SDS100/SDS200: Scan/Search/Discovery?

[Stroked96]

Hi, SDS200 on Utah P25 Salt Lake Co. Simulcast. What is the difference between Discovery and ID Search? Other than logging? I have it in ID Search mode for the areas of interest in my fav. list. Most hits show up labeled. Some just TGID. Can I label a TGID that I find searching? And does it search for all IDs on the Site or just the Depts. in the fav. list?
"Steep" learning curve is an understatement!
Thanks

 

[J-Wrock]

Both will search all talkgroups on the site although you can adjust what gets logged and recorded in Discovery - either "new" talkgroups not in your favorites or all talkgroups it finds. Discovery will also log encrypted talkgroups where ID Search will generally skip over the encrypted talkgroups. If you start a Discovery session and let it run for a few hours, you can come back and see what your scanner found and listen to the unencrypted talkgroups.

The only way you can label TGID's that you find is adding them to your favorites list.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Both methods are great was for finding new / unlisted talkgroups

 

[dave3825]

ID scan scans only what’s programmed in your fav list. ID search scan all tg’s, both programmed and not programmed. So any with just a tgid are either new and not in the database, or were discovered and added to database since the last time you programmed your fav list.

Some just TGID. Can I label a TGID that I find searching?

You can, but you should try looking them up in the db to see if there were discovered and added. If you are able to identify any of them it’s best to make a db submission.

Sentinel will not update favorites lists but @ProScan will provided the list was created with Proscan.

 

[pb_lonny]

Discovery is more for finding unknown talkgroups and recording the audio for later ID. I ran this "unattended" for days at a time in the past.

 

[Stroked96]

Thank you all, so I've been checking the DB for the ID's of interest but most are not listed. Maybe I'm not checking right? Hard to tell who and where I am hearing so don't want to misgend,, sorry,,, mis-Identify anyone. The ones that are listed tend to be on random service types and what-not.
But anyways, glad I bit the bullet and went with the SDS200, even after the near return. Either learn about this or Quantum Mechanics.
Back to the lab, thanks for your help.

 

[Stroked96]

And under service types I cannot enable Interop, it shows three dotted lines. Yet I've picked up a few IDs that are listed as Interop in the RRDB?

 

[J-Wrock]

Go to menu -> Set Scan Selection -> Select Lists to Monitor and make sure that the favorite list that contains your interop talkgroups says "ON".

 

[dave3825]

Pretty sure that with discovery, everything needs to be enabled first before starting the session.

So if the fav list you’re doing discovery on does not contain an existing entry with interop, it won’t let you toggle it on. (could be wrong and I only use Unitrunker and SDRT for my discovery needs) So if that is the case, you would need to program in a dummy tg with a service type of interop.

Is your favorite list up to date with what’s showing on rrdb? If you’re looking up hits and they’re showing up in the database, it would sound like your favorite list is not current.

 

[hiegtx]

And under service types I cannot enable Interop, it shows three dotted lines. Yet I've picked up a few IDs that are listed as Interop in the RRDB?

Service types. including Interop, can be enabled in your profile in Sentinel. I have a different profile for each scanner. I can edit the specific profile, for that scanner, to determine which Favorites lists are downloaded to the scanner from Sentinel, as well as setting them to be monitored by default, or downloaded, but not monitored by default. (I use that for lists that cover adjacent areas, not currently 'in range', so that I can enable them if I am going to be going to or through that area. That way, they are available, though not actively monitored unless I so choose, without having to wait until I can then connect my scanner to my PC & load them via Sentinel.)

If you are seeing "three dots" while trying to enable Interop, on the scanner, that means that there are no channels, or talkgroups, set to service type "Interop" in the list(s) on your scanner.

If using "ID Search", it will stop on any active talkgroup in a trunked system, as long as that TGID is not either set as "Avoid", and is not programmed in a department that is set as Avoid. There is no service type 'check' for unprogrammed talkgroups when using "ID Search". If it's active, the scanner will stop and monitor it, unless set, as noted, as "Avoid"/