N00b 396XT Question...

[Forts]

Question for the group.. I've purchased an 396XT which will hopefully arrive this week. I've been going thru the programming I have from my 396 looking to clean things up a little and I have a question about the multisite trunking with the XT. For Fleetnet in the 396 I basically just jammed all the control channels for my area into the system and broke up the talkgroups to my liking. Is there really any benefit to breaking out the control channels and programming multiple sites with the XT? The 396T seems to roam quite happily from site to site as I moved around, although I would occasionally need to kick it off of one site to pick up a preferred site. It seems like the multisite is more suited to GPS use (which I don't plan on using). Question 2... Does multisite work with EDACS too, or just Motorola? I guess I could try to program a system in FreeScan and see if it will let me add more than one site or not. I know with my Pro-106 multisite trunking only applies to Motorola systems.

Thanks!

 

[hawkeye32]

For my 396XT, i personally just put them is seperate groups or sites. I tried putting multiple towers in one site folder, but it didn't seem to perform too well (missing transmissions). When i put them into seperate sites, it works great now. Not sure on the edacs, as the system here in chatham only has the 1 site.

 

[Forts]

Hmmm ok, thanks for the tip. According to FedEx the radio should be here tomorrow so I will give it a try both way. And it appears you can do multiple site for EDACS too. FreeScan let me do it at least....

 

[torontokris]

the benifit of the XT multi-site helps to lock or unlock certain towers... i can program in all zone 1 and just lock out what towers i dont want to hear... or use a different quick key for each site then turn them on or off... with 99 choices for quick keys (you could do that by hand but much more troublesome).

it maybe something you use it may not be

a multi-site on the uniden is not the same as the GRE/RS units.. multi site just shares the talkgroups and settings basically, so probably can handle multi-site EDACS if put into separate sites (which on the xt is more like a whole new system.. sharing the talkgroups of another system).

 

[hawkeye32]

Be carefull with that freescan, i tried that program a couple times, and noticed it liked to change the settings in the scanner, and change logical order for the freq's. Juts minor bugs but very annoying. I perosnally just sucked it up and went with ArcXT pro, i like the fact of the virtual control and logging of systems. Thou if you don't want the bell's and whistels, the regular ArcXt is great too, thou of course minus the virtual control.

@toronto kris, i thought every system had to have a quick key? I tried programming all the towers close to me here in chatham, but say if i locked out sarnia tower it would for some reason mess with doyles and byron and wallaceburg? where it would lose transmission. Prob my fault thou "user error" lol

 

[Forts]

One thing I don't see in FreeScan.... where do you set the backlight colour and such for different talkgroups and channels? And can you tag individual radio ID's?

 

[warrior420]

Uncheck simple view right above the alpha tags section, as for the radio id's, I havent done it yet but you have to make another group and instead of adding talkgroups add radio id #'s. i think.

 

[Forts]

Uncheck simple view right above the alpha tags section, as for the radio id's, I havent done it yet but you have to make another group and instead of adding talkgroups add radio id #'s. i think.

Ah-ha! I didn't even notice that Simple View check box. Thanks!

 

[uncleblackie]

What works for me on fleetnet is:

I have divided the 4 fleetnet zones into 8 separate systems.


SYSTEM QUICK KEY 1:
fleetnet zone 1 setup as multisite and all sites in that system with the same quick key.

SYSTEM QUICK KEY 2:
fleetnet zone 2 setup the same way - repeat for zones 3 and 4

SYSTEM QUICK KEY 5:
fleetnet zone 1 setup as one site with all control channels for all towers in the one site

SYSTEM QUICK KEY 6:
fleetnet zone 2 setup the same way - repeat for zones 3 and 4

SYSTEM QUICK KEY 0: all my local fleetnet towers and conventional systems for listening at my home QTH.


That way if I'm away from home but stationary and want to listen to a specific tower, I will scan quick keys 1 to 4 depending on what zone I'm in then just hold on the tower I want.

You are correct when you assume that using mutli-site is more suited to gps use, and since I don't have one, I choose to also have it setup as you did with your 996T with all control channels in one site for going mobile. You can also use multi-site without gps when mobile but I find it scans through too many towers that are not in use, or reports tower names that are sometimes inaccurate do to the fact of different towers using the same control channels.