PSR-500 talkgroup partial wildcard?

[steevireno]

Is there a way to set a partial wildcard for talkgroups, such as 346XX? I know I can wildcard everything, however the radio does not want to accept "*" for the last two digits as it does if I set the entire string to "*" for a full talkgroup wildcard.

 

[mikey60]

Is there a way to set a partial wildcard for talkgroups, such as 346XX? I know I can wildcard everything, however the radio does not want to accept "*" for the last two digits as it does if I set the entire string to "*" for a full talkgroup wildcard.

No, there is no way to do this.

Mike

 

[steevireno]

That's disappointing!

 

[mikey60]

That's disappointing!

That would be something that would require a firmware change. Can GRE do that? Probably, but how much of an internal change that would require I don't know for sure. With the way talkgroup IDs are stored, I don't see it happening at the moment.

You never know though, I expect that the GRE team is reading these forums, so if there's a way to do this, you might see it down the road... Don't count on it, but you never know.

Mike

 

[steevireno]

I appreciate the input. For now, I am just entering them manually.

 

[rdale]

If there was a limited amount of space - that might fill a need, but I can't see where that would be a help since you can't alphatag it...

 

[mtindor]

If there was a limited amount of space - that might fill a need, but I can't see where that would be a help since you can't alphatag it...

You can alpha tag talk groups. So presuming they did add this 'feature' (which I really doubt would be a difficult thing to do), it could be tagged like anything else I would imagine. Every TGRP object is capable of being alpha tagged, so if he were to be able to add a TGRP objecdt with a ###** partial wildcard, I would presume it could be tagged as well.

I can't see the real usefulness in this, but then again, most people don't see the usefulness in some of the things I'd like to see as features. If this were an option, I may find a situation where I'd want to use it.

mike

 

[DonS]

So presuming they did add this 'feature' (which I really doubt would be a difficult thing to do)

Given how the TGID is stored within a TGRP object, how much "unused space" exists in a TGRP object, and how object space is allocated in the radio, I believe it would be a very difficult thing to do.

 

[mtindor]

Okay. Then maybe GRE needs to rethink how they have all this memory jazz set up so that all of these little things people are requesting would be so difficult or near impossible to accomplish. That might be something for them to think about for the next generation scanner.

I'm guessing that you and Mike, being programmers for software for this scanner, are privy to information that average joe doesn't have - and thus average joe can't make any sort of qualified statement. Given what average Joe knows (me being an average Joe, but not the Average Joe), it seems entirely possible to do any of this

Mike

 

[rdale]

Then maybe GRE needs to rethink how they have all this memory jazz set up so that all of these little things people are requesting would be so difficult or near impossible to accomplish.

Again - what is the need for this feature? How would it be used?

 

[mancow]

It can be done in seach mode with the old 780 series. I can't remember exactly how right now but you can do partial AFS searches.

It's really handy in Kansas City. If you narrow it to the 10-XXX groups then you track only the PD etc......

 

[kikito]

Like 'mancow' sort of mentioned already, the only time you'll be able to use this, is with EDACS systems and it uses the Uniden developed AFS format. So even if it's possible, I wonder if there's any patent issues to overcome. Also, EDACS TGs in AFS format only go up to 15-XXX, so I don't know what the "346XX" the OP used as an example was supposed to be or imply.

My opinion on it: it's another 'nice to have' feature' but as many sources out there for info on trunked systems and knowing that TG's don't change or get added on such a regular basis, is almost irrelevant. If GRE implements the feature, fine. If not, no love lost here....

 

[steevireno]

I can see where some folks may think it is not a useful feature, however where I live I commute to work on a private bus company. That bus company shares the same frequencies as the public buses but are isolated to the 346** talkgroups. So in my case, if I want to listen to only that block of 100 talkgroups, I have to manually enter them. If I could wildcard them, it would have been easier. Fortunately I only have one instance of this, however if there were more this could become a time consuming process.

 

[kikito]

I understand what the feature is going to be used for. But if it's a regularly scanned system and talkgroups, why not just program and alpha tag them and you'll know at a glance which one is active? I think that kind of feature might be more useful for when you go into unknown areas and you're discovering talkgroups and find one of interest and want to narrow down the monitoring. But even at that point if I have an internet connection I'll probably be searching for the info online but that's just me....

I mean, people have been demanding alpha tagging for eveything under the sun along with virtually unlimited number of talkgroups, and now that we have it, it's not being taken advantage of by some....

Anyway, as a suggestion, you can use software to setup that particular system and enter the first TG of the series i.e. 34600 and from there you can use the software duplicate feature for the next one hundred and just change/increment the TG by one. It might not be as easy as what you want but since you commute everyday on that area, you only need to set it up once. That system/talkgroups might even be in the radioreference.com database, so it's even easier to import using software.

 

[steevireno]

But if it's a regularly scanned system and talkgroups, why not just program and alpha tag them and you'll know at a glance which one is active?

Anyway, as a suggestion, you can use software to setup that particular system

Primarily because I am only interested in THAT range of Talkgroups so I only hear the transmissions I am interested in. I don't want to hear anyone else.

I have done just that. I use Win500 so I just copied the sets. Like I mentioned earlier, for this one time its not a big deal however it would be nice to be able to wildcard partial talkgroups in the future. In my area, they share systems and use talkgroups alot - I don't always want to hear everything on the frequencies.

 

[kikito]

Primarily because I am only interested in THAT range of Talkgroups so I only hear the transmissions I am interested in. I don't want to hear anyone else.

Every way I look at it, programming them seems to be the best and most flexible way to do what you want. Especially when you won't be able to tagged them using the feature you're asking for. If you expect to tagged them too, then ONCE AGAIN, why not just program them in their own scanlist and be done with it! You won't hear ANYTHING else but only what you program and enable!

Almost every system I check out, it's useless to have such feature due to the way talkgroups are setup, especially for the older Motorola type 2 and it's talkgroup separation of 32 i.e. 34632, 34664, etc. That means you only get 3 to 4 talkgroups out of a wildcard of "346XX". And if you widen the wildcard to be "34XXX" then you get too much of other stuff. Again, what's the point? Are some of you even giving some thought to your requests and complains?

In the case of P25 systems and the possible 100 TGs available using a wildcard of "346XX", many things to think about like: 100 TGs just for transportation? Or for any ONE agency in general? How big is this "transportation" agency? And if you're only going to see the TG numbers, can you memorize that many as to what each one is used for?

And either way, P25 systems, especially big statewide systems, don't have consecutive TGs for every department and branch of interest. Not to mention that talkgroups can and do start at 1 all the way to 65XXX. How is the scanner supposed to know when you enter a wildcard of "34XXX" means that you want TGs in the range of 3,400 or 34,000? That's possibly one of the reasons that kind of feature has been limited to only EDACS systems AND using the AFS format.... I supposed you could enter it along the lines of "034XX" when you mean talkgroups in the range of 3,400 but how much of the numerical system in the scanner will have to be re-engineer/re-done to accommodate just that?

But I'm sure you'll insist that you want it YOUR way regardless. Maybe GRE will become the next "Burger King"..... :twisted: