DonS
Member
In various threads, it's been mentioned that the PSR-500's 20 Scan Lists might be somewhat limited, based on users' preferences for subdividing groups of talkgroups in trunking systems. Sometimes, comparisons are made to some brand-U radios that have "systems" and "quickkeys", that essentially let you create complex hierarchies of things to be scanned (I don't own such a radio, so my terminology may be off).
I think I've come up with a potential workaround for the PSR's apparent limitation here. It makes use of the fact that you can lock out a trunking system ("TSYS object"). It does require some kind of PC software, something that can assign "Object IDs" to any object...
If I want to monitor my local trunked system (City of Santa Clara, CA, an analog-only Mot 3600 system), and have control over whether I'm monitoring a) everything, b) just police, c) just fire, d) police and fire, etc., but only use Scan List 01 for everything, here's what I'd do:
Normally, I'd be scanning all three TSYS objects - leaving the TSYSs "not locked out" and enabling scan list 01.
If something interesting happens on the Fire talkgroups, I might want to ignore all of the talkgroups in the "everything" (0010) and "police" (0011) TSYS objects. Via a few key presses, I can lock out all of those TGRPs, by locking out the TSYS objects:
MAN 1 0 ENT L/OUT 1 1 ENT L/OUT SCAN
I've just locked out TSYS 0010 ("everything") and TSYS 0011 ("police"), and am only scanning the Fire talkgroups.
To re-enable the "police" TSYS, I'd hit:
MAN 1 1 ENT L/OUT SCAN
Drawbacks of this method:
I think I've come up with a potential workaround for the PSR's apparent limitation here. It makes use of the fact that you can lock out a trunking system ("TSYS object"). It does require some kind of PC software, something that can assign "Object IDs" to any object...
If I want to monitor my local trunked system (City of Santa Clara, CA, an analog-only Mot 3600 system), and have control over whether I'm monitoring a) everything, b) just police, c) just fire, d) police and fire, etc., but only use Scan List 01 for everything, here's what I'd do:
- Create three TSYS objects. They're all identical. Their object IDs are 0010, 0011, and 0012.
- TSYS 0010 will have all of the interesting talkgroups except police and fire. TSYS 0011 will have police only. TSYS 0012 will have fire only.
- Add TGRP objects to each TSYS, according to the filtering in (2)
- By my convention, the TGRP objects are in scan list 01. This is the "tens place" of the three TSYS object IDs. If I was putting the TGRPs in scan list 02, the TSYS object IDs would be 0020, 0021, and 0022. (My convention limits me to the first 10 scan lists).
Normally, I'd be scanning all three TSYS objects - leaving the TSYSs "not locked out" and enabling scan list 01.
If something interesting happens on the Fire talkgroups, I might want to ignore all of the talkgroups in the "everything" (0010) and "police" (0011) TSYS objects. Via a few key presses, I can lock out all of those TGRPs, by locking out the TSYS objects:
MAN 1 0 ENT L/OUT 1 1 ENT L/OUT SCAN
I've just locked out TSYS 0010 ("everything") and TSYS 0011 ("police"), and am only scanning the Fire talkgroups.
To re-enable the "police" TSYS, I'd hit:
MAN 1 1 ENT L/OUT SCAN
Drawbacks of this method:
- My definition of "a few key presses" may not be the same as yours. To lock out the two TSYS objects above and return to Scan mode required 10 key presses. Still, it's far less than locking out 50 TGRP objects individually.
- It requires PC software that can directly manipulate the TSYS Object IDs, since the radio doesn't let you do that from the keypad
- For MOT and P25 systems, each TSYS object beyond the first takes 10 additional "blocks" of memory (EDACS and LTR would be 4 blocks each). If you do this for too many trunked systems, it could have significant memory usage effects.
- It may increase scan cycle times. Each TSYS would be "scanned" for the default "dwell time", unless you change that value in the TSYS menu. My local system uses "scan markers", which the scanner seems to recognize - the PSR-500 only camps on each of my TSYS objects for 100-200 mS (watching the "CCDump" data, it looks like the radio leaves a Mot 3600 system if it has seen two of these "scan markers", even if the dwell time has not yet elapsed).
- It only works for trunking systems, where you want to subdivide categories of talkgroups