Pro 106 Roaming Thresholds for CO DTRS

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nathancarlson

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I have been experimenting with my roaming thresholds for the multi site roam feature when programing the Colorado DTRS. The default settings of 95/75 are not really making me happy. For the entire time I have had my 106, if I get a signal thats not desireable I just hit scan and it usually picks a different CC. When Longmont switched over to DTRS, I created two different talksystems. One with only the Sunset Tower CC that I use when I am at home or just in town, and the other system with the "site neighbors" according to pro96com. I go to the object ID and unlock the Sunset Neighbors system when I hit the road. I have narrowed it down to Bald North, Mount Thorodin, Mead, Gunbarrel and a couple I can't think of off the top of my head (five total). I know it seems like a lot, but I use the neighbor system when I am on the road, roaming. I end up going all over the place, in Boulder, Weld, Larimer, and Adams counties which is why I have so many CCs. I don't want to go through a dead spot and miss out even though Bald North has great coverage and could probably work for the entire commute to work. Yesterday I drove from Loveland to Westminster, and wanted to monitor Longmont the entire time. A lot of the Control Channels show really good decode rates (over 85%) when I stop and do the analyze feature on the radio.

What are the best settings to use so that I can go without missing traffic, but avoid a bunch of digital or choppy transmissions?

If I do have the optimal roaming settings, will this keep the radio locked on the best CC instead of scanning through all of them in the systems that I have a lot of CCs? In theory, it wouldn't slow it down too much if I have 8 or 10 CCs in some systems, right?

Another issue I have had lately is with the State Patrol. I have five CCs in that system as well. Its just for 3A, 3C, and 6C (for my commute). I was sitting here at home and my 106 was missing a LOT of the traffic that my pro96 was picking up just fine from the Mead site, and Mead is one of the CCs in my CSP system on the 106. I checked the decode rates, and they were coming in with HIGH decode rates but it just wasn't picking up the traffic.

Thanks!
 

abqscan

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Why don't you just pick stationary vs. roam?
 

nathancarlson

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Longmont, CO
I usually use the TSYS with mulitple sites when I am mobile (in the same scan list) and then when I get home I switch to an identical TSYS that only has one good site since I am stationary. I will give it a shot and switch my multi site TSYS to Stat and see if I get better results while I'm on the road. Thanks :)
 

seberry

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Nov 8, 2010
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Colorado
Here's what I use...

I have a pro 197 in the car, and I frequently do the denver<--->durango trip. I have every CC along the way programmed into one single tsys, and I roam with high 97 or 98 and low 96 or 97... This, along with a good 800mhz antenna suits me well, mainly because dtrs coverage is pretty good along the way.

The reason I wouldn't use stat (at least while mobile) is because this, as I understand, causes the radio to check every cc, and may force you to listen to a site that is *just* close enough to ge a decode, but far enough to be going a bit digital.
 

tbiggums

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Sep 19, 2008
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I use "stationary" most of the time in my PRO-197. The only time I ever use "roam" is when I'm sure all the sites I would encounter would ALWAYS carry the talkgroups I'm interested in. Most places have more than one DTRS site that cover them, so I usually want the scanner checking all of them. If it stops on traffic on one that isn't very strong, I simply press the SCAN button, and it will quickly move on to one of the stronger ones if they're carrying the traffic I'm looking for. Often in rural areas, it will just loop around back to the weaker site, as the stronger sites aren't carrying the traffic at the moment. This traffic would be totally missed if it was in "roam" and locked on a single strong site.
 

Cryptolog

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Tbiggums is right. If you want to follow talk groups, "stationary" is the way to go as the mobiles affiliate with different CC's as they move. I always use "stationary" and have very little weak signal problem.
 

abqscan

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Here's what I use...

I have a pro 197 in the car, and I frequently do the denver<--->durango trip. I have every CC along the way programmed into one single tsys, and I roam with high 97 or 98 and low 96 or 97... This, along with a good 800mhz antenna suits me well, mainly because dtrs coverage is pretty good along the way.

The reason I wouldn't use stat (at least while mobile) is because this, as I understand, causes the radio to check every cc, and may force you to listen to a site that is *just* close enough to ge a decode, but far enough to be going a bit digital.

On your next roadtrip, I would try STAT mode vs ROAM. In Stat mode, the radio looks through all the CC's until it finds one that meets the threshold requirements, then looks for TG info. Once the radio is done searching or monitoring a TG, on its next pass, the radio starts with the next CC in the list and continues the process again. The only time it will check every CC in a pass is if you program it to do so. I hardly use the roam option because the sites do not always carry the same traffic.
 
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