Uniden Departments, what's the purpose?

[DVINTHEHOUSEMAN]

I'm having some trouble understanding what role departments play in the more modern Uniden scanners. My interpretation of it would be to narrow down a system or county into separate things like police, fire, etc. or into areas like county agencies and then city agencies and stuff like that. Am I understanding it right? I'm used to the "bank and channel" sort of format and Uniden's System/Department/Channel deal is adding a "middle man" if you will.

Is my interpretation correct or is there something different about it that I'm missing? I've already read over the wiki pages and the easier to read manual and it didn't help me understand it.

 

[jtwalker]

Yes that’s it.

 

[Ensnared]

I'm having some trouble understanding what role departments play in the more modern Uniden scanners. My interpretation of it would be to narrow down a system or county into separate things like police, fire, etc. or into areas like county agencies and then city agencies and stuff like that. Am I understanding it right? I'm used to the "bank and channel" sort of format and Uniden's System/Department/Channel deal is adding a "middle man" if you will.

Is my interpretation correct or is there something different about it that I'm missing? I've already read over the wiki pages and the easier to read manual and it didn't help me understand it.

I used to have many "banked" scanners. So, I set my SDS 100 to operate like a banked scanner.

I toggle Favorites on/off by pressing the numbers associated with the Favorite I select.

 

[tvengr]

Departments are the equivalent of groups in DMA scanners. You can sort talkgroups or frequencies and place similar ones in different departments such as Interop, Emergency Ops, Fire, EMS, Sheriff, Police, Public Works, Etc. You can then select what you want to monitor by using quick keys to turn departments on and off.

 

[doctordialtone]

is there something different about it that I'm missing?

Systems
Systems will hold all of your Sites, Departments, and Channels.

Departments
Departments are also created inside systems. Departments hold frequencies (channels) for conventional systems and IDs (also called channels) for trunked systems. Departments are typically used for the various Agencies that you listen to within a system. If you are familiar with DMA (Dynamic Memory Architecture) scanners, think of departments as being like 'channel groups'.

Trunking Sites
Inside systems are trunked sites hold the trunking frequencies for any trunking system and any band plan information needed. You will need at least one site for each trunked system and some systems can have several sites.

 

[N9JIG]

You can use them to your advantage. Within a System you can create as many Departments as you need. Within each Department you can create Channels or Talkgroups.

For Systems within a Favorites List you can use them to separate Police, Fire, EMS etc. You can use them for different towns within an area (county, region etc.) For a System for just a police department you can group them as Dispatch, Tac, Operations. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

I suggest that you try a couple different methods of organizing your scanner targets and find out which one fits you best. Once you figure out how the various Quick Keys work you can use them to tailor your listening as you see fit in the moment.

 

[Ensnared]

I would like to ad something else I do to help with the turning Favorites on/off.

I put the number of the Favorite in brackets first. For example, [00] Waco PD. Then, when I go into the menu, I go to "set scan selection" and then to "select lists to monitor." Once I open this up, I can rotate the knob on top to navigate through the ones I've selected to download and monitor. It is much easier to see the numbered Favorites to toggle on/off.

 

[DVINTHEHOUSEMAN]

I was able to have some hands-on experience with an SDS and I think I understand the whole department thing better. I'm waiting on mine to arrive but I just wanted to make sure I had it nailed down since I haven't had any experience with Uniden's DMA format and the department/group threw me for a loop.

Thank you for all the replies!