SDS100/SDS200: SDS200 catches half the traffic the Unication G5 does for me, tips?

[columbusgeek]

Hi all. I'm a long time owner of a Unication G5 thanks to your help many MANY moons ago. All I monitor is my small town traffic police, which is only about 3 miles across. The G5 catches Dispatch, both TACs and the campus police which are very close and on MARCS as well. Zero problems, and I love the little thing.

Recently I had the bug in my butt that wanted to be able to listen to the scanner in different rooms or even pipe it to my dads house outside my home so a scanner with web server capabilities was the goal, and since the SDS200 is the cream of the crop it seemed like an easy solution. I bought Proscan and went off to the races. (good gravy I can't wait to try and clean that webserver page up with some css)

The thing is I hear maybe 1/3 of the traffic on the SDS200 that my G5 picks up. What am I doing wrong?

Here are some line items to maybe help diagnose what I am doing right or wrong or misunderstand. (no need to reply to each one, this is just here for info)

• My initial setup was the usual zip code entry so I could get my feet wet. I was getting far too much traffic, of course so I scaled back to learning how to add favorites and set it up pretty much the same as my G5. Button one is the local PD only, Button 2 is Local PD + College PD. For now I leave it on button one or local PD only for testing. I am getting maybe 1/3 of the traffic that I hear on the G5.
• I have gone through all the filters globally and tried each one multiple times.
• I have made sure I only have the service types I want enabled. (Law Dispatch, Law Tac.
• Screwed around with "hold time" as I saw in a post on here that I should change it from 2 to 10.
• The unit sits on the top floor of my house near a window, right next to the G5 presently. It was going to go into my server rack in the basement up until all the issues cropped up.
• I have manually held the System, Dept and Channel to the exact thing I want to hear. (top, middle and bottom bar are solid colors on the display.)
• Squelch is anywhere from 0 to 2
• The signal strength meter seems to be all over the place and disappears from time to time. As I understand it, that means it's doing "housekeeping?"
• RSSI seems like a moving target and is always rolling around and going from blank to -75 to -105 which seems to correlate with the signal strength. The G5 just sits there with a solid 5 bars.
• After screwing with every setting on the planet, I did a full reset on the unit and just loaded my single PD favorite. Sometimes you get too far into the weeds with settings, so I tried to start over.
• Wash rinse, and repeat and played again with filters. I try to only adjust the global one under settings, filters, and not dig into individual favorites.
• Full reset again and all I have done is set the department I want to hear via the function knob and holds on the front.

I know the unit is complex, and I have been watching videos and guides the past few weeks and wanted to learn as much as possible before asking questions, but I'm a bit stumped at this point. Does anybody see any obvious stupidity I am doing or have any tips on how to make the SDS200 behave the same as the G5? (I have no need for analog or roaming or anything outside my 3 mile circle.)

 

[jtwalker]

You mention that you have held on system, department and channel. How about using site hold to match site the G pager was using?

 

[columbusgeek]

You mention that you have held on system, department and channel. How about using site hold to match site the G pager was using?

I knew about Systems, Dept and Channel. As soon as I did a site hold it seems to be working fine.
Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and ask people. Thanks @jtwalker. Early testing shows this was the trick.

I'm going to keep an eye on the G5 over the next few hours and see if the college police are on the same site.

 

[jtwalker]

That’s great news.

 

[nessnet]

A couple of things.....
As you discovered, sites are the key to listening to what you want.
As we say: The more you scan, the less you'll hear.

Because the radio is spending XX milliseconds 'listening' to each site's control channel.
Setting your hold to 10 is waaay to high.
I actually use 0.
If there is no channel grant, move on immediately to the next site.

Remember, delay is different (TG level). It is how long the radio keeps the channel grant up before resuming scanning.
Suggest set to 2 here.

Is the site you are monitoring simulcast?
Because with simulcast "site" is contrary to conventional radio - there is XX number of physical towers transmitting the same control channel.

 

[EAFrizzle]

As we say: The more you scan, the more scanners you need...

Fixed that for you. 😉

 

[atlong]

I have found improvements to scanning on the SDS series by limiting each site to control channels only, not the entire frequency list. Also, with wide area/statewide systems, while mobile, I like to program the least amount of sites (ideally only ONE site) for each jurisdiction. I simply manually program multiple control channels for the general area from multiple sites that overlap coverage. In other words, I program my own "site"). Depends on the system tho, as some sites may not carry all talkgroups. It works well for me, since I know the systems & general coverage within the area I'm traveling. If I'm on a road trip through unfamiliar territory, I program as usual and hope for the best. I'll leave myself voice notes on any changes I need to make & adjust programming for the trip home.

 

[atlong]

Another couple of things to check on the SDS is as follows:

• Ensure attenuation is not enabled anywhere in programming.
• Enable the system you want to monitor and use the 'analyze' feature. Ensure you have adequate signal, usually at least half on the left side bar. Then watch the 2nd two bars and ensure they are at least 3/4ths of the way up to the top. I've noticed I have to let the scanner sit for at least 5 minutes until it starts giving adequate results in this mode. If you're not getting these values, it might pay to try an external to the scanner antenna, or move the scanner to another location until an improvement is seen.
• SDS series seems to be a bit less sensitive on the VHF bands, than UHF and 700/800MHz.

Good luck.

 

[tvengr]

Another thing to check is that all of the Service Types you are using are enabled (Law Dispatch, Law Tac, Fire Dispatch, Fire Tac, Etc).

 

[buddrousa]

Are the scanner and pager scanning the same exact sites and nothing else?

 

[tglendye]

I have found improvements to scanning on the SDS series by limiting each site to control channels only, not the entire frequency list...

That's a good idea, but does this actually work? I was under the impression that the scanner sticks on the control channel as long as the signal is good and including the voice frequencies would not slow scanning a trunked system down.

 

[buddrousa]

No it scans the entire system each pass I watch on PROSCAN it jump from Site to Site.

 

[AB5ID]

Does the SDS dwell on the control channel for a certain period of inactivity before jumping to another active control channel for a different system?

 

[Ubbe]

Does the SDS dwell on the control channel for a certain period of inactivity before jumping to another active control channel for a different system?

Yes, its set by the system hold time. That timer are used once when you initially come to a sites control channel. After that it is using TG delay time of the TG that where active last.

If a system have no activity in a site that matches your TG programming it will go from last site that where active the last scan cycle and then go from site to site until all are checked and then go to next system. If any site had a conversation that where monitored it will go to the next system when that conversation ends and not check the other sites.

If the firmware where done differently, to check for another conversation when the first one has ended, it could be stuck on that system forever. I would like to have Uniden make that as an option, for a kind of priority function for an important system, to check all sites before leaving the system. But then we usually have several scanners to take care of that. But that firmware addition are a 5 minute job so could be easily done.

/Ubbe