Optimizing New Scanner Setup

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DougWare

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Wendell, NC
I have a VIPER question that I've seen asked a few times and I've seen a couple of different answers on forums. I've been using a BCD436HP in the car with GPS for quite a while, before that I had a BC396XT in the car. I'm setting up a new BCD536HP in the home office. I'm a couple of miles south of Knightdale.

I'm scanning VIPER, Wake's Simucast, Johnston County (Archer's Lodge site), Federal Disaster analog, FRS, GMRS, "Dot" frequencies.

I'm trying to get the fastest scan cycle out of the scanner, I don't want to take 5-6 seconds to loop through the favorites list if nothing is found. Currently, I'm scanning the NC SHP Training Center and the Wendell AAA sites, I get the better signal from the Wendell site. It's my understanding that most talkgroups are only active on the sites they are actively using or someone is actively tuned to (with a VIPER radio, not a scanner).

Will I be missing out on a lot of local traffic if I only scan the Wendell site, do I need to add more sites or is one of the other sites near me more active than the rest? I appreciate any advice.

Thanks,
Doug
 

tvengr

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Feb 10, 2019
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Location
Baltimore County, MD
The best way not to miss anything is to use as few favorites lists, systems, and sites as possible. You can assign a quick key to each system in a favorites list to be able to select which ones you want to monitor. There are 100 quick keys (0-99) for systems within each favorites list. The fastest way to scan a system is to put all of the frequencies or talkgroups into a single system and break it down into departments such as Fire, PD, Public Works, Etc. Each department can be controlled by a quick key. Do not put different agencies using the same trunked system on their own system, such as one system for Fire and another for PD. You will be scanning the same sites over and over and missing a lot of transmissions. Each system has its own set of 100 quick keys (0-99). These quick keys are shared by departments and sites. You can decide how you want to allocate the department/site quick keys. If you want to have 10 departments, you can assign quick keys 0-9 in each system to departments and 10-99 to sites. If you want to have 20 departments, you can assign quick keys 0-19 to departments and 20-99 to sites. Keep Viper on one system for the fastest scanning. You can enter all of the Johnson Co and surrounding county sites and assign a quick key to each site. You will be able to easily enable or disable each site to determine which agencies you want to monitor affiliate with each site. Then, you will be able to use only the minimum number of sites that give you the coverage you desire.
 

Ubbe

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Sep 8, 2006
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Stockholm, Sweden
Initially you probably have to program several sites to monitor which ones are most active with the calls you would like to monitor.
Each site will add 1,5 sec it takes the scanner to evaluate the control channel. So three sites will take 4,5sec to scan for that system if there's no activity. You cannot shorten that time, although the hold time can be set to 0 or 1 it will still hold for 1,5sec for a site.

When a call starts on one site it will monitor that and use the delay time for the TG and when that timer ends it leaves the system without checking the other sites in that system.

So you probably want to program 4-5 sites of a system and then make notes of where the TG's you want to monitor are active. Then Avoid those sites and see if the TG's are active at other sites. After a while you'll have a list of which ssites carry the different TG's and hopefully all of them will turn up on the same site.

I beleive the display only show departments and not sites but if you use Siren with an android device or Unidens RH-536HP application for windows, or any other remote display program like ProScan or ARC, you'll see the site names and frequencies.

/Ubbe
 

jonwienke

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VA
You can use location control at a fixed location. It automatically locks out distant sites, particularly handy on large systems with dozens of sites.
 

sonm10

Central MN Monitor
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Nov 19, 2016
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Location
Sauk Centre, Minnesota
You can use location control at a fixed location. It automatically locks out distant sites, particularly handy on large systems with dozens of sites.

or he can create his own favorite list with only the one site he is monitoring
gps not needed for base station operation
 

jonwienke

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Location Control doesn't require GPS to work at a fixed location.
 
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