Question RE Programming With/Without Tones

[jfarrell1490]

HI Folks: I have a 15+ year old RELM HS200 that I am trying to re-program for local use since I retired and moved to Prescott, Arizona about 3 years ago. I'm motivated to program my scanner more than ever due to the issue of dangerous, fast moving wildfires here (I live in the mountains where it's bone dry with dangerous fire conditions.) The Prescott National Forest, part of the US Forest Service, had a dangerous fire last summer that started 4 miles from home. I almost had to evacuate.

I know next to nothing about tones, CTCSS and the like. I'm a radio newbie. My question is about programming frequencies that have the same frequencies but different tone settings. See the attached snapshot from a radio reference database page and note the listings enclosed by a yellow box. Should I treat those listings with the same frequencies but different tones as separate channels? Or can I just program only one channel for those listings with the same frequency and not use tone when scanning? I'm very limited to the number of channels in my scanner so I'm trying to get the most frequencies programmed without "wasting" channels. Apologize if this inquiry is somewhat naive. But this tone stuff has me totally confused. Thanks in advance for your help. >> Jim

 

[N8IAA]

HI Folks: I have a 15+ year old RELM HS200 that I am trying to re-program for local use since I retired and moved to Prescott, Arizona about 3 years ago. I'm motivated to program my scanner more than ever due to the issue of dangerous, fast moving wildfires here (I live in the mountains where it's bone dry with dangerous fire conditions.) The Prescott National Forest, part of the US Forest Service, had a dangerous fire last summer that started 4 miles from home. I almost had to evacuate.

I know next to nothing about tones, CTCSS and the like. I'm a radio newbie. My question is about programming frequencies that have the same frequencies but different tone settings. See the attached snapshot from a radio reference database page and note the listings enclosed by a yellow box. Should I treat those listings with the same frequencies but different tones as separate channels? Or can I just program only one channel for those listings with the same frequency and not use tone when scanning? I'm very limited to the number of channels in my scanner so I'm trying to get the most frequencies programmed without "wasting" channels. Apologize if this inquiry is somewhat naive. But this tone stuff has me totally confused. Thanks in advance for your help. >> Jim

I don't know if your scanner has CTCSS capability. If it doesn't, you only need to program the frequencies in the yellow boxes just once.
The use of tones is so that nearby areas don't interfere with each other.
HTH,
Larry

 

[scannermanner1]

good morning I live 170 miles north of Prescott! it looks like to me it's one of those tones represent a different repeater, turn the tone off since it is unnecessary UNLESS your transmitting on the system! you can just program 170.4625 as one Channel it would be kind of tricky getting a proper name tag for it since it is used with many different repeaters, and same thing with 173.925 ! just program these freqs as one channel each with no tone and you should hear everything on these frequencies that you're in range of !

hope that helps and clears things up a bit

 

[jfarrell1490]

I don't know if your scanner has CTCSS capability. If it doesn't, you only need to program the frequencies in the yellow boxes just once.
The use of tones is so that nearby areas don't interfere with each other.
HTH,
Larry

Yes, my scanner has CTCSS capability.

 

[jfarrell1490]

Thank you Scannermanner1. Your post helps a lot. Since I have no alpha text tag capability, I'm creating a spreadsheet of these channels, frees., tones (if I want to use one) and my own more expanded description of the programmed channel.

 

[DickH]

Thank you Scannermanner1. Your post helps a lot. Since I have no alpha text tag capability, I'm creating a spreadsheet of these channels, frees., tones (if I want to use one) and my own more expanded description of the programmed channel.

In your case you want to know everything that's going, so disregard the tones and you will hear everything that's being said on that freq.

 

[jfarrell1490]

Thanks Dick