STARS is very tricky to program in right. The key to quickly making it work is to program control channels and alternates (the red and blue frequencies) for only the sites near you (using the
map of sites is a major help!). If your scanner supports multiple sites and roaming, then it will automatically switch between them if enabled. Otherwise it will find the first one that it gets a reliable signal from, and stay there as long as the signal quality is good. The Chesterfield and Petersburg sites would probably be good to start with, to keep it simple.
After that, it's a matter of picking Talkgroups that will likely be on those sites. For example, don't program in a Fairfax district TG, since there isn't likely to be anyone in the Richmond area on a Fairfax district TG (not that it can't be done, it's just not very likely).