So I am looking for recomendations on how to program the 796D.

Anyone have a working .MEM file for ARC program?

 

[ka8scp]

I have a similar issue... I am driving to Ohio from Massachusetts and will be be on the pike coming down I-90 from Erie. I am headed to Lucas County for a week.

So I am looking for recomendations on how to program the 796D.

Anyone have a working .MEM file for ARC program?

 

[treeclimber]

OK, here's what I've been doing. It seems to work alright so far. Using the programming software I entered the control channels, primary and secondary both, from the areas that I travel in most of the time. All are entered into the same bank, as they all seem to be Plan 2 in control channel only mode. Then I sorted the bank by frequency and deleted the ones that were the same. Make sure all the other trunking settings are correct and download to the scanner, you can add the IDs if you want or just search. The only glitch I've found is when you are traveling the scanner hangs on to a weaker signal when there may be a stronger one closer just because it gets to the weaker signal first. So far this has not seemed to be a big issue for me. I've tried locking out the other control channels, but when traveling this gets very monotonous trying to unlock the right channel and locking the others. It might help to keep the squelch turned up all the way but I'm not sure. This seems to work alright and still keep the other banks open for other systems. If anyone has any other methods I'd like to here them. Good Luck Everyone.