TRX-2 Software Question

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beischel

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This software is so frustrating.

Anyone know how to import additional trunk systems for one county without having them added as sites to the current trunk group?

For example, here in Ohio most agencies are now using MARCS-IP statewide. So when I import the MARCS-IP system for Hamilton County everything is great. Now if I want to import Clermont County as another MARCS-IP trunk system it just adds it to the current MARC-IP system as just another site.

The issue is that I want to associate a group of talkgroups to specific sites on different scan lists. Cincinnati talkgroups to the Cincinnati site, Hamilton County talkgroups to the Hamilton County site and Clermont talkgroups to the Clermont site all on different scan list.

Anyone overcome this or figure out how to do it?
 

theTastyCat

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Hey beischel - I dealt with the same exact thing yesterday. Here's the solution I found.

Do a fresh import of the system and select every site and TG you would ever want. Then in the "Trunked Radio Systems" tab, highlight the system and click "Duplicate" as many times as you want separate sites. Then rename each copy "MARCS Hamilton", "MARCS Clermont", etc., and within each of these, lock out all the sites except the relevant one. You can also lock out any TGs on individual sites if you need to. Does that make sense?

There's plenty of grumbling about this being so cumbersome, so hopefully we can look for a firmware upgrade that addresses it.
 

theTastyCat

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Further, I've got four different things I'm monitoring on my local system, so I've created scanlists like this:

MARCS Hamilton SO
MARCS Hamilton Fire
MARCS Hamilton Whatever
MARCS Clermont SO
MARCS Clermont Fire
MARCS Clermont Whatever

And so on. Then, I put all the MARCS Hamilton scanlists in one scanset, all the Clermont scanlists in another, etc. Keep all the scanlists enabled and just select the scanset that I want.
 

beischel

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Yup, that is the workaround I came up with before reading your response. Wow, has to be a better way. Whistler needs to do a better job with the software.

BTW, do you have these issues: When disconnecting the USB port after programming, the scanner always give me an error when I try to power up. I have to go through that damn reset procedure of removing the head, removing the card, try to power it up for 35 seconds, then replace the card and try powering up again.....AHHHHHHHH.....driving me nuts.

Also why won't the scanner just start scanning each time it is powered on? Am I missing a setting?
 

sparklehorse

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<snip>Also why won't the scanner just start scanning each time it is powered on? Am I missing a setting?

If you mean the long boot-up process, where it's "Verifying Data" for a while, then "Preparing, please wait....", there is no setting or workaround as far as I know. It is 'normal'. My TRX-2 takes about 30-40 seconds to go from pressing the power button to actual scanning. It reminds me of the vacuum tube TV my parents had in 1963, which took its sweet time to warm up. Some have posted that larger capacity SD cards take longer to boot from. I've only ever used 4GB, so I can't verify.

.
 

theTastyCat

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Yeah, I usually end up corrupting the SD card - what's worked so far is just to leave USB and power plugged in all the time. When I do have to eventually unplug USB, I'll probably do it while the unit is on, then shut it down manually. It is cranky and I've gotten *really* good at the reformat procedure :/
 

beischel

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Come on Whistler, you can do better.

Well here is where I am now. I do a proper shutdown. No USB connected. When I move the scanner, turn it back on, I get this SD Initializing....and whatever the rest. Keep holding the power button and it tells me it is updating firmware....WTF?

So if I keep messing with it, disconnecting power, holding in power button, reconnecting power, I can eventually get it to power up. What the heck is this all about? \

Come on Whistler, you can do better than this with reliability. Cripes, fix the darn firmware. The Internet boards are filled with issues around these errors.
 

theTastyCat

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Wow - that's rough. Maybe try doing a fresh reformat (not the quick one either!) of the SD card and reinstalling? Sorry - mine's been behaving pretty well - I'm sure it will crash now that I've said that :)
 

03msc

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Well here is where I am now. I do a proper shutdown. No USB connected. When I move the scanner, turn it back on, I get this SD Initializing....and whatever the rest. Keep holding the power button and it tells me it is updating firmware....WTF?

So if I keep messing with it, disconnecting power, holding in power button, reconnecting power, I can eventually get it to power up. What the heck is this all about? \

Come on Whistler, you can do better than this with reliability. Cripes, fix the darn firmware. The Internet boards are filled with issues around these errors.

You only hold the power button until it says to release it.

The initializing, etc., is normal procedure. You're holding the power button too long and putting it in firmware update mode...
 

03msc

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Yeah, I usually end up corrupting the SD card - what's worked so far is just to leave USB and power plugged in all the time. When I do have to eventually unplug USB, I'll probably do it while the unit is on, then shut it down manually. It is cranky and I've gotten *really* good at the reformat procedure :/

I know we went through some of this the other night...I'm still not sure why you keep having problems with the card. When it is corrupting your card? Be detailed. I'm pretty sure you're just doing something wrong and I want to be able to tell you what to change.
 

Blackswan73

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Yeah, I usually end up corrupting the SD card - what's worked so far is just to leave USB and power plugged in all the time. When I do have to eventually unplug USB, I'll probably do it while the unit is on, then shut it down manually. It is cranky and I've gotten *really* good at the reformat procedure :/
The TRX2 does not need the USB cable plugged in all the time, just when programming. For scanning, leave USB unplugged and use the supplied AC adapter.
 

theTastyCat

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All of this is true. Since I'm new to this scanner and to modern scanning and trying to learn several complex systems in my area, I'm updating my scanlists several times a day, so it's just made sense to leave it plugged in. HOWEVER, I was having a great deal of problems plugging and unplugging the USB cord *when the unit was not otherwise powered.* I have since found that I need to plug/unplug the USB *only* when the radio is powered and on. If I plug or unplug USB when it's not, the USB somehow gives it enough power to sort of power it on enough to be corrupted when it gets sort of powered off - anyway, that's my theory. I haven't had problems since I've only been plugging/unplugging when the unit is powered and fully on. Really not the end of the world - just wish I'd known that before I had to reformat the card ten times and reload everything.
 

03msc

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Strange. I always do it when powered off - the computer simply sees the scanner as a drive on the computer (it's basically like plugging the SD card into the computer) - so to hear your explanation is baffling. However, if that works then by all means keep it up. Just the opposite of my experiences. Sorry for any confusion...
 

beischel

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You only hold the power button until it says to release it.

The initializing, etc., is normal procedure. You're holding the power button too long and putting it in firmware update mode...

That's the issue, it never tells me to release it. I keep holding it and it goes into this firmware update mode.

I did try the other suggestion. I found some class 10 SD cards I had for use with Raspberry Pi's. They were all 16GB. Both were very hard to format. Could not do it in the scanner. Had to remove, format and load the card on the computer without the scanner. Good to know you can do this outside of the scanner. I did get that to work. Put the card in the scanner and so far (knocking on wood) I have been able to shutdown, move the scanner, and restart without issue.

I will say this, give me my PS600 with DMR, P25 phase 1 and 2, and NXDN and I would be very happy. Miss having some of the buttons on the front panel. The PS600 is actually more sensitive than the TRX-2 when placed side to side. The PS600 is receiving signals that the TRX-2 will not (P25).
 

03msc

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That's the issue, it never tells me to release it. I keep holding it and it goes into this firmware update mode.

I did try the other suggestion. I found some class 10 SD cards I had for use with Raspberry Pi's. They were all 16GB. Both were very hard to format. Could not do it in the scanner. Had to remove, format and load the card on the computer without the scanner. Good to know you can do this outside of the scanner. I did get that to work. Put the card in the scanner and so far (knocking on wood) I have been able to shutdown, move the scanner, and restart without issue.

I will say this, give me my PS600 with DMR, P25 phase 1 and 2, and NXDN and I would be very happy. Miss having some of the buttons on the front panel. The PS600 is actually more sensitive than the TRX-2 when placed side to side. The PS600 is receiving signals that the TRX-2 will not (P25).

Try releasing the power button when it says initializing as those steps happen (on mine) after it says to release the power button. Not sure why it isn't telling you but...
 

Ed6698

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I keep seeing these posts with talk about SD card issues. There are no issues with these radios,

I can almost bet 90% are created unknowingly by the users. It is imperative that when doing any updates to SD cards on these Whistler scanners, regardless if doing it by USB cable or card reader, when updating is complete, these SD card have to be unmounted/ejected properly from Windows.

If not SD card issues will arise sooner or later. Also properly powering on and off these radios with a SD card has to be followed, if not sooner or later SD card issues will happen.
 

buddrousa

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Mark if I read his post correct he is powering the TRX-2 only with the USB cable. I read where Don stated you can use the USB cable to power and PROGAM if I remember but is not recommended. My TRX-2 Stays connected to power all the time. Sounds like the scanner is wanting to go into update mode by using USB only. So now the TRX-2 may need to go through 100% updates.
 

beischel

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I keep seeing these posts with talk about SD card issues. There are no issues with these radios,

I can almost bet 90% are created unknowingly by the users. It is imperative that when doing any updates to SD cards on these Whistler scanners, regardless if doing it by USB cable or card reader, when updating is complete, these SD card have to be unmounted/ejected properly from Windows.

If not SD card issues will arise sooner or later. Also properly powering on and off these radios with a SD card has to be followed, if not sooner or later SD card issues will happen.

Yes, I have been doing that and it did not have any impact on the issues I was experiencing.

What seems to have fixed the issues is abandoning the SD Card that came with the scanner. When I used a class 10 card and loaded it up, I have not had any issues since.

However, the EZ Scan Software still sucks. I don't understand the decision by Whistler to not publish the interface so that 3rd party authors can write decent software for the scanner.

I do not like that I cannot pre-select the TGs and conventional frequencies that get downloaded. Not to mention, editing with EZS is cumbersome to say the least.
 

03msc

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I do not like that I cannot pre-select the TGs and conventional frequencies that get downloaded. Not to mention, editing with EZS is cumbersome to say the least.

You can select what you want to import with the import feature of EZScan, whether conventional frequencies or a trunked system (sites, talkgroups, etc.).
 

beischel

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You can select what you want to import with the import feature of EZScan, whether conventional frequencies or a trunked system (sites, talkgroups, etc.).

How? I must be missing the obvious. With my Win500 software, I log into Radio Reference, start with state, then county, then I can check off the systems and talk groups I want to import. I do not see anything like that with EZS. So would appreciate your advice on how to do that.

Also, with Railroads, since they are moving to NXDN, if I set the type to "Auto" will it pick up either an FM or NXDN transmission on any of the RR allocated frequencies, or do I have to add that twice - one set with FM and the other for NXDN?
 
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