SDS100/SDS200: Uniden SDS-100 Programming issue

[dunvar2002]

I recently bought a Uniden SDS-100 and downloaded the Sentnial software. I did follow the steps that you upload from the radio first. I then created my favorites list and uploaded it to the radio. This is where my issues begin. I live in Richland County, Mansfield, OH. and have set up 2 lists.

List 1.
Mansfield FD/PD

1. Mansfield Fire Department Dispatch - CONV
2. Mansfield Police Department, Dispatch, Channel 2, and Tactical - Ohio MARCS-IP P25

This list will only scan the Conventional channel and nothing with the P25. Nothing is set to Avoid.

List 2.
All of Richland County for Fire, EMS, Law, and Hospitals.
Everything works, but Richland County 911, P25 system talk group of 42016.

Same with setting full database with Location of zipcode of 44906 and the selections for Fire, Medical, Law, all turned on.
This has the same thing with Richland County 911. No traffic. I have listened to scanner radio app that is broadcasting all of the above channels and 911 is working.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ken

 

[hiegtx]

I recently bought a Uniden SDS-100 and downloaded the Sentnial software. I did follow the steps that you upload from the radio first. I then created my favorites list and uploaded it to the radio. This is where my issues begin. I live in Richland County, Mansfield, OH. and have set up 2 lists.

List 1.
Mansfield FD/PD

1. Mansfield Fire Department Dispatch - CONV
2. Mansfield Police Department, Dispatch, Channel 2, and Tactical - Ohio MARCS-IP P25

This list will only scan the Conventional channel and nothing with the P25. Nothing is set to Avoid.

List 2.
All of Richland County for Fire, EMS, Law, and Hospitals.
Everything works, but Richland County 911, P25 system talk group of 42016.

Same with setting full database with Location of zipcode of 44906 and the selections for Fire, Medical, Law, all turned on.
This has the same thing with Richland County 911. No traffic. I have listened to scanner radio app that is broadcasting all of the above channels and 911 is working.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ken

For both of those lists, you only have the talkgroups. You also need the sites, with the frequencies, in order for the P25 TGIDs to be scanned.

There are several MARCS sites in your county (Richland).

 

[dunvar2002]

For both of those lists, you only have the talkgroups. You also need the sites, with the frequencies, in order for the P25 TGIDs to be scanned.

There are several MARCS sites in your county (Richland).

If I’m loading from the database, shouldn’t that be already included?

 

[jtwalker]

If I’m loading from the database, shouldn’t that be already included?

If you append the entire system, yes it takes care of talkgroups and sites. Then you can delete out or avoid what you don’t want. I have never appended individual departments or talkgroups, which I guess is what you did? In this case, no it won’t know what site(s) are relevant to you.

 

[RandyKuff]

This is the site info you more than likely need to load for MARCS-IP in your area...

Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications Site: Mansfield C.I.

Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications Site: Mansfield C.I. Details

www.radioreference.com

 

[hiegtx]

If I’m loading from the database, shouldn’t that be already included?

If you append the entire system, yes it takes care of talkgroups and sites. Then you can delete out or avoid what you don’t want. I have never appended individual departments or talkgroups, which I guess is what you did? In this case, no it won’t know what site(s) are relevant to you.

I suspect that what happened is what I've seen before. When you append one (or a couple) of departments from a statewide or large regional system, it also appends every last site, In many cases, someone trying to clear the clutter ends up only keeping the departments & those TGIDs, while pruning all the sites, instead of looking more closely & only deleting (or avoiding) the ones not of interest or well out of range.

You can carefully select a single department to append, but, again, that bloats the site count. For a system I'm not fully familiar with, I sort the sites by county on it's the database page; much of the time, the site's name does not ring a bell, often using some local (to that area) landmark for a name instead of a city or specific county's name. There's a site on on TxWARN, a large regional system that includes the Houston metro area, as well as a number of East Texas counties. The site's name? Reed Road.

If you sort the sites on the database page, then you can see which ones are relative to your area. In Sentinel, sites are sorted alphabetically, so it's easy to skim the list of sites & select groups or unwanted ones & remove them in the main Sentinel window; no need to instead try & edit your list to do that. I know a number of people suggest keeping the orphans, and prevent them from being scanned either by using location control on their list, or marking them, manually, as Avoided. I'd rather dump them. Should the need to use them arise later, I can always do another append to reload the herd.

Note that, once you've appended a system, using selected Departments, then trimming the site count, you can go back later & append one or more additional departments without generating the sites tidal wave, as long as you do not change the name of the system after you append it the first time.

 

[ofd8001]

If you set Location Control to ON for your Favorites List(s), which is in the right pane under Options, then the scanner will turn on the correct sites for your area and those too far away will be off.

 

[hiegtx]

If I’m loading from the database, shouldn’t that be already included?

Here's your two lists. I've added both the Mansfield & Shelby sites to each. Shelby might carry some county TGIDs that Mansfield does not.

 

[hiegtx]

If you set Location Control to ON for your Favorites List(s), which is in the right pane under Options, then the scanner will turn on the correct sites for your area and those too far away will be off.

Unfortunately, in his original files, no sites at all were included, so location control alone would not help.

 

[dunvar2002]

I would like to thank everyone for their help on this, especially hiegtx! There is a lot of good information here for me to learn. Gone are the days of just punching in the freqs that you need. I've been out of scanning for a while so I got some catching up to do. hiegtx, the file fixed what I was trying to do. I did notice that on the Mansfield list, I have an unknown. Have to do some research on this and see what is going on there.

Thanks again, everyone!

 

[hiegtx]

I would like to thank everyone for their help on this, especially hiegtx! There is a lot of good information here for me to learn. Gone are the days of just punching in the freqs that you need. I've been out of scanning for a while so I got some catching up to do. hiegtx, the file fixed what I was trying to do. I did notice that on the Mansfield list, I have an unknown. Have to do some research on this and see what is going on there.

Thanks again, everyone!

Do you mean that you are seeing talkgroup ID, showing the number but the text tag says "Unknown"?

On your Mansfield list, you have the MARCS system set for ID Search. (It showed that when I imported the files you posted.)

ID Search is turned on.

For the Richland list, that function is set to Off, which you can see if you select the Favorites in Sentinel, then look in the right side panel of the main screen.

When ID Search is enabled (turned On), the scanner will stop on any talkgroup that is active, providing that the TG|D is not programmed, and is not set as Avoid, nor is it in a Department set as Avoid. Since it is not programmed, the text tag will simply show as Unknown. Also, since it is not programmed, the scanner would stop on the unknown TGID regardless of the service type that might apply (since it is not programmed).

With ID Search turned Off, the scanner will stop only on talkgroups that you have programmed in your Favorites list, and it is not set as Avoid, nor is it in a Department that is set as Avoid.

To toggle between ID Search On, and ID Search Off, when scanning that specific system, press the Function key and then press the E/yes key. Don't wait long between pressing Function & then the E key; you have a short time, a couple of seconds, to do that. With the Function key press active, you'll see a small letter F in the upper left corner of the display, If you wait too long before pressing E, and that F disappears, then the switch will not be accomplished.

Easier to Read SDS100/200 Digital Scanner Manual

 

[dunvar2002]

Do you mean that you are seeing talkgroup ID, showing the number but the text tag says "Unknown"?

On your Mansfield list, you have the MARCS system set for ID Search. (It showed that when I imported the files you posted.)
View attachment 140946
ID Search is turned on.

For the Richland list, that function is set to Off, which you can see if you select the Favorites in Sentinel, then look in the right side panel of the main screen.

When ID Search is enabled (turned On), the scanner will stop on any talkgroup that is active, providing that the TG|D is not programmed, and is not set as Avoid, nor is it in a Department set as Avoid. Since it is not programmed, the text tag will simply show as Unknown. Also, since it is not programmed, the scanner would stop on the unknown TGID regardless of the service type that might apply (since it is not programmed).

With ID Search turned Off, the scanner will stop only on talkgroups that you have programmed in your Favorites list, and it is not set as Avoid, nor is it in a Department that is set as Avoid.

To toggle between ID Search On, and ID Search Off, when scanning that specific system, press the Function key and then press the E/yes key. Don't wait long between pressing Function & then the E key; you have a short time, a couple of seconds, to do that. With the Function key press active, you'll see a small letter F in the upper left corner of the display, If you wait too long before pressing E, and that F disappears, then the switch will not be accomplished.

Easier to Read SDS100/200 Digital Scanner Manual

Ok. Thanks for that info. I’ve got a lot to learn in this digital world. The unknown was on department, but since shutting off the id search the unknown has disappeared.

 

[hiegtx]

Ok. Thanks for that info. I’ve got a lot to learn in this digital world. The unknown was on department, but since shutting off the id search the unknown has disappeared.

If you were dealing with a "new" system, not one like MARCS that has been around a while, running ID Search can help find new talkgroups as they go into usage. Or, if one or more agencies in your area, that are not currently on MARCS, start to pop up, ID Search would help find the new ones and also give you some informtion as to who it is as well as what that talkgroup is used for. But in your case, where what you want to monitor has already been identified, and is in the database (as well as your Favorites lists), ID Search would be more likely to add talkgroups of no interest to you, like public works, water utilities, and other mundane functions.