Roam/Stationary

[btritch]

Can anyone tell me what the difference is on the TSYS and P25 systems where it says "Stationary" or "Roam" in the settings, I know you can change them but what are the differences, Can anyone explain? Thanks!

 

[LEH]

For multi-site systems, like the Virginia STARS system, you may need to set the 500/600 to the 'roam' mode.

Many trunked systems have more than one site, but share a common control channel, so the 'stationary' setting will work just fine. Others, (like the above mentioned STARS) have individual control channels for each site. As you move around the service area the roam mode will allow you to work from the strongest of the CC signals.

What this does is allow you to set parameters as to when the scanner will start searching for another control channel as you move from place to place.

There were some really good, deep threads on this right after the 500 came out in Oct last year. Look back through the GRE threads and possibly the VA threads for a real wealth of info.

 

[mikey60]

Can anyone tell me what the difference is on the TSYS and P25 systems where it says "Stationary" or "Roam" in the settings, I know you can change them but what are the differences, Can anyone explain? Thanks!

Here's my understanding.

In Stationary mode, the first time the trunked system is scanned, the radio will find the first control channel it can find and look for active conversations. It will then move on complete the scanning cycle with other conventional and trunked objects.

In a recent firmware update, a switch was added that changed the behaviour of the STAT mode so that all control channels are checked on a TSYS object on each pass.

Stationary mode is best when you are not moving around a lot, and are in range of multiple tower sites for the same system.

In ROAM mode, the first time the scanner accesses a trunked system, it will scan through all of the control channels looking for the first one that has a decode rate at or above the Threshold High setting. The radio will then stay on that control channel until the decode rate drops below the Threshold Low setting, at which point the process is repeated looking for a new control channel.

Roam mode is best while traveling to help keep your monitoring on what should be the closest tower site to you. You can use Stat while traveling as well if you like.

Mike

 

[kikito]

For multi-site systems, like the Virginia STARS system, you may need to set the 500/600 to the 'roam' mode.

I was pretty sure that for the latest P25 systems like Virginia STARS and ours (Alaska ALMR), the Stationary setting is the better one. Since you'll likely to have several sites you can receive from any one location and each site can potentially carry different traffic, if you set it to Roam, you'll likely missing some stuff.

I use Stationary in our VHF P25 system mentioned above and it's the best way to go since it checks all the available sites and I do get different traffic from each one most of the time.

 

[DonS]

Stationary: sites contain different traffic and/or you want to check all CCs on all sites all the time

Roam: sites contain the same traffic and/or you're moving around among sites and only want to check "the strongest"

 

[btritch]

I'd like to set it to "ROAM" Since I travel a lot of the time, especially in the other different areas I go.. But in order to set it to "ROAM" The Threshold HI and Lo Values are 95 and 75.. I read something somewhere about them being changed or having to be changed, Anyone know where I have to change to in order to set it to roam?

Or would I be better just setting it to "Stationary"?

 

[LEH]

In the menu, set the scanner to roam and then the threshold values will become available.

Each system is going to be somewhat different, so you'll need to experiment or ask on the local forum about the settings that seem to work best for a particular system.

I reiterate, there was a ton of good information in the GRE forum back in Oct-Dec of last year on this topic. Just doing a quick search of the GRE thread for 'threshold' (using the advanced search features), I came up with 42 hits.