SDS100/SDS200: Uniden SDS200 - How do I scan frequency range?
- Thread starter mxd334
- Start date
Half of California is underwater. The parts that aren't have had trees falling into poles for months. PG&E is extremely active. You should check out the news sometime.
Frequency ranges are here:
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System, Various, California
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System Profile
www.radioreference.com
I don't know what to tell you about your understanding of CTCSS's use cases but I can tell you that I am not a Windows user and Sentinel has absolutely no functionality that would enable one to create 500 channels in 12KHZ steps without spending many, many hours clicking around.
In less than 5 minutes I was able to make a formula in Excel to increment by .0125, drag it down to 500 rows, copy and paste that into a new system in Sentinel.Half of California is underwater. The parts that aren't have had trees falling into poles for months. PG&E is extremely active. You should check out the news sometime.
Frequency ranges are here:
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System, Various, California
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System Profilewww.radioreference.com
I don't know what to tell you about your understanding of CTCSS's use cases but I can tell you that I am not a Windows user and Sentinel has absolutely no functionality that would enable one to create 500 channels in 12KHZ steps without spending many, many hours clicking around.
After a bit of digging I found someone who had reverse-engineered the .hpe file format and turns out they're just mildly obfuscated .gz files which can be converted to plain text pretty easily. For anyone else who doesn't want to spend a lot of money on some extremely ugly Windows application just to automate channel creation, here's a quick proof-of-concept tool in Python that will get you a tab-delimited file you can actually work with just about anywhere. Error handling has been left as an exercise for the reader.
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import argparse
import gzip
import os
import shutil
# This is what passes for clever in many
# parts of the world.
UNIDEN_OBFUSCATION_KEY = 0xC
def xor_byte(byte) -> bytes:
order = 'little'
byte_as_int = int.from_bytes(byte, order)
key_as_int = UNIDEN_OBFUSCATION_KEY
xored = byte_as_int ^ key_as_int
return xored.to_bytes(1, order)
def decode_hpe_file(file_path: str):
path, _ = os.path.splitext(file_path)
temp_gzip_file = f"{path}__tmp_decoding.gz"
dest_file = f"{path}_decoded.txt"
print(f"Decoding to {dest_file}...")
# De-XOR to .gz
with open(file_path, "rb") as source:
with open(temp_gzip_file, "wb") as dest:
while (byte := source.read(1)):
dest.write(xor_byte(byte))
# Gunzip to .txt
with gzip.open(temp_gzip_file, "rb") as zipped:
with open(dest_file, "wb") as unzipped:
shutil.copyfileobj(zipped, unzipped)
os.remove(temp_gzip_file)
def encode_hpe_file(file_path: str):
path, _ = os.path.splitext(file_path)
temp_gzip_file = f"{path}_tmp_encoding.gz"
dest_file = f"{path}_encoded.hpe"
print(f"Encoding to {dest_file}...")
# Gzip with very minimal compression so Uniden's
# god-awful .NET code from the 90s can handle it.
with open(file_path, "rb") as source:
with gzip.open(temp_gzip_file, "wb", compresslevel=1) as zipped:
zipped.writelines(source)
# XOR to .hpe
with open(dest_file, "wb") as dest:
with open(temp_gzip_file, "rb") as zipped:
while (byte := zipped.read(1)):
dest.write(xor_byte(byte))
os.remove(temp_gzip_file)
if __name__ == "__main__":
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Tool for dealing with Uniden's offshore cubicle software")
parser.add_argument('operation', choices=['encode', 'decode'])
parser.add_argument('filename')
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.operation == 'decode':
decode_hpe_file(args.filename)
elif args.operation == 'encode':
encode_hpe_file(args.filename)
Ubbe
Member
I have Butel's ARC program and can easily create search ranges that also can incrementally add text tags, and that can also be done in the demo versions of ARC for Uniden scanners and then copy and paste the result into Sentinel, as the demo versions only restricts up and download to scanner. ProScan can probably do the same in their fully working time limited 30 day demo and by trying both you might find that you want to buy either version.
Creating scan lists with search ranges makes it possible to have individual name tags, as well as subtones, for each frequency where you can enter info about a channel found and can also move a found frequency into another list with only found frequencies. It often works to have the same frequency entered several times after each other but with different fixed subtones followed by the frequency with the subtone search enabled.
/Ubbe
Creating scan lists with search ranges makes it possible to have individual name tags, as well as subtones, for each frequency where you can enter info about a channel found and can also move a found frequency into another list with only found frequencies. It often works to have the same frequency entered several times after each other but with different fixed subtones followed by the frequency with the subtone search enabled.
/Ubbe
My understanding of ctcss tones is just what I wrote. It allows you to, with the correct tone, to listen to only one agency that may be using the freq shared with another agency. There are many agencies that share freqs and if agency 1, security company uses 179.9, and agency 2, PSEG, uses 169.6, and you are within range of both, then you would have to put in 196.6 to only hear PSEG. If you do not put in 196.6, and are in range of both agencies, you will hear both. But, like I mentioned earlier, you do not have to put in the tone to listen. Only if there is more than one agency on the freq.
Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System - Wikipedia
If those are the freqs, the hundreds you menton, those are part of a trunked MPT-1327 Standard system. And there is only about 200. The system is Statewide meaning those freqs are used across the whole state, not just in your county. Infact, only a handful are used in each county. Meaning you would only receive the ones close to you.Frequency ranges are here:
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System, Various, California
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) Trunking System Profilewww.radioreference.com
The better thing for you to do would be to go to the FCC website and look up PSEG for your local area and plug in those freqs that are listed on their license.
What county are you actually in?
Ubbe
Member
When does the need arise to use the tab delimited output from a hpe file?
Each favorite list are an uncompressed tab delimited hpd file that can be directly imported into excel and edited and then saved back as hpd that can be directly used by the scanner.
/Ubbe
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As mentioned above, there's no need to convert the HPE files. The equivalent HPD file on the SD card, or on the computer running Sentinel, has the same favorites list data already in a plain text format.
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