BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Sentinel Service Types vs. Set 'Scan Selection/Set Nationwide Systems'

[rae8836]

New BCD436HP owner coming from AR8200. Interest is focused on Railroad and at other times Maritime/Cruise Ships. Like to start with monitoring full database to take advantage of other folk's updates and then trim down from there. Have some experience with Butel software for the AR8200 but Sentinel is a different animal.

Immediate concern is determining when I can rely on Sentinel's 'Service Types' and when I have to use 'Set Nationwide Systems'.

1. I have found and used the Sentinel 'Service Types' function. Is there a function in Sentinel that will 'Set Nationwide Systems'? I note that the 'Nationwide Systems' are more granular than the 'Service Types'.

2. Is there a reference that will tell me what Systems/Frequencies are included in each of the Sentinel Service Types? I'm particularly interested in determining when a Service Type will include only the Systems I want and when a Service Type will throw in stuff I'm not interested in.

3. If I select only the Service Type 'Railroad' in Sentinel and write that profile to the scanner I get the channels scanned that I am after. What do I select in Sentinel to get only the Maritime USA frequencies in a profile? It appears to me that I have to create a profile that monitors the full database and then 'Avoid' all Nationwide Systems with the exception of Maritime-USA. This seems very clumsy. Is there a better way?

 

[ofd8001]

1. In Sentinel, Edit the Profile. You can check the Monitor Full Database. Once that is checked and programmed to the scanner, you can go back to the scanner to turn the components of Nationwide Systems on or off. Examples of these would be Air Shows, Amateur Radio, etc. (If there is a way to set such things in Sentinel, I've been unable to find it. Wish it was there though.)

2. No

3. If you select "Railroad" then the only channels your scanner will hit on are those having Railroad as the Service Type and are not Avoided. Most of the Maritime Channels I've seen have "Other" or "Federal" as their Service Types. That clumsy way is the only way I can find. Should be a better way, I agree.

You might consider creating a couple of Favorites Lists, with different Favorites List Quick Keys. One would be for Railroads and the other for Maritime. Turn on both FLQKs. When you don't want to listen to something, turn the given FLQK off.

 

[rae8836]

Thanks for the response.

What I'm trying for is to scan the channels from the HPDB that I want and still get the automatic weekly updates to my selected set of channels. I do understand the concept of Favorites Lists but it appears that the contents of those lists are not affected by the weekly HPDB updates. I'm trying to use 'built in' function(s) to filter the HPDB to get the limited channel sets I'm interested in while continuing to benefit from the weekly updates.

I'm using Sentinel 2.02 and my BCD436HP firmware is 1.28.14. My location is manually set to 34.858250 N, 082.395740 W, the approximate center of Greenville, SC

If I create a Profile, check 'Monitor Full Database' on, and do not select any service type, I get 'Nothing to Scan' when I write this profile to the scanner.

If I open the Nationwide section of the HPDB, select 'Maritime-USA', and then 'Maritime Operations - Marine VHF 1A-88A', the channel detail list shows that channels 01A-80A are Service Type 'Transportation', channels 81A-83A are Service Type 'Federal' and channels 84RX-88 are Service Type 'Other'. (It is true that general maritime monitoring only rarely involves channels above 80.)

If I select Service Type 'Transportation' I do get Maritime - USA but I also get several statewide/countywide systems dealing with busses, taxis, trucking companies and so on. I can then go through a series of 8 System - Permanent Avoid actions to end up with only Maritime - USA. Interestingly enough, it doesn't matter if the remaining 'Nationwide Systems' are on or off in 'Set Nationwide Systems', so long as Maritime - USA is on - I see Maritime - USA but I also see all the statewide/countywide transportation systems until I 'Permanent Avoid' them.

If I change location (to downtown San Diego) something weird goes on. I see the local transportation stuff for San Diego but I don't see Maritime - USA. I have to do 'Stop all Avoiding'. Then Maritime - USA shows up again, but I have to re-do my manual Permanent Avoid actions to get rid of the local stuff. If I then change location back to Greenville, Maritime -USA is again missing and the 'Stop All Avoiding'/'Permanent Avoid' sequence is required.

If I power the scanner off then on again I get 'Nothing to Scan'. I have to 'Stop All Avoiding' then re do the manual Permanent Avoid actions. The same thing occurs if I save the profile to Sentinel and then reload the same, working profile - 'Nothing to Scan', 'Stop All Avoiding', 'Permanent Avoid'.

So I can get Maritime - USA to scan by itself but only after extensive manual tailoring every time I want that channel set.

It shouldn't be that hard.....

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

2. Is there a reference that will tell me what Systems/Frequencies are included in each of the Sentinel Service Types?
I'm particularly interested in determining when a Service Type will include only the Systems I want and when a Service Type will throw in stuff I'm not interested in.

2. No

YES! Service types pertain to the "Tag" column in any given database table
If you want to omit traffic you aren't interested in hearing you'll have to create favorites lists and only include the frequencies or talkgroups you want to hear. You cannot rely on service types alone to do this. Welcome to the RR forums!

 

[hiegtx]

Thanks for the response.

What I'm trying for is to scan the channels from the HPDB that I want and still get the automatic weekly updates to my selected set of channels. I do understand the concept of Favorites Lists but it appears that the contents of those lists are not affected by the weekly HPDB updates. I'm trying to use 'built in' function(s) to filter the HPDB to get the limited channel sets I'm interested in while continuing to benefit from the weekly updates.

Updating the main database makes no changes at all to any Favorites lists. If you do not have any lists at all, then updating the main database regularly would insure you have the current data. If you are using lists, but also the main database, you would still need to manually update any Favorites lists that you are scanning. There is no filter or work-around to automatically do that.

You are a Premium Subscriber. When you are logged into the site (RadioReference, not the forums & not the Wiki; those also require logins), your MyRR page is the first thing you see. Set it up to include the counties, trunked systems, & statewide agencies that you want to keep an eye on. When one of them has been updated in the past 24 hours, that county, system, or agency will be highlighted in green. If one of them is highlighted with a yellowish color, then that was updated within the past seven days. Look at the notes on the county, system, or agency to see what was changed. Quite often, it is only a text tag or other information 'in the background', which does not requite you to update any of your entries. If it does affect one of your lists, it only takes a couple of minutes to make the changes. I have over 30 counties tagged, and over 40 trunked systems on my watch list for what I can hear in my area, or systems in areas that I travel to or through on a regular basis. In a given week, I doubt if I spend even 20 minutes (spread over the seven days of the week) to update one or more of my Favorites lists. Remember that for large regional or statewide systems, you may see fairly regular updates, but if you look closer, the changes made were to something in another part of your region or state, & has zero effect on your monitoring at your primary location.

I'm using Sentinel 2.02 and my BCD436HP firmware is 1.28.14. My location is manually set to 34.858250 N, 082.395740 W, the approximate center of Greenville, SC

For a more complete explanatoin of location based scanning, see this:
How it Works: Location, Location, Location

If I create a Profile, check 'Monitor Full Database' on, and do not select any service type, I get 'Nothing to Scan' when I write this profile to the scanner.

That's to be expected. If you have no service types enabled, then indeed there will be nothing to scan.

If I open the Nationwide section of the HPDB, select 'Maritime-USA', and then 'Maritime Operations - Marine VHF 1A-88A', the channel detail list shows that channels 01A-80A are Service Type 'Transportation', channels 81A-83A are Service Type 'Federal' and channels 84RX-88 are Service Type 'Other'. (It is true that general maritime monitoring only rarely involves channels above 80.)

If I select Service Type 'Transportation' I do get Maritime - USA but I also get several statewide/countywide systems dealing with busses, taxis, trucking companies and so on. I can then go through a series of 8 System - Permanent Avoid actions to end up with only Maritime - USA. Interestingly enough, it doesn't matter if the remaining 'Nationwide Systems' are on or off in 'Set Nationwide Systems', so long as Maritime - USA is on - I see Maritime - USA but I also see all the statewide/countywide transportation systems until I 'Permanent Avoid' them

If you have the Transportation service type enabled, then the scanner, correctly, will also monitor any other channels (within range) that are tagged as Transportation. That would include trucks, buses, and other items.
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If all you want is Maritime USA, then you would be better served by appending that data to a Favorites list, That way, you would not be playing 'whack a mole', avoiding the other transportation entries that are not of interest to you.

If I change location (to downtown San Diego) something weird goes on. I see the local transportation stuff for San Diego but I don't see Maritime - USA. I have to do 'Stop all Avoiding'. Then Maritime - USA shows up again, but I have to re-do my manual Permanent Avoid actions to get rid of the local stuff. If I then change location back to Greenville, Maritime -USA is again missing and the 'Stop All Avoiding'/'Permanent Avoid' sequence is required.

If I power the scanner off then on again I get 'Nothing to Scan'. I have to 'Stop All Avoiding' then re do the manual Permanent Avoid actions. The same thing occurs if I save the profile to Sentinel and then reload the same, working profile - 'Nothing to Scan', 'Stop All Avoiding', 'Permanent Avoid'.

This sounds like you may be inadvertently setting Maritime to a Permanent Avoid when trying to take out the other things (buses & trucks, for example) that you don't want.

If you manage to Avoid the categories of interest when you try to modify your location, and/or have no active service types, then indeed "Nothing to Scan" is headed your way. From your description, it appears that you are creating this issue by rying to weed out scanning systems from only the main database.

So I can get Maritime - USA to scan by itself but only after extensive manual tailoring every time I want that channel set.

It shouldn't be that hard.....

It's not that hard. Set up a Favorites list that includes Maritime USA. Make sure that this list is not set as 'Avoid', and that you have the correct service types enabled.

For your local area, scanning using your location info, and the main database will cover those, which ever location you are using, as long as you have the correct service types active.

 

[ofd8001]

I absolutely concur with Hiegtx, Service Types in the database are set by database administrators pursuant to RR's "rules". There are some Service Types, particularly in maritime use, that are open to interpretation.

Also you are wanting to put a very fine point on something that is intended to be a little more "broad brush", such as Nationwide lists.

So to get down to your very specific set of parameters, you are getting to the purpose of Favorites Lists with their more tailored approach. Fortunately nationwide "things" are not changed very often, if at all.

When creating your Favorites Lists, you have the ability to change the Service Types to something a little more specific, such as one of the "Custom X" service types. An example could be "Custom 1". You would know that "Custom 1" means "Maritime" for your scanner. (That's kind of what I do for snow plows. Rather than using what the database used, (Public Works), I changed them to "Custom 1". That way if I just happen to be scanning the full database while on a trip, I won't get a bunch of unknown and mysterious stuff due to local public works channels.

 

[rae8836]

Appreciate the quick, knowledgeable responses.

I think I have the location thing handled - I use a manually entered Lat/Lon and a range of 20 as a default and have a GPS on order for truly mobile situations.

I do understand the Favorite Lists thing. My maritime interests involve monitoring both Marine VHF and the UHF Marine Ops freqs at 457.5x/467.5x Mhz. - the latter group now mostly DMR. Definitely Favorite List(s) here.

It seems to me that the HPDB has a great deal of potential value as an information resource. The list of 'Service Types' and the list of 'Nationwide Systems' both contain a number of entries that I know little about and would like to investigate further. It is clear (assuming no Favorite Lists) that the BCD436HP scanned channel set is derived from an interaction between Location/Range, 'Select Service Type', and 'Select Nationwide System'. It appears that there is no meaningful documentation discussing just how those elements (particularly the last two) interact to establish the scanned channel set - if there is, please point me to it. I'm going to experiment a bit to see if I can learn more about how that interaction works.

I'm sure I'll be back with questions.

 

[ofd8001]

I'm not sure if this is documented anywhere, but it is a fairly simple explanation.

The "Select Nationwide System", means you are telling the scanner you want to scan that/those systems. It is very comparable to selecting a Favorites List.

The Location and Range are these: Location is the GPS coordinates of where the scanner is located. (When entering a zip code, there is a look-up table in the scanner's operating system. It will derive GPS coordinates for the center of that zip code.) The Range determines how far of a net you want to cast when scanning. Range is entered in miles and can be best described as a circle. Each Department within a system will have ranges for their area of jurisdiction. These system ranges also are circles, typically (though with effort, rectangles can be created for Favorites Lists).

When the two circles overlap (Scanner Range and Department Range), the scanner will attempt to receive the Department (or site for trunked system). That doesn't mean you will receive, because radio propagation physics still apply.

The Service Types are another filter. So when you have a Favorites List or Nationwide System selected for scanning, those channels that meet Location rules you created (location and range), the scanner will then note the Service Type of the channel. From there the scanner checks your list of Service Types that you have enabled. If the Service Type has been selected (or ON), the scanner remains on the channel, and you begin to listen to the radio traffic. (No Service Types selected, means there will be nothing to scan.)