Priority Feature...

[JoeBearcat]

I was hoping that there was a conventional Priority feature,

There is. It works pretty much the same as any other radio's priority feature.
The same is true for the Motorola trunking priority.

The P25 priority is a little 'off' - it's priority TG selection rather than priority TG monitoring. I am hoping to be able to correct that in the future.

 

[rbritton1201]

Hi Joe,

Yeah, wouldn't you know that the Missouri Highway Patrol is on a P25 Trunking System...and they're one of the agencies I would like to prioritize, along with the analog signals from the local Sheriff's Department on VHF.

There is. It works pretty much the same as any other radio's priority feature.
The same is true for the Motorola trunking priority.

The P25 priority is a little 'off' - it's priority TG selection rather than priority TG monitoring. I am hoping to be able to correct that in the future.

 

[GTR8000]

No.

The precedence would depend on the direction the scanner is scannIng.

The point is that scanning priority pecedence or preference depends on the scanning direction.

I'm sure you know that now.👍

Wrong.

Conventional priority (when multiple channels are flagged as priority capable) assigns precedence in the order in which the channels are arranged/programmed. Scan direction has no bearing on priority.

A very simple test for anyone who wants to prove this out: Program a few busy channels into a single department. Order them so that the most important channel is first in the list, followed by a few more channels. Set the first channel as priority, then set one of the other channels as priority as well. Enable Priority Scan, then start scanning in the up ↑ direction.

Observe as the scanner stops on a non-priority channel and will start to sample for priority (the dropouts in audio you hear). If you wait long enough, the channel further down the list will go active ("secondary" priority), causing the scanner to leave a non-priority channel. If you wait longer still, you'll probably catch the first channel in the list ("primary" priority) preempt the "secondary" priority channel.

Pay very close attention to the fact that when the scanner stops on the secondary priority channel, it continues to sample for activity on the primary priority channel, however when it lands on the primary priority channel, sampling stops. This is a key piece of info.

Now reverse the scan direction ↓ and observe that the behavior is exactly the same as it was in the other direction. The first channel in the list is still primary priority, and the other channel still secondary priority. The precedence of those channels did not change simply by reversing scan direction.

I scan FDNY this way with Bronx as the primary priority (first channel in the list) and Manhattan as the secondary priority (third channel in the list), and it works exactly as I described regardless of which direction the 536HP is scanning.

 

[ofd8001]

How does it work without QK’s? I don’t use QK’s.

It would be based on order of channels loaded into the scanner's operating memory. If you recall, when you first power up the scanner, you see "Now Loading... Load from Favorites List" or something like that. This is the process where all your channels, etc. are loaded into the scanner.

 

[n1chu]

Wrong.

Conventional priority (when multiple channels are flagged as priority capable) assigns precedence in the order in which the channels are arranged/programmed. Scan direction has no bearing on priority.

A very simple test for anyone who wants to prove this out: Program a few busy channels into a single department. Order them so that the most important channel is first in the list, followed by a few more channels. Set the first channel as priority, then set one of the other channels as priority as well. Enable Priority Scan, then start scanning in the up ↑ direction.

Observe as the scanner stops on a non-priority channel and will start to sample for priority (the dropouts in audio you hear). If you wait long enough, the channel further down the list will go active ("secondary" priority), causing the scanner to leave a non-priority channel. If you wait longer still, you'll probably catch the first channel in the list ("primary" priority) preempt the "secondary" priority channel.

Pay very close attention to the fact that when the scanner stops on the secondary priority channel, it continues to sample for activity on the primary priority channel, however when it lands on the primary priority channel, sampling stops. This is a key piece of info.

Now reverse the scan direction ↓ and observe that the behavior is exactly the same as it was in the other direction. The first channel in the list is still primary priority, and the other channel still secondary priority. The precedence of those channels did not change simply by reversing scan direction.

I scan FDNY this way with Bronx as the primary priority (first channel in the list) and Manhattan as the secondary priority (third channel in the list), and it works exactly as I described regardless of which direction the 536HP is scanning.

Good to know. Thank you for the clarification regarding what happens to the priority of more than one priority channel if you reverse the direction of scanning?