Kansas is in the process of developing a similar system to AWINS.
Since you only have 50 channels and 150 talk groups per bank, you will need to divide the system up into reception areas. This limitation is taken care of in the new replacement for the Pro-96, the Pro-106, as it uses an object oriented memory management instead of discrete banks of channels.
Definitely get WIN96 and the programming cable. There is a 30 day trial on the software, but well worth the $30 investment if they intend to use the scanner much at all. If they do any traveling, it will become invaluable as they can set up V-folders with different programming in each folder for the 500 channels in that folder. The cable is also about $30.
I've only listened to the AWINS system once when we had a real good band opening one weekend, but looking at the talk group list, there appears to be a lot of agencies using the system now and more coming on-board frequently. That is why I suggest breaking up the system into "reception areas."
Look through the list of tower sites and decide which are the closest three or four towers to where the scanner will be the most. Program in the primary control frequency in channel zero on bank zero. Next program in a bogus frequency, not one of the trunked frequencies. I personally use the nation-wide tactical frequencies as a separator between control channels, but it can be anything you like, such as 1300.00000 Mhz. The control channel and the bank will need to be set up as a Motorola system, but the bogus frequencies will need to manually be set to FM mode. After that, program in the alternate control frequency for that tower set up as Motorola and then another bogus frequency set as FM. By putting an FM mode frequency between the control frequencies, the scanner will look past that first control channel and find the others sequentially. Repeat this down the bank until you get all of the towers you decided were "local" to the home area in. I even labeled that bank "HOME" in my scanner. Now, look through the list of talk groups. There are over 500 talk groups listed already, so you will need to decide on 150 or less that will likely be heard on this "HOME" bank. Put those into the program and set them up as locked out or not as needed. (such as they may be close to a State Park and really don't care what the "Mallard Marshals" {Wildlife and Parks} are doing this week. So, those talk groups can be locked out)
Once you have the HOME area taken care of you can expand out on the system by breaking it up into sections such as North-west, North-central, North-east, Mid-west, Mid-central, Mid-east and so on. Put the towers and talk groups for those areas into separate banks and turn them on or off as needed or desired. This may take some experimentation and listening to the system. The problem with wide area systems like AWINS or KSICS is that you can get overloaded with calls real fast and then miss the good stuff. As was stated above, you may want to post a question in the Arkansas Forum and see if someone has a P96 file already set up dividing the state into sections like this. This only leaves you the job of setting up a HOME area.
See what you got yourself into. Didn’t your Sergeant ever teach you not to volunteer?
