PSR-500 Question about a SW p25 system entry

[MarcInIllinois]

I'm not sure if this should be in the GRE forum or the Illinois, please move if inappropriate..

I'm wanting to know the best way to enter the Illinois State Police Starcom21 P25 system into a psr-500.

I'm wanting just the south zone districts (11,12,13,18,19,22).

However all I can seem to get into a TSYS is one district (with corresponding talkgroups for the district) as it tells me I have a limit of 32 and the extras won't be imported (if I try more than one district)

Am I going to have to make a separate TSYS for every district or am I doing something wrong or misunderstanding?

 

[kikito]

I'm not sure if this should be in the GRE forum or the Illinois, please move if inappropriate..

I'm wanting to know the best way to enter the Illinois State Police Starcom21 P25 system into a psr-500.

I'm wanting just the south zone districts (11,12,13,18,19,22).

However all I can seem to get into a TSYS is one district (with corresponding talkgroups for the district) as it tells me I have a limit of 32 and the extras won't be imported (if I try more than one district)

Am I going to have to make a separate TSYS for every district or am I doing something wrong or misunderstanding?

Looking at the number of districts you mentioned, there's 6 right?, you should have no more than 12 frequencies in your list by entering only the primary and alternate control channels. Tell the software to do that only. There's no need to enter all the frequencies, especially on P25 systems that rarely switch from primary unless there's a problem.

EDIT: I just realized that each district has several sites, so even with only CCs, it won't fit anyway. Yep, you might have to separate by district because there's no way around the 32 slot limit per TSYS.

 

[MarcInIllinois]

Looking at the number of districts you mentioned, there's 6 right?, you should have no more than 12 frequencies in your list by entering only the primary and alternate control channels. Tell the software to do that only. There's no need to enter all the frequencies, especially on P25 systems that rarely switch from primary unless there's a problem.

EDIT: I just realized that each district has several sites, so even with only CCs, it won't fit anyway. Yep, you might have to separate by district because there's no way around the 32 slot limit per TSYS.

yea each tower has 2 freqs and multiple sites per district. Usually 2-4 in a county.

 

[kikito]

yea each tower has 2 freqs and multiple sites per district. Usually 2-4 in a county.

I forgot to mentioned that at least you'll be able to assign each Zone or district to the same scanlist. So if it takes 3 TSYS objects to put all the CCs for Zone 11, you can assign them all to the same scanlist and virtually have them as one. Of course, the drawback is having to duplicate the TGs in each TSYS.

 

[MarcInIllinois]

I forgot to mentioned that at least you'll be able to assign each Zone or district to the same scanlist. So if it takes 3 TSYS objects to put all the CCs for Zone 11, you can assign them all to the same scanlist and virtually have them as one. Of course, the drawback is having to duplicate the TGs in each TSYS.

I guess I'm having a bit of a problem visualizing this one..

 

[kikito]

I guess I'm having a bit of a problem visualizing this one..

LOL! I don't blame you!

Well, let me see if I can explain it better.

I have 7 different trunked TSYS objects that don't have anything to do with each other. We know that we don't assign TSYS to specific scanlists. However, the talkgroups for each TSYS object (and there's LTR and MOT mixed together), I did assign them all to the same Scanlist. So now, everytime I press that single scanlist number, all 7 trunked systems become active as if they were one.

Now to your situation. You have more than 32 frequencies for one of the Zones you want to monitor. You can make as many TSYS objects as needed to enter all the control channels. Now enter all the talkgroups you want on one of the TSYS. Now on to the drawback I mentioned earlier, you have to duplicate all the talkgroups and associate them to each TSYS you created earlier(with software is pretty quick and easy though). In the end you should have say 3 or moreTSYS objects with all the unique control channels in each and all the talkgroups in each assigned to the same scanlist.

I now, it's kind of convoluted, especially in your case, but this way not only you save scanlists but you can enable/disable each zone with just one scanlist and the only drawback being that you used extra memory duplicating TGs.

Of course, all this wouldn't be needed if we were allowed more than 32 CCs per system. Not sure yet but can only speculate as to the reasoning behind GRE's decision for this limitation or maybe it's a hardware/firmware limitation. At least it doesn't seem to affect everyone and as you can see, we're finding workarounds as we go along or hopefully until maybe a firmware update to improve on that comes out.

Don't hesitate to write back if you're still confused or to let ME know I'm the confused one.

 

[RoninJoliet]

Up here in the Chicago area on Starcom i have programmed six scanlists seperately with one tower in each=T101,102,113,115,125,126 and it works fantastic...A CARMA friend of mine put all his in one scanlist and assigned it as a "multi-site" and it works perfect....Using "Wildcard" in each scanlist i simplified putting in talk groups by hand just as they appeared i hit "STOR"....

 

[MarcInIllinois]

Up here in the Chicago area on Starcom i have programmed six scanlists seperately with one tower in each=T101,102,113,115,125,126 and it works fantastic...A CARMA friend of mine put all his in one scanlist and assigned it as a "multi-site" and it works perfect....Using "Wildcard" in each scanlist i simplified putting in talk groups by hand just as they appeared i hit "STOR"....

That's all in one district, correct?

 

[RoninJoliet]

Thats D-Chicago (15), D5-Joliet, but its still about 25 CCs in one ScanList set to multi-site for my buddie ...But i like the seperate scanlist method because i do not travel around like he does...I think if your on the move and travel around those districts by car the multi-site would be better....