Most efficient way to program multiple WIN P25 agencies into a BC998XLT with FreeSCAN

[alertone]

While this relates to Louisiana it should relate to anyone programming in a Wide Information Network P25 System.

I live in Louisiana and am programming a BC996XLT scanner with FreeScan and want to scan the LWIN P25 System for my local area State Police, Troop G, but I do travel through Troop E and F and want them in my scanner. What is the most efficient way to program this – Place all Towers and Troops, G, E and F in one list or make a separate list for each Troop and just place their towers in their individual list? Wouldn’t this be really the same?

One other thing; A friend of mine was told by someone at Uniden that all you have to do to program the BC996XLT to monitor the LWIN PS25 System was to put all the control frequencies and alternate controls in a list and then you will be able to listen to all of LWIN no matter where you go in the state. Of course, you would need to put the agencies you wanted to monitor in the list, but it still seems pretty inefficient to me.

Any input or discussion about the above would be appreciated.

 

[rbuxton]

I live in Virginia and we have a similar statewide system. I have the 996XT in my truck with a GPS. I would program each State Police troop as a group and set the GPS radius to encompass the area each particular troop covers. So, under each site you would have each troop setup as a group with the appropriate talkgroup IDs. Each group (troop) would be GPS enabled and set with a radius for lockout/unlock as you deem appropriate.

If you don't have GPS for this radio then get it. It makes mobile scanning truly hands free.

 

[ka3jjz]

Your friend might have been thinking about the 'roam' function that exists on the object oriented scanners. Unfortunately Uniden doesn't allow for this. It would lock onto the first control channel it finds and disregards anything else.

If it were me, I would create one system, with 3 groups, one for each troop. Then use a GPS to unlock/lock as needed. Since the XT scanners can use location based scanning at the group level, to me this is most efficient.

One reason for this is a safety issue - I have no need of leaning over and pushing buttons when moving from troop to troop.

As is almost always the case with DMA programming and so-called 'efficiency', YMMV, of course

best regards..Mike

[edit] Looks like rbuxton and I agree....

 

[alertone]

Thank you very much.