Talkgroup Patch Feature

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KE4ZNR

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Well, it looks like GRE beat Uniden to this one.

http://forums.radioreference.com/gr...ew-talkgroup-patch-feature-psr-500-600-a.html

I have been waiting for this since my BC245XLT. Phoenix uses patches a lot, and it sometimes makes finding a converstation more difficult than it should be.

Does Uniden plan to develop firmware to correctly decode patches?

The XT line of Uniden Scanners has had patch capability from the beginning.
So no, GRE did not beat Uniden to this one.
I am glad GRE finally decided to give their customers a feature that Uniden had in the XT line from day one. :)
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

dougjgray

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my bcd996t appears to show patches atleast I have seen a few times where denver fire will show 2 tg ids on the screen and it sounds like there talking to the denver airport I thought that was a patch
 

KE4ZNR

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Am I missing a setting to decode patches? My 396XT and 996XT do not properly decode patches on the Phoenix PRWN P25 system.

I don't know how you have yours setup but my 396XT & 996XT both decode patches just fine here in NC on several different systems.
Marshall KE4ZNR

From the 396XT Complete Reference Guide:

UnidenXTPatches.JPG
 

hfxChris

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If I'm not mistaken, you must be have Motorola status bits enabled - a setting some people here seem to forget that not everybody might have turned on.
 

tvande

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I also believe that the "patch" capability was brought in one of the firmware updates that Uniden has done, so make sure you have the latest one.

Tom
 

rickak

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My 396XT certainly does not support patches on the state of colorado P25 system. But its not an EDACS or Moto type 2 system either...


Rick
 

ButchGone

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On my Uniden 396t, older model prior to XT models, it handles patches well. Go in menu for system, select the status bit option. If you set to "ignore" it will automatically let you hear the patched groups without showing a modified talkgroup number. You won't even know it's working. If you hit "yes" in status bits menu option, it will also let you hear the patched group but you will see the modifed talk group ID number. Example, group 16000 is patched with 16032, and depending how the dispatcher has selected patch you will see talkgroup number 16003, or 16007, or 16009. Now this is for Moto systems.
GRE is just now catching up to this.
Happy patching!
BG..
 

Bote

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It's not about status bits

Let's be clear here. When the scanner's status bit decoding is OFF it no longer considers the lowest significant 4 bits in the talkgroup id. With it ON you would see the talkgroup +3 displayed and the scanner would treat it differently. We're not talking about that here.

On my older 996T with status bit decoding OFF the scanner will only hear one of the patched talkgroups, not all of them. So the example cited is true. If talkgroup 4400 is the primary talkgroup in the patch and they patch in 4432, 4464, and 4496 the 996T will only hear traffic on 4400. Not the others involved in the patch, even if you tune the scanner there.

The new Uniden BCD996XT hears the activity on all the patched talkgroups AND displays the primary talkgroup that started the patch. This is with 1.04 firmware and I just verified it today with both a 996T on the primary patch talkgroup and my new 996XT sitting on another talkgroup involved in the patch.

So, thank you Uniden for this neat addition as part of the XT series of scanners.
 

cellphone

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From what I am reading, the XT series handles patches on EDACS and Motorola type II systems. This is good, but unfortunately I rarely monitor these types of systems. However, it does not work for patches on true P25 systems.

Let me rephrase my original question…

Does Uniden plan to develop firmware to correctly decode patches for Motorola pure P25 systems?
 

K8TEK

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The 396T doesn't handle patches at all. If group 16000 is patched to group 16032, you won't hear a damn thing if you're scanning group 16000 when 16032 keys up.
Not sure why it was such an issue to implement. How old is Smartnet?
 

Bote

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Not sure why it was such an issue to implement. How old is Smartnet?

What version? Mother Motorola has several versions of controller firmware running their systems which generally affected the high speed control channel data format. Uniden has a tall order to fill in order to keep up with these changes and still have their scanners work across all the variants that might be encountered.

By the way, my previous example of monitoring patches with the two scanners was on a Type II multi-site SmartZone system, so it does not apply to P25 systems. I have none around here in south Florida to test. Sorry for the confusion.
 

slicerwizard

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Not sure why it was such an issue to implement.
Patch handling requires maintenance of dynamic tables. That's something that Uniden has had a hard time figuring out how to do with their RAM-starved micros.


What version? Mother Motorola has several versions of controller firmware running their systems which generally affected the high speed control channel data format. Uniden has a tall order to fill in order to keep up with these changes and still have their scanners work across all the variants that might be encountered.
Absolutely false. Freeware decoder authors have managed to keep up with the limited changes made over the years. If these unfunded projects can manage, how can it be a "tall order" for the mighty Uniden? You obviously don't know much about Motorola's control channel protocol.
 

Bote

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Absolutely false. Freeware decoder authors have managed to keep up with the limited changes made over the years. If these unfunded projects can manage, how can it be a "tall order" for the mighty Uniden? You obviously don't know much about Motorola's control channel protocol.

No, I certainly do not. But I know the guy who wrote the controller firmware for the 6809 and another who works in trunking systems infrastructure, and these were their thoughts, not mine. Make of them what you will.
 

slicerwizard

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I know the guy who wrote the controller firmware for the 6809
Do me a favour and ask him when he's going to fix the damn bugs in his firmware.


and another who works in trunking systems infrastructure, and these were their thoughts, not mine.
Interesting. Call grants and late entries (the meat and potatoes for scanners) have changed very little over the years. Digital and VHF/UHF variants added minor wrinkles, but nothing that would rate a "tall order" moniker.

Patch announcements (the heart of this thread) look the same on VHF/UHF/800/900/SmartZone/non-SmartZone control channels, so again, no excuse there for taking so long to handle them.

The vast bulk of the control channel events (system/network status, affiliations, deaffiliations, busies, rejections, dynamic regrouping, interconnect handshaking, status messaging, call alerting, BSIs, diagnostics, gateway commands, dynamic failsoft, inhibits, yadda yadda yadda...) are totally ignored by scanners, so it doesn't really matter how many of them were added over the years.
 

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The 396T doesn't handle patches at all. If group 16000 is patched to group 16032, you won't hear a damn thing if you're scanning group 16000 when 16032 keys up.

Our Turnpike units will at times patch according to unitrunker tg9934 to tg9932. If someone keys up on tg9934 my 396t will show tg9932. If someone keys up on tg9932 it show's tg9932. This system is apco 9600. Is this what you guys are talking about? If so then it does work.
 
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