Pro-162/arc 160

[Kiteman]

Hello All.

I am a complete newbie, and am hoping to find someone in the Sacramento area (or someone online with a lot of time to kill, and a lot of patience) willing to share some knowledge nuggets regarding the programming of the 162 with the arc 160 software from butel. I am bought all the stuff, and subscribed to radio reference, etc. I could just use a little help with setting up the banks, talk groups, etc.

I work for a local fire department and am essentially trying to set up a bank with just fire stuff, then a bank with police, chp, s.o. etc.

We use a trunked system. I was able to copy and paste the department I work for into bank 0, but need to know if there is something of a master freq or number that I need to put in to access the system (do you get the fact that I don't know what I am talking about?)

Radio Shack dumped Sacramento and Yolo County into my scanner for me, but I really don't care to listen to the transit guys talking about lost tourists and the garbage trucks asking about lunch breaks.....

Any help or direction to threads would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ERICMYERS]

you need to be more specific as to exactly which system or nobody can help you.


If you get a premium subscription to RR you can use the internet feature in ARC160 and pull it into the software all formatted lickety split. If you don't want to pay the fee, it's not that hard really, and a good learning experience. Read the trunking forums, read the manual, try something, and ask again if you get stuck. There are a number of settings you need to get right, depending on the type of system.

 

[Kiteman]

Yeah, your right. Not knowing the correct lingo makes it difficult for anyone to get specific on assistance. Mathew asked if I had it in closed mode and I honestly don't know what closed mode is. I think that I may have clicked one box too many on the opening page. I did upgrade to premium radio ref and it is helping. One thing at time.
Thanks!

 

[Kiteman]

O.K., here is the hundred dollar question. I have been starting in ARC 160, internet tab, radio ref import,trunk system,state-CA, county Sacramento, system sacramento regional radio comm. system pub. safety. ( Hang in there, the question is coming) I have been checking both city and county wide under the site, then sacramento city fire 16 and west sacramento 14. I set the priority on the dispatch and tactical channels and send it to the scanner. I turn it on, and get a bunch of PD stuff. So, should I only be checking off one box under "Site"? I will trial and error this, but am curious to know if this is the issue,or are the groups possibly misnamed in the radio ref files. It's a mystery...

Thanks!

 

[ERICMYERS]

that should give you 8 frequencies and 74 TGID's. It looks like all fire related stuff, but it could be possible that the info in RR is out of date from how the users are using the system(you realize that this is user input data, as in you can submit add/changes as can anyone?)

I don't know since I don't live there, but you might (or might not) get different results loading just the City OR the County system frequencies.....in either case, all of the TGID's come in on the import. Ask in the CA forum.

Give it some listening time. I'd go easy on using priority until you really know how the system is used. I also assume you're using priority on the TGID's and not the frequencies since this is a trunked system. My opinion, priority is good for A TGID or two, not more.....if you don't want to hear a TGID, lock it out, or don't load it into the system.

You probably don't yet realize that you could put a very limited version of your target system in one bank (set to closed), and a full load of the same system in another bank (set to open)? Toggling those is an easy way to listen selectively one minute and wide open another with full text tag functionality by turning the banks off and on. I suggest this only because it appears you're not even close to using the full capacity of your scanner's banks. If you had it programmed fully, this would be wasteful.

 

[NWtoSFO]

Again, I'm not familiar with the software you are using. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that the talkgroups are correct and you uploaded them to the scanner. Let's say it's bank #0. When scanning that bank you should see in the upper right a "T" with a + or - after it. + means you are running in open mode which will recieve all talkgroups on the trunked system, weather you want to hear them or not. If + is showing, hit "FUNC" and "." (OPEN/CLOSE) and the + will change to -. If only the fire talkgroups were uploaded, then you should at that point only hear the fire talkgroups.

BTW do you live in Sacramento, and is Metro Fire the agency you are looking to monitor?

 

[Kiteman]

Good info, thanks!

 

[Kiteman]

Metro

Re-read your post and saw the question. Yes, I am trying to program sac city, sac metro and west sac. Dispatches for all three on one bank and separate banks for the tactical channels of each so that I can chase calls that sound good. Another member sent me some files to put onto the scanner, and really has the banks dialed in. I won't be able to try them 'till I get off shift, but my scanner is here, so I am going to check the open/closed thing right now, as I think that might have been the problem.

Thanks again for you input, because I certainly need the help!

 

[NWtoSFO]

I don't think that RS scanners are all that efficient at scanning trunked systems on multiple banks. I have Sac City Fire and W. Sac Fire in a bank of its own and Metro in its own bank. I think it would be better for you (since you're looking to scan all 3 at the same time) to have all 3 agencies' talkgroups in the same bank. That way, you can turn on/off any agency you want/don't want to hear. In Citrus Heights, I'm mainly interested in Metro, but I'll listen to City Fire if I'm in Sac, which I'm not in very often. Trial and error I guess.

Matthew