Sds200 global filters for mass fire and police depts

[mippolito]

Anyone have any advice to get the best out of the sds200 with scanning, should I just scan police or fire or state police, and using the global filters to better improve the scanner

 

[ka3jjz]

So you can understand what the filters do, read the PDF linked here...

SDS100 and SDS200 FAQ Page - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Mike

 

[Hit_Factor]

Use the filter that gives the best results. No one can tell you which one works best for your location.

Filters can do things like filter out a strong FM broadcast.

 

[mippolito]

Thank you

 

[Ubbe]

Filters can do things like filter out a strong FM broadcast.

Filters change up to +/-10MHz from the frequency programmed so not really intended for FM broadcast. But any change of filter setting and IFX will usually move intermodulation products move slightly in frequency where they hopefully isn't interfering with a programmed frequency.

It really starts to produce a lot of intermod products when signals reach -60dBm or stronger so if you have signal levels in that range then try and always set attenuation to those channels/sites to keep the scanner from overloading.

It isn't very user friendly handling attenuation settings in SDS scanners but you'll see the ATT text blink at the top of the display if you still have some attenuation active in your programming if you where supposed to have removed those when not needed. Whistler has a much better system where you have a global attenuator to enable or disable it on all systems and/or not touch the ones you have set to just a few systems. It's probably a patent thing, among other things that Whistler have, why Uniden couldn't use that system.

/Ubbe

 

[mippolito]

Got everything setup with filters thanks

 

[tvengr]

Anyone have any advice to get the best out of the sds200 with scanning, should I just scan police or fire or state police, and using the global filters to better improve the scanner

I often have good results with 700 MHz trunked systems using the wide invert filter.