Narrowing the Field
Ok here goes, i purchased the BCD396t a few days ago got the FreeScan software, subscribed to RR and started to download StarCom21 Illinois. Now my question is this. How do I know what to download as everything is checked but I know that i will not here a lot of what is on there. What I do here is very scratchy and broken up Metro C, D etc. Is there an option on RR to input my location Antioch Illinois, 60002 so I can only download specific locations I should here or not.
Sorry if this was a dumb question.
Steve
Steve,
I live a bit East of you in Lake County. I've spent a while setting my 996T up for SC-21, so I can offer a few suggestions. These are based on the assumption [uh-oh] that most of your monitoring will be done stationary in Antioch. If you plan to do a lot of mobile monitoring around the state, they won't be very useful:
- if you haven't done so, D/L Rich Carlson's SC-21 file from the CARMA Chicago web site. Rich divided his material into thirds to match the three SC-21 'Zones.' If you program only 'Zone 1' into your scanner, you'll have a good start on the next suggestions.
- starting with Rich's file, lock-out all sites except 108 [Lake County simulcast] and 120 [McHenry County] -- OR, starting fresh, enter the freqs for these two sites only.
- choose TGs from RadioReference or Rich's file. I recommend:
--- the 'statewide stuff' at the start of the RR material
--- 'ISP Zone 1'
--- 'IDNR Region 2'
--- District 2
--- District Chicago
--- District 5? [judgment call]
--- District 15, but
use the 'groups' function so you can 'lock out' Maintenance; otherwise, that's ALL you'll hear!
--- District 16? [judgment call]
--- below that [on the RR page], pick and choose what might be interesting. SKIP anything that shows a TG value of 0 [zero] and anything that shows a mode value of E [encrypted].
Let us know how it works and what you hear.