Organizing OASIS - SDS100

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kc9jmd

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Hello all,

I recently moved to the Ozaukee/Milwaukee/Washington County area. I am struggling to organize my SDS100 favorites list, especially in regards to OASIS - also monitoring Ozaukee Cty, Washington Cty and WISCOM. Just looking for tips and tricks, and information regarding how your setup. I would love to be able to easily toggle on and off FIRE/EMS and POLICE, but the departments are organized in RR DB by area/city, not service. I know about the turn on/off service types but this is clunky. Can I move talk groups into a new DEPT that I make in sentinel? Haven't been successful with this yet - couldn't seem to copy/paste into a new DEPT. That would be ideal, or else I suppose I could program the system 2 or more times and customize what talk groups are in each "copy" of the system. Anywho - thanks for any ideas.
 

jonwienke

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Don't copy the entire system to scan multiple times. It will be slower, and you are guaranteed to miss more traffic. You can copy/paste talkgroups, but you have to be in the Favorite List editor, not the main program window. But you don't want to dump all Fire stuff into one Department; part of the logic for organizing Departments the way they are is to be able to toggle traffic on and off by area. This is mandatory if you ever want to use GPS when scanning--it won't work right if you have multiple areas lumped into a single Department.

Don't forget there is a dedicated button on the keypad for selecting service types--you don't have to navigate down the menu to get there, you can jump directly there from the keypad.
 

Tim

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Greetings...

It's funny to me that this is brought up because I am working re-organizing my entire SDS-100 as we speak. I live in Milwaukee County so I concentrated more on that that side of things originally. Sheepishly, I just figured out how to use the "Quick Keys" AND the "System Keys" so I am redoing my entire radio.

I have now created an OASIS QK (Quick Key) file. It was a bit of work, but I created nearly 90 different OASIS system files and put them in this one Quick Key Favorite File.. I basically created a file for every municipality in both Waukesha & Milwaukee counties. I also created files for different county agencies in Milwaukee (Sheriff, Highway Department, Transit, EMS Communications, etc). This favorite file is only for listening to certain groups.

- First digit is always "2" on my file (Which is the Favorite QK number for file)
- Second digit is the System QK (The name of the System is listed in the 4th column below)
- Third digit is either 1 or 2 (1 = Waukesha County OASIS / 2 = Milwaukee County OASIS)

So, if I want to just listen to Milw County EMS Communications on MK OASIS Site, I would just hit 2.25.2 Below is a partial listing of my files and quick keys for OASIS.

I tried uploading the entire thing but RR didn't like it. So I only the first part so you get an idea of what I did. I can try to post it on here in 2 parts if you interested in the rest. Hopefully this helps someone.

Tim

=============================================================

Fav
QK
Sys
QK
Site
QK
FILE NAME
201OASIS System-Wide
202OASIS System-Wide
211Milwaukee County ALL POLICE
212Milwaukee County ALL POLICE
221Milwaukee County ALL FIRE
222Milwaukee County ALL FIRE
231South Shore (Cudahy / South Milwaukee / Oak Creek / St Francis)
232South Shore (Cudahy / South Milwaukee / Oak Creek / St Francis)
241MC Sheriff's Office
242MC Sheriff's Office
251City of Franklin
252City of Franklin
261City of Greenfield
262City of Greenfield
271Village of Greendale
272Village of Greendale
281Village of Hales Corners
282Village of Hales Corners
291Bayside Communications Center (North Shore Area)
292Bayside Communications Center (North Shore Area)
2101City of Cudahy
2102City of Cudahy
2111City of Oak Creek
2112City of Oak Creek
2121City of South Milwaukee
2122City of South Milwaukee
2131City of St Francis
2132City of St Francis
2141Village of West Milwaukee
2142Village of West Milwaukee
2151City of West Allis
2152City of West Allis
2161
2162
2171City of Wauwatosa
2172City of Wauwatosa
2181Mayfair Mall Department of Public Safety
2182Mayfair Mall Department of Public Safety
2191
2192
2201City of Milwaukee
2202City of Milwaukee
2211Clement J Zablocki-VA Medical Center
2212Clement J Zablocki-VA Medical Center
2221Milwaukee Firebell Club
2222Milwaukee Firebell Club
2231Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport
2232Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport
2241MC Transit System
2242MC Transit System
2251MC EMS Communications
2252MC EMS Communications
2261MC Highway Department
2262MC Highway Department
2271MC Office of Emergency Management
2272MC Office of Emergency Management
2281MC Parks Department
2282MC Parks Department
2291MC Facilities Management / Public Works
2292MC Facilities Management / Public Works
2301MC House of Corrections
2302MC House of Corrections
2311MC Criminal Justice Facility
2312MC Criminal Justice Facility
2321MC District Attorney's Office
2322MC District Attorney's Office
2331MC Health Department
2332MC Health Department
2341MC Medical Examiner
2342MC Medical Examiner
2351Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control
2352Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control
 

jonwienke

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That is a horribly inefficient way to scan if you have 35 copies of OASIS, each with different pieces of the system. It takes up far more memory than needed, and updating that mess with a new site or frequency change will be a nightmare.

You should never have more than one copy of a large trunked system programmed. You can assign quick keys to sites or departments in a system without programming the entire system multiple times. Keep in mind that there isn't a hard correlation between sites and talkgroups, so trying to filter the talkgroups you hear by toggling sites often won't work the way you expect.

Program the system once. Assign quick keys to departments to toggle traffic on and off. And filter sites by enabling Location Control, setting your scanner's location accurately, and adjusting the Range setting to scan more or fewer sites. Range should normally be 5 miles or less.
 

kc9jmd

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Thanks for the replies. Tim, I like the idea of your setup but can imagine the issues with updating/multiple systems. Hopefully I can sort out how to make some "custom" departments to hear just what I want.
 

InspireWaukesha87

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Since we are on the discussion of quick keys and the SDS100, I am curious with the people that own an SDS100 what filter setting do you use I did have mind set to global filter setting, but it seemed to make my SDS100 worst at receiving OASIS and there is very little documentation on the different filter settings just curious what other people have there settings set to thanks
 

Tim

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That is a horribly inefficient way to scan if you have 35 copies of OASIS, each with different pieces of the system. It takes up far more memory than needed, and updating that mess with a new site or frequency change will be a nightmare.

This being "horribly inefficient" is your opinion. As for taking up "far more memory" even with that setup I still have only used 1% of the radio's memory.

Keep in mind that there isn't a hard correlation between sites and talkgroups, so trying to filter the talkgroups you hear by toggling sites often won't work the way you expect

Actually, the way OASIS is setup there is a hard correlation. Most talkgroups are setup so that they only appear on their county's system. There are several law and fire talkgroups appear on both sites, however. The way I have it programmed maybe a little excessive in the fact that Oak Creek may not show up on the Wauk County site, however Oconomowoc PD does routinely show up on Milw County Site (Even though their borders are roughly 30 miles apart).

This is just my "go to" Favorite QK if I wanna listen to a certain agency/department quickly.

Regarding adding sites and frequencies to each of the systems: If they do add another tower site or two it won't matter since each county uses the same frequencies. The frequencies also probably won't matter as the control channel will likely stay the same or use one of the alternate CC's.

I do not use GPS/location coordinates for scanning. I do use RR importing on a limited basis for programming, but I prefer my own programming. I don't like using the RR talkgroups tags, anyways.

TG 2101 is Greendale FD's Dispatch. RR tag is "MCGDFDDISP", I prefer to use

Department Name - "Village of Greendale"
Talkgroup Alpha Tag - "Fire DISPATCH"

That way I don't have to figure out what the different mnemonics are on the fly. KISS is my method.

Tim

 

jonwienke

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The SDS and x36 scanners display the description from RR when you import, not the tag, so you're reinventing the wheel there.

You're also confusing adding an additional transmitter within a simulcast cell (which uses existing frequencies) and adding a new site, which will have different frequencies.
 

Tim

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The SDS and x36 scanners display the description from RR when you import, not the tag, so you're reinventing the wheel there.

You're also confusing adding an additional transmitter within a simulcast cell (which uses existing frequencies) and adding a new site, which will have different frequencies.

Actually, RR can/does import a tag when if you are importing talkgroups (Which is the "Alpha Tag" column in the actual database).. I use the ARC software from Butel so I am not sure if you are using something different. I have done it many times when I have traveled to Chicago and the Twin Cities.

In using your vernacular each county is a simulcast cell so no matter how tower sites are added to each county's system, they use the same frequencies. This is not like WISCOM where each tower site enlists a different frequency.

Getting back to the OP, I just took the talkgroups listed on both my radio website & RR and divided them into groups and made a file for each of them. You certainly don't have to be that detailed in your programming if you know that you and your radio will never venture into the other county's system. If you never are intending to listen to transit buses or the highway department, you certainly don't have to make a file for them.

Unlike what some people think, there really is no wrong way to program your radio.

Tim
 
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