SDS100/SDS200: SDS100 & distant repeaters

[NESN]

Got the SDS100. Using it happily with Full Database in Franklin (Central) Indiana , picking up IMPD,MCSO, IFD, Lawrence & Speedway easily through the Indianapolis Metro system. Picking up Johnson, Barthlomew, Shelby, Morgan, Brown counties, DNR South, ISP Indy, ISP Bloomington on Indiana Safe-T easily.
My questions are: 1: on the line showing the Repeater, it samples Knight's Ridge, Wilkinson, Seymour, Rushville, Greenfield, Greensburg, Pendleton , & Hendricks County all approx. 30-40 miles away, along with the local towers. Obviously too far to recieve with a duck antenna. My distance is set to 10 miles. While I don't feel I'm missing too many transmissions, is there a way to omit/skip these faraway repeaters as the SDS100 never stops on these?
2: I'm setting up Favorites Lists in Sentinel. When I download individual counties/agencies should I select the local Safe-T towers within reason or will the database County presets do this for me?
As I said I'm happy scanning the Full Database, but as always a few tweaks may help, and I don't want to fix something that's not broken....

 

[nessnet]

Two things....
(assuming you have your location set correctly???)
If you don't know what this is - ask.
Location control, if used properly will automatically limit to what is (supposedly) within range.
Get a GPS for your radio - even better

Remember, the range you set in your preferences is ADDITIVE - there is also a range in each site/dept.
So, if your profile is set to 10 and your site/dept is set to 20, you are actually using 30 miles.

Second: the more you scan, the less you will hear.
Favorites is a very good way to build a list so you only scan sites/depts that you want to hear - and are within range.

 

[JethrowJohnson]

I would just program the sites (repeaters) that are in your county. Like @nessnet said: scan less, and you'll hear more. If the scanner's trying to receive a signal from a tower that's too far away, it will take time away from scanning channels you will hear.

 

[werinshades]

This is my method....the old "do it yourself". Spend more time appending, deleting, writing back etc. , then to just put in the county site(s) close to you, talkgroups you'd want to listen to, and then run ID Scan:

 

[rrobinso84]

I used analyze on the scanner to check signal strength for each programed site in a system and set the weak/no signal sites to avoid.
However, I don't go mobile. If i did, I'd probably keep them.

 

[werinshades]

I used analyze on the scanner to check signal strength for each programed site in a system and set the weak/no signal sites to avoid.
However, I don't go mobile. If i did, I'd probably keep them.

If you're looking at the database, at the County column, I scroll down and only program the sites within my county/range. I then program the control and alternate frequencies, scroll down to the county area, decide what I want to ID Scan. I've been successfully programming this way for quite a long time now. The video is a very good how-to on what I use.