I just bought a 436HP scanner, installed Sentinel, and downloaded the database. It's a great feature, but IMO it's missing an important element:
The ability to upload newly-discovered systems & frequencies back to the Uniden/RR database.
I understand that if I'm scanning and run across a new system or ham repeater or whatever, I can manually submit that to the RR database, and the data will eventually propagate to the Uniden database. But it would be a lot more convenient if new discoveries were tagged with the GPS coordinates of the scanner (or at least the ZIP code the scanner is using as its location) and then when the scanner is synced with Sentinel, the user had the option to submit the new stuff to the Uniden database, and then from there to RR's database.
This auto-submitted data might need some vetting before going live, such as consolidating the GPS coordinates of multiple submissions for the same repeater to calculate more realistic location and radius values for the entry in the database. For example, if a repeater is being detected in 3 counties, it would need a larger radius value than one that can only be heard in one city. Also, it might be necessary to require a minimum number of auto-submits for a frequency/area to go live, to filter out spurious hits. If one user says something is there, it probably is, but they might have had their squelch set too low or something. But if the 20 users report activity on a frequency in an area, that's pretty solid data.
The ability to upload newly-discovered systems & frequencies back to the Uniden/RR database.
I understand that if I'm scanning and run across a new system or ham repeater or whatever, I can manually submit that to the RR database, and the data will eventually propagate to the Uniden database. But it would be a lot more convenient if new discoveries were tagged with the GPS coordinates of the scanner (or at least the ZIP code the scanner is using as its location) and then when the scanner is synced with Sentinel, the user had the option to submit the new stuff to the Uniden database, and then from there to RR's database.
This auto-submitted data might need some vetting before going live, such as consolidating the GPS coordinates of multiple submissions for the same repeater to calculate more realistic location and radius values for the entry in the database. For example, if a repeater is being detected in 3 counties, it would need a larger radius value than one that can only be heard in one city. Also, it might be necessary to require a minimum number of auto-submits for a frequency/area to go live, to filter out spurious hits. If one user says something is there, it probably is, but they might have had their squelch set too low or something. But if the 20 users report activity on a frequency in an area, that's pretty solid data.
