Should I enter all the other Freq.'s in the Freq Section

[daysand]

Here is the type of Freq.'s I want to put in my scanner and is avaliable here at RR.
Type = Smartzone Motorola Type II
Southeast Texas Area Radio Network (STARNET) Page
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=38

I the System Frequencies Section.

I understand about putting in the Primary and Alt. Freq's. in the scanner. But What about all the other Freq's I see in the, System Frequencies Section?

Should I enter ALL the Freq.'s or just the Primary and Alt. Freq.'s ??

I have a Pro-96

 

[darrendotcom]

The Primary and Alt. Freq.'s are just the cotrol channels. You would need to enter all the Freqs for your area.

 

[loumaag]

...Should I enter ALL the Freq.'s or just the Primary and Alt. Freq.'s ??

I have a Pro-96

Just the CC or Alt CC information. I am going to guess that that information is pretty up-to-date (unless Eric has been asleep :lol: ) since I left town.

The Primary and Alt. Freq.'s are just the cotrol channels. You would need to enter all the Freqs for your area.

Absolutely the wrong information, note he has a Pro-96. Entering more frequencies than the CC's or Alt CC's just increases the chance of missing a transmission. The Pro-96 does not lock on a CC as older (or maybe even current Uniden) scanners did. It will scan everything in the bank (except unused or locked out channels) no matter how they are programmed. So, if you put all of the channels in a bank (a physical impossibility with the STARNet TRS and a Pro-96) it will scan all 30 channels, not just the current CC. STARNet has enough CC's (and alts) to make the scanning tough already.

 

[darrendotcom]

So, the Pro-96 will scan all the freqs in the system by just programing the control channels and alt control channels into the Pro-96?

 

[INDY72]

From my understanding, the 96 uses the cc's sorta like the Uniden's CC only mode but a lil more effectively. From what I have been told and seen on these forums, the 96 just plain rocks except it doesn't do LTR. Its audio is exceptional, reception kicks tail, and the V-Folders are superb.... Hopefully i will get it or the upcomming 2096 by this fall, and will have the new 99 in a couple of weeks.

 

[rdale]

" It will scan everything in the bank (except unused or locked out channels) no matter how they are programmed. "

Incorrect... If there are no non-trunked freqs in between, and all are listed at MO, it will only find one CC and then move on. You have to put in a conventional freq in between CC's to force the radio to do multiple checks.

 

[loumaag]

" It will scan everything in the bank (except unused or locked out channels) no matter how they are programmed. "

Incorrect... If there are no non-trunked freqs in between, and all are listed at MO, it will only find one CC and then move on. You have to put in a conventional freq in between CC's to force the radio to do multiple checks.

No Rob, the good news is, you are working off of "old" information. :lol:

I have done a lot of experimenting with this thing and it will scan different CC's of the same (or different systems) in one bank even if the only thing you have in the bank is MO CC's. It does not require the "trick" as previously believed. You do not need to interleave conventional channels.

I found this out quite by accident one day here in SD on the SD State System. I can "hear" five differnt sites from the house on the base antenna, and two (more or less) as I move around town portable. I have only the CC's and Alternates programed into a single bank. I had gotten into the habit of running Trunker on a specific site, when home and locking out all CC's except the one I was tracking with Trunker, thereby matching what I heard with what I saw... When I traveled around town, I had been leaving the two "local" sites unlocked so that if one faded it would switch to the other, and so on. One day while monitoring and running Trunker at home I noticed that I was hearing things that didn't show up on the Trunker screen. Some did show and some didn't. After checking all the Trunker side of things I noticed that I was running Trunker on one site but was hearing things from two!

This started me playing around and the end result is, you don't need to have anything else in the bank. The Pro-96 does not lock and hold on the first CC it hits if all programmed frequencies are Motorola (as mine was). What it apparently does is hold on the CC for a bit, moves on, holds on the next CC for a bit, moves on, etc. I know that with the CC's and alts that I have programmed in the bank (total of 14 freqs) the scanner does not appear to miss anything, unless it is busy on a voice channel when another CC gives a channel grant. Give it a try.

 

[rdale]

I did try it and it does not work...

Put three systems in one bank not using the trick and it briefly checks and moves on. Put three systems on using the trick and it spends 2-3 seconds in that bank before moving on. If you don't have multiple systems, use the same CC many times. If you use the trick and put that CC in 20 times it'll spend a LONG time in that bank. Don't use the trick and put the CC in 20 times and it doesn't care. So either it's spending microseconds or it's not checking.

 

[loumaag]

I did try it and it does not work...

Put three systems in one bank not using the trick and it briefly checks and moves on. Put three systems on using the trick and it spends 2-3 seconds in that bank before moving on. If you don't have multiple systems, use the same CC many times. If you use the trick and put that CC in 20 times it'll spend a LONG time in that bank. Don't use the trick and put the CC in 20 times and it doesn't care. So either it's spending microseconds or it's not checking.

What do you mean it does not work. You plainly say it works with "it briefly checks and moves on". Great, that is what I want it to do. Spending 2 or 3 seconds on a bank (that can be checked in less than a second) and moving on is not what I want. If I stay on just the one bank (that contains multiple CC's of the same system) it will check all of the CC's in less than a second, but the important thing is that if it finds activity that I want to listen to (closed mode, with desired TG's programmed and not locked out) it will stop and listen to that activity no matter what CC is the granting the channel. I would much prefer that to it spending 2 or 3 seconds going through a bank.

In this instance "briefly" is good, 2 to 3 seconds on a CC is bad.

 

[rdale]

"You plainly say it works with "it briefly checks and moves on"."

It checks briefly because it only looks at one CC. That means it _does not_ work.

You must have a special scanner then because mine doesn't (and nobody else has claimed it either ;> ) Did you put 50 CC's in an see how long it takes? It _can't_ spend microseconds on all 50 or it wouldn't be getting any data at 9600 baud.

- Rob

 

[4phun]

You don't need to enter all those frequencies in a PRO-96

The Primary and Alt. Freq.'s are just the cotrol channels. You would need to enter all the Freqs for your area.

Not with a PRO-96!

It is far superior to the other digital scanners in that you can place nothing but control channels in a bank and it will check each one for activity. I build banks that cover multiple systems and place only a few key talkgroups in the list and close the bank. That way I can drive around and hear only fire dispatches in a fifty mile radius. Sometimes there is a conflict in that different systems use the same talkgroup for different things but in practice in metro Atlanta it is no big deal. Occasionally I will hear a cop talkgroup in a nearby system when it should have been a talkgroup for a fire channel in a system across town.

There fore a PRO-96 is ideal for scanning a multi zone trunking system with many different sites and control channels as all the talkgroups will be the same. Since its memory use is so efficient you can repeat the channel data in multiple banks and scan far more than 150 talkgroups or you can set up a bank to cover something specialized. I have banks set up for my county’s large trunking radio system. These banks are fire and ems, police tactical, police normal, and all the miscellaneous county talkgroups I seldom want to monitor. I can toggle them on an off with a simple key press. I can further toggle sub groups on and off within these specialized banks. The PRO-96 is very flexible.

I don't seem to miss anything with this arrangement either. It is simply amazing how well the Pro-96 works.

 

[daysand]

Still trying to get a answer on Should I enter all the Freq.

Should I enter ALL the Freq.'s or just the Primary and Alt. Freq.'s ?? I have a Pro-96

Here is the type of Freq.'s I want to put in my scanner and is avaliable here at RR.
Type = Smartzone Motorola Type II
Southeast Texas Area Radio Network (STARNET) Page
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=38

I the System Frequencies Section.

I understand about putting in the Primary and Alt. Freq's. in the scanner. But What about all the other Freq's I see in the, System
Frequencies Section?

Should I enter ALL the Freq.'s or just the Primary and Alt. Freq.'s ??

I have a Pro-96

 

[rdale]

Read lou's first response.

 

[loumaag]

Re: Still trying to get a answer on Should I enter all the F

Should I enter ALL the Freq.'s or just the Primary and Alt. Freq.'s ??
I have a Pro-96

How many times do you need this question answered? Read this thread, you started it.

Read lou's first response.

Why, thank you Rob!

You must have a special scanner then because mine doesn't (and nobody else has claimed it either ;> ) Did you put 50 CC's in an see how long it takes? It _can't_ spend microseconds on all 50 or it wouldn't be getting any data at 9600 baud.

:lol: Ha!
Well I think it is special, but I don't know that it is any more special than yours...wait, 50 channels!?! If you can do that in a single bank you really do have a special trunking system. (edited 'cause I type faster than my brain operates. :roll: )

Seriously, if it doesn't work for you, I am not sure why, but it sure works for me, I monitor the SD system using this method every day. My claim is backed up by comparing what I hear with what I see (on the Trunker display screen). If I had two data slicers, I would run Trunker twice (on differnt CC's) just to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. All I know is that while running Trunker on one site and monitoring two+ on the Pro-96 (with only CC's or Alts) entered in the bank, I will hear everything I see on Trunker plus stuff I don't see from the other site(s). On the two closest sites, Trunker is running at between 97 and 99.9% accuracy rate and the Pro-96 is getting decode rates of between 96 and 99%. This is a VHF, 3600 Baud, 100% ASTRO system, so maybe I will get different results when I move again to where there are 800 MHz "normal" systems, but until then, I will go with my new discovery as fact.

 

[joescat]

The same Q for BC296D

I'll pose the same question for the Uniden's BC296D.

I've been pasting all the freqs in like mad, and of course for the State of MI system, there's just too many for a bank.

If my hopes are answered, I can just store the control freqs, and NOT have to put in the "plain" freqs, and it can track traffic? The CC tells the scanner which freq to switch to, even it it isn't programmed in a memory slot? If so, boy have I wasted my data entry efforts (and memory slots).

 

[waynesewell]

Yes, the 296D will work in control channel only mode for motorola (primary and alternates, ignore the others). You will need to set CC mode for the bank and specify which plan. The plan is determined by the actual frequences (all of them, not just control).

 

[DonS]

A potential problem with just entering the listed CCs, one that bit me a while back on the Santa Clara, CA system: they might move the control channels around. Several months ago, the RR database listed 4 CCs for this system, and those were the only ones I had entered. One day, I noticed that my scanner had gone completely silent. I entered the remaining system frequencies, and traffic was back to "normal". It seems that either a) the CCs listed in the database were incorrect or b) they'd changed which of the system's freqs were used as CCs.

For "small" systems like the City of Santa Clara, CA, I'll enter all of the frequencies. At the very least, I'll enter all of them temporarily if the system goes "quiet", just to see if they've moved things around.

 

[DonS]

Conventional channel between systems....

I just tried it. In bank 0, I entered the following on my PRO-96:

00 SC1         	 867.33750	  MOT
01 SC2         	 867.86250	  MOT
02 SC3         	 868.62500	  MOT
03 SC4         	 868.88750	  MOT
04 Lockheed    	 860.38750	  MOT
05 Crystal     	 939.90000	  MOT

These systems/frequencies are from the RR database listings for Santa Clara County, California.

Channels 00-03 are the CCs for the Santa Clara city system. 04 is a Lockheed system in nearby Milpitas. 05 is a "Bay Area" system used by Crystal Communications (I have no idea who they are or what this system is used for).

I scanned the bank in Open mode. I heard a few city transmissions (PD). I then heard a transmission on the "Crystal" system - line 3 of the PRO-96 display indicated that the CC was coming from channel 05: 939.9000 MHz. I then heard more city (PD) traffic.

From this brief test, it looks like you don't need conventional channels between Motorola CCs in the PRO-96. I haven't yet heard anything on the Lockheed system, so I can't comment on that one (I'll probably know more tomorrow morning - if that system is still operational). Note that the Crystal CC is separated from the Santa Clara CCs by one channel - the Lockheed CC. I don't think this can be a factor, because the current Santa Clara CC is channel 01 - the radio cannot know that channel 04 isn't a Santa Clara channel.

I've also hit the MAN button several times while scanning. It seems to come up on one of two channels - always. It's either channel 01 (the Santa Clara CC) or channel 05 (the Crystal CC). (Manually selecting the Lockheed CC results in pure static - no CC data heard). I deleted channel 04 in Win96, so that Crystal's CC is now channel 04. Same results. I hear both.

Based on this small test, I'd say that you don't need the conventional frequencies between CCs.

-Don

 

[DonS]

One possibility: maybe you need a channel, any channel, conventional or trunked, between System A's current CC and System B's current CC.

If so, this might explain Lou's, Rob's, and my results. If you need such a channel, it's possible that Rob's current CC was the last one in his list (for the "first" system), while Lou's and mine were not.

If I get ambitious, I'll rearrange my Santa Clara city CCs such that my current channel 01 immediately precedes the "Crystal" system's CC.

 

[DonS]

Further experimentation...

I played around with alternate MAN/SCAN key presses...

After hearing a Santa Clara city transmission. I pressed MAN/SCAN a few times. It would come up on the SC control channel (01) or one of the other SC channels (02-03), but once it hit the Crystal CC, it would "stick" there.

I then added a bogus non-trunked channel after the Crystal CC (150.2000 MHz, FM), and moved the Crystal CC to channel 03. My bank now looks like:

00 SC1         	 867.33750	  MOT
01 SC2         	 867.86250	  MOT
02 Crystal     	 939.90000	  MOT
03 SC3         	 868.62500	  MOT
04 SC4         	 868.88750	  MOT
05 Dummy    	 150.20000	  FM

Channel 01 is the current SC CC. Channel 02 is the Crystal CC. Channels 00, 03, and 04 are other available SC CCs. Channel 05 is my dummy conventional frequency.

Alternate MAN/SCAN presses end up, apparently randomly, on the SC CC, the Crystal CC, or the bogus conventional channel. Occasionally, it would also hit one of the other SC channels. Also, I still hear traffic on both systems.

I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't think these two systems are sufficiently "busy" for me to come to any real conclusions. In the current configuration, though, it does seem to scan both systems.

I guess I'll have to set up two more radios, each with one of these systems in its own bank, then compare what I hear. I have to charge a few batteries first...