SDS100/SDS200: Not sure if editing of database is corrrect, not receiving any sheriff in one area and not all Fire

[Mongoosmike]

Trying to Program a favorite for my SDS-100, but I am Having problems with one city, San Ramon/Contra Costa County. I don't receive any Sheriff/PD, and maybe one or two fire, and very distant CHP. Especially when an engine drives by code 3 and nothing pops up on the scanner, even though I have the database set up with all PD/Sheriff and fire in Sentinel. I edited Sentinel for San Mateo County and it runs great, calls upon calls come in. I would like to try and get some input from someone that may live in Calif close to San Ramon area in Contra Costa County, that might possibly have frequencies set up for Sheriff and Fire and CHP and can assist helping me with editing Sentinel for these areas, and also possibly be able to help with programming CHP from Dublin area, to and including San Mateo County from Redwood City to Daly City area in North San Mateo County. Used to listen to north and southern division on my PRO 92 on the low band. I have edited Sentinel for these areas and voided all the sub listings not pertaining to PD, Sheriff or Fire, and I am having problems not receiving anything for those categories’, except a few fire calls but not in San Ramon. Is there any way that I could save a file of the favorite list and attach it to the forum somehow? That would possibly help a lot. I was able to edit San Mateo County in Sentinel after several times and it works great, all areas come in clear. I have worked on Contra Costa/San Ramon in Sentinel several times and last Fri I didn't hear much of anything while over there, and I was back over there yesterday and still no Sheriff calls, and just couple of fire. Thank you for possible help with this.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Check to ensure all applicable service types are turned on otherwise the scanner will omit those frequencies or talkgroups. If still no joy, attach your Sentinel .hpe export (instructions here) and someone can check it for programming errors

 

[Mongoosmike]

Thank you very much for the information and I am attaching the zipped Sentinel list for review. I have tried to uninstall Sentinel but it apparently saves files in different areas in Windows and even after looking for related files after deleting, then reinstalling, it still shows the original profile. I had planned on deleting the software and reinstalling, then uploading the scanner so I would just have one profile but gave up since it kept having the same profile as I originally installed. I have no way to view the I have edited Contra Costa and Alameda County, similar to San Mateo County, but San Mateo County, (where I live), is the only one that is receiving and working great. Not sure what is going on, but I edited the two counties and removed/voided all smaller surrounding cities and areas where possible so I wouldn’t have as much garbage that I didn’t need. I visit friends in San Ramon weekly in Contra Costa County weekly. (For over 35 years), and have to drive by Dublin and Hayward on the freeway, both in Alameda County. So, I would like to program PD/sheriff, fire in San Ramon; Then, CHP working in all three counties from San Francisco south, through San Mateo County, and through Hayward and Dublin, (both Alameda County). I do have all three counties the (San Mateo County~Contra Costa PRI) favorite, and edited and removed a lot of smaller outlying cities as well as things not related to PD/Sheriff, Fire and EMS in all areas, and with the CHP as well. I have received a small amount of activity from Alameda County, but just a little fire and EMS, not much to speak of though. Hopefully the file will show something that I don't see, since this new programming, and all the P25, simulcast, and trunking groups are totally new and unknown to me, since the only thing I ever did with my PRO-92 in the 1990's was to put about 50 frequenccies in it and no trunking or any programming at all. Thank you for the help again. And by the way, I have all the settings set in scanner for the pd, law and fire set to on and all others to off. The settings in Sentinel for my currently used favorite, 'Sn Mateo~Contra Costa~Alameda (edited)' are download and monitor on, and monitor full database off. For the other favorite, 'San Mateo County (edited' are monitor and download off.

 

[phask]

The first thing I noticed is you have 7 sites in San Mateo P25. That will take 15+ seconds to cycle through. Do you need all these sites?
Same for East Bay - 6 sites

Make sure that all service types for all these various services are on.

Overall, I'd say you have way too much loaded for it to cycle thru all of it with any type of speed. The only way one can hear all of that well is use multiple scanners.

If you are using location - that will reduce what is loaded.

Add - EBRICS - which looks like it has San Ramon PD has only 1 EMS talkgroup. No RAMON or Contra Costa Sheriff. TG.


Now I am not familiar at all with this area - just some quick looks at your HPE.

 

[Mongoosmike]

Hi and thank you for that info. I plan on removing the Contra Costa/Alameda part of the area and making that a second favorite so I can just listen to just that when I am in San Ramon area. One reason being is that I receive Alameda area like it is next door, and it is 18 miles away across the SF Bay. Might be due to Remtronix REM-8205 antenna I bought for the scanner, works really well. As far as the 7 extra sites in San Mateo County and the 6 in Contra Costa you mentioned, I would not be familiar with which sites you are talking about. If you could tell me which department they are under, and the names of the sites, I could look at them and try and figure out if they are needed. As far as the EBRICS, I see that I have that selected in the favorite. I only voided 3 different cities that are not needed, nor are they close to San Ramon. Thank you again for your help and hopefully with your help I can get this programming done. Stay safe and well.

 

[Icanhearit]

Hi and thank you for that info. I plan on removing the Contra Costa/Alameda part of the area and making that a second favorite so I can just listen to just that when I am in San Ramon area. One reason being is that I receive Alameda area like it is next door, and it is 18 miles away across the SF Bay. Might be due to Remtronix REM-8205 antenna I bought for the scanner, works really well. As far as the 7 extra sites in San Mateo County and the 6 in Contra Costa you mentioned, I would not be familiar with which sites you are talking about. If you could tell me which department they are under, and the names of the sites, I could look at them and try and figure out if they are needed. As far as the EBRICS, I see that I have that selected in the favorite. I only voided 3 different cities that are not needed, nor are they close to San Ramon. Thank you again for your help and hopefully with your help I can get this programming done. Stay safe and well.

You might better post to regional forum to have better reply from people in the region. As mentioned by others, you FL is way to wide, even breakup into 10 FL is a big too big especially you FL has no location control. Unless you enabled location control and update your location in real time (so the scanner non local ones). The more, the less.

Beaware if the FL is then created with location control, if you manually set location to San Mateo, without hooking a GPS or manually update your base as you go, even in San Ramon you won't get its reception unless significantly increase the default range, otherwise the scanner thinks you are in San Mateo, too far away and skip the remote sites.

You can putting Alameda and Contra Costa and San Mateo each into separate FLs , not enable location control , then toggle them independently (they can co-enabled) depending on where you are.

To me, from San Mateo, getting Alameda P25 reception, esp Contra Costa is a stretch. From Alameda city, getting San Ramon P25 of CCCO Central Simulcast site is already a stretch. I also not mix diginal (P25) with CHP/HAM radio (analogue) in the same FL.

 

[Mongoosmike]

The first thing I noticed is you have 7 sites in San Mateo P25. That will take 15+ seconds to cycle through. Do you need all these sites?
Same for East Bay - 6 sites

Make sure that all service types for all these various services are on.

Overall, I'd say you have way too much loaded for it to cycle thru all of it with any type of speed. The only way one can hear all of that well is use multiple scanners.

If you are using location - that will reduce what is loaded.

Add - EBRICS - which looks like it has San Ramon PD has only 1 EMS talkgroup. No RAMON or Contra Costa Sheriff. TG.


Now I am not familiar at all with this area - just some quick looks at your HPE.

Hi Phask, and thank you for the info on the sites. I would need more info as to which specific sites you mentioned and where I would make those adjustments. For one thing, I don't see anywhere to make those type of changes in Sentinel since I don't see the listings like P25, trunking, or simulcast like I see on the RadioReference database listings. In Sentinel I can only add or remove a named department or sub department category. The only place I see all the trunking and P25 and simulcast information is on the Radio Reference database. And just for reference, I have graduated from my PRO-92 trunking scanner from 1990, to the SDS-100 about 3½ weeks ago, so I am totally lost about any of the newer programming. I never did do any programming with the pro-92, I just added maybe 50 frequencies in the scanner back then and never had any real programming to do. So, hopefully you can advise as to where I would be doing the changes and also how to make the changes. That would be very helpful. Thank you very much for your help, and hopefully after doing some of the new programming, I will become much better with using the SDS-100.

 

[phask]

Hi Phask, and thank you for the info on the sites. I would need more info as to which specific sites you mentioned and where I would make those adjustments. For one thing, I don't see anywhere to make those type of changes in Sentinel since I don't see the listings like P25, trunking, or simulcast like I see on the RadioReference database listings. In Sentinel I can only add or remove a named department or sub department category. The only place I see all the trunking and P25 and simulcast information is on the Radio Reference database. And just for reference, I have graduated from my PRO-92 trunking scanner from 1990, to the SDS-100 about 3½ weeks ago, so I am totally lost about any of the newer programming. I never did do any programming with the pro-92, I just added maybe 50 frequencies in the scanner back then and never had any real programming to do. So, hopefully you can advise as to where I would be doing the changes and also how to make the changes. That would be very helpful. Thank you very much for your help, and hopefully after doing some of the new programming, I will become much better with using the SDS-100.

Sites are in any trunked system setup. Sites can be avoided just like anything.

These are sites - if you click and open them you see a set of freqs. They usually will be the last entries when you create a list but might move when edited. You can look at the data in RR and click on any site and get a map.