SDS100/SDS200: Outside USA: how would you program your scanner?

[ik1jpw]

Hi guys,
I live in Italy, Europe. So no database, zip, circle, no site, trunking.... Just frequency organized in some way.
I watched so many video and tutorials but of course everything starts from your super lucky situation of a huge database just organized.

My question is: how would you organize your scanner in this situation? I mean: the favourite lists should be related to a place? Or it's better to consider the departments as geographical list?
Could someone put an example on how you make a organization for an "outside-USA" scenario?

thanks a lot.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Welcome to the forums & Ciao! from the USA:
Favorites list organization is based on individual preference, there's no right or wrong way to go about it. However you feel is easiest way to organize them is how it should be, nothing written in stone. There are several threads here covering the subject that I suggest you read:

How do you prefer to organize your scanlists?

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FLQK, SQK, and DQK Usage Suggestions

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SDS100/SDS200: - Favorite List Setup - Hierarchy Ideas

Finally had a chance to play with the SDS100. It took a little bit but I also began to wrap my head around DMA and favorite list setup which is quite different from anything I'm used to. I clearly have quite a bit to learn as far as assigning quick keys and such. I used the Sentinel software to...

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Cheat Sheet Comparison

I hear people talk about their 'cheat sheets' for their scanner's programming lists and was hoping to get a few folks to share their systems, how they make their lists, what they use, etc., etc. Just thought it would be interesting to see your different methods. Maybe give each other some useful...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[Ubbe]

I would do one favorite list for all national frequencies, like PMR446, marine, airband and so on. Then make one or several favorite list for each location you intend to visit. I have one list for the satellite frequencies in the 250MHz band and you can do a separate lists for marine and air as they might not be so interesting to listen to, at least not the ones that only directs traffic.

You can do one list for trunked systems and another for conventional as trunked are so slow to scan it takes a lot of time from conventional frequencies so could be wise to exclude from scan if conventional seems more interesting.

It's much easier to go into the scanners menu and turn lists off and on looking at their names than using quick keys and having a separate sheet of paper to look at what each quick key are used for.

If you have one list with all marine and airband but you want to separate them then in Sentinel you choose export to hpe file and you choose from what favorite file and which systems you want to export. Then when that file are saved you can import it and Sentinel will ask to what favorite list, or a new one, you want those systems imported. Then clean it up by deleting those systems from the old favorite list.

/Ubbe

 

[ik1jpw]

Thanks for your answers guys!

I am creating lists as suggested by @Ubbe , I suppose it's the best way! As far as I know, here in Italy, there are only conventional channels, never found trunking sites.

Is there anybody here in the forum from Italy who can confirm?

 

[Ubbe]

I knew a couple of Italian radio engineers and they where managing a lot of trunked systems. But it probably matters where you live, if it is economical wise to setup a trunked system as it usually will need a bigger group of users.

I don't have any website to check what frequencies that are in use and licensed and by whom, as it can be in some other countries, so I have several scanners in search mode to cover all frequencies to catch any new systems that goes on air. Set up several different search banks with the most used frequency ranges and let it search day and night with record enabled whenever you are not listening to your scanner. After a week you should have logged 95% of the channels that are active in your area, even the control channel data from trunked systems.

If you know what step size that are used for different frequency ranges then set that to the frequency range to not scan unused frequencies, so it might need all ten of the search ranges to be used as the default bandplan in the scanner probably doesn't match your country. If you have no idea then you have to use a 6,25KHz step size and will take considerable longer to scan. In my country we have some frequencies with 12,5KHz step but 6,25KHz offset that Uniden scanners doesn't support, but Whistler does, and then you can instead create normal memory channels to scan instead of the search ranges. You can use ARC536 in demo mode and create such a list and copy and paste into Sentinel as normal channels into an analog system and in its conventional department, one department for each range.

Try to permanently avoid frequencies only from search mode that you notice are in use, you can do that after listening to your recordings, I recommend the UniversalScannerAudioPlayer, by doing Channel+frequency+Channel on the scanner and Avoid twice to that frequency and it will be avoided globally, and set the delay in search to -10 sec, negative 10, to not let it get stuck on a single frequency all night.

/Ubbe

 

[ecps92]

Thanks for your answers guys!

I am creating lists as suggested by @Ubbe , I suppose it's the best way! As far as I know, here in Italy, there are only conventional channels, never found trunking sites.

Is there anybody here in the forum from Italy who can confirm?

RRDB | Italy/Countrywide Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Italy/Countrywide (IT)

www.radioreference.com

and scroll to the bottom for some trunks operating in your country

 

[gary123]

Never pass up the opportunity to provide new captures and users for the data base. Adding to the database helps everyone.

 

[ik1jpw]

Try to permanently avoid frequencies only from search mode that you notice are in use, you can do that after listening to your recordings, I recommend the UniversalScannerAudioPlayer, by doing Channel+frequency+Channel on the scanner and Avoid twice to that frequency and it will be avoided globally, and set the delay in search to -10 sec, negative 10, to not let it get stuck on a single frequency all night.

/Ubbe

Great suggestion, I didn't know this software and I'll try asap. It seems really cool...

PS (the delay setting -10 you are talking about, is in the SDS100 in "search mode" right?)

 

[Ubbe]

Great suggestion, I didn't know this software and I'll try asap. It seems really cool...

PS (the delay setting -10 you are talking about, is in the SDS100 in "search mode" right?)

Yes, to make it continue scan after 10 sec even if the carrier are still there. You got that in discovery mode as well, but I prefer to use several search ranges instead of just the single one that discovery mode offers.

/Ubbe

 

[ik1jpw]

I would do one favorite list for all national frequencies, like PMR446, marine, airband and so on. Then make one or several favorite list for each location you intend to visit. I have one list for the satellite frequencies in the 250MHz band and you can do a separate lists for marine and air as they might not be so interesting to listen to, at least not the ones that only directs traffic.
/Ubbe

Just to understand better your suggestion, and following your text, do you mean:

FL00: NATIONAL PMR446
FL01: NATIONAL MARINE
FL02: NATIONAL AIRBAND

OR

FL00: NATIONAL DATABASE
--SL00: PMR446
--SL01: MARINE
--SL02: AIRBAND

I know I can do what I personally prefer, but you are one of the fews outside USA, so you can better understand our needs (without FULL DATABASE, ZIP, CIRCLE,...)

Thanks again.

 

[gary123]

Also use CC. It wont work with DMR type signals but should hit on other signals. If you have waterfall enabled you can also look at the spectrum in chunks. This will let you see trunked signals as they are active.

R&D a whole new region is a bit of a battle but when you discover new stuff its worth the effort.

 

[Ubbe]

Just to understand better your suggestion, and following your text, do you mean:

The second option, as PMR are only some 20 channels and marine maybe 30 and any other national channels can't be many, so all that will be scanned in one second and doesn't need separate FL's for each category.

If you set the correct service types to them you can enable all service types and if you want to exclude marine you just untick that service. Or set quick keys to them and remember that 1.1 are Air, 1.2 Marine, 1.3 PMR and 1.4 for any other national channels if all those are in FL 1.

/Ubbe