So I'm trying to program my BCD536HP scanner with either Sentinel or ARC536PRO and every time i want to add a P25 trunk such as HPD Police channels it adds like 50 plus systems with control channels. It takes for ever to go thru all of them to just listen HPD channels. I was able to see that the control channels (system) for HPD is Houston General Government Services Simulcast and works like a charm. But say I want to add Pearland, which system do I choose????? I don't want to add all counties, I hope this makes sense.
What system does it belong to?
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Moved to the Texas forum as this is not a database issue,
troymail
Silent Key
I'm assuming this is TxWARN --
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4563
There are some options...
- You can go into your favorites list in Sentinel and AVOID or delete the sites you don't want to scan/check.
- You can set location control to ON in the favorites list and then enter your zip code on the radio
- you can assign quick keys to each site and then disable the sites you don't want to check
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4563
There are some options...
- You can go into your favorites list in Sentinel and AVOID or delete the sites you don't want to scan/check.
- You can set location control to ON in the favorites list and then enter your zip code on the radio
- you can assign quick keys to each site and then disable the sites you don't want to check
Makes sense troymail, I appreciate your help, ill give that a try.
Sentinel, by default, includes all the system's sites when you try to append a single Department, such as a city or county, from the main database to a Favorites list.
See this linked file. It's something I put together for another member in the Houston Metro area who was also trying to narrow down to a single area.
You can use the RR Locations link on the systems database page to pull up the sites near you, then, while in the main screen, not the Profile or Favorites editors, you can highlight and delete the sites not of interest.
See this post, and the related thread, for more details on what site you need.
Setting the location control to ON did not help, Setting my zip code and range still went thru a whole lot of systems. Going thru and avoid them really help, great PDF file hiegtx!!! I was able to "filter" the systems down with the map. The problem I am going thru now is that I set for instance Pasadena to scan and does nothing, but when I set it to ID search to ON it picks up a lot of activity "police" I believe but with no name tag only shows ID number or UID number. Why wont it match with radioreference?
Be sure that you have the correct Service Types enabled. By default, the scanner as shipped only has 'Dispatch' enabled, so just Law Dispatch, Fire Dispatch, EMS Dispatch, and Multi-Dispatch. But there are also 'Tac' and 'Talk' service types for those same categories.
Remember that when using ID Scan, the scanner will only stop on active talkgroups that are (1) programmed in the scanner, and also (2) arenot shown as Avoided (locked out) or in a department that is Avoided.
ID Search gets all active talkgroups that are not either Avoided, and are not in a Department that is Avoided. When using ID Search, if the talkgroup ID is in the Favorites list being used, you would see the associated text tag. If you are seeing only the TGID and UID, then the talkgroup is not entered in the list (and was not Avoided).
If you'll go to the database page for TxWARN P25, look just under the boldfaced section title for System Talkgroups.
Click on that link labeled List All in One Table.
That will list all the talkgroups in TGID order, for the whole system. You would be able to locate the ones that are popping up as just the ID and see who it is. If you are using a Favorites list, with the correct sit(s) enabled, but are still not getting Pasadena, then something may be off in either your range or location setting. Were the Pasadena TGID's in what you appended from the main database (before trimming down the site count)? If so, make sure that the Department they are in was not accidentally 'avoided', and that their location information is in place.
If you are using location control, make sure that your correct location is in the scanner, as well as in Sentinel. I've run across a few people that were having issues, and for whatever reason, their location was never saved correctly. That could be that once they set it in the profile, they did not save the Profile, or maybe it was never set in the Profile, only set in the scanner. If that was the case (never set/saved in the profile), then every time a Favorites list was downloaded to the scanner, it would change the location in the scanner back to the incorrect (never set) one that is in the Profile in Sentinel.
Also remember that if you manually add Departments and talkgroups (or frequencies for a conventional system), the location goes in as zero degrees for both Latitude & Longitude. That equates to a location off the northwest coast of Africa, in the Atlantic Ocean, and obviously 'out of range' here in the US. For the record, for Favorites lists that I create myself, based on my knowing what I can, and cannot, hear at my location, I do not use location control. Some systems that I can receive at home are 50 miles away or farther, but come in when my rooftop antenna is used. I only use location control, and the master database, if I am in unfamiliar territory, like traveling to or through an area I've not been before (or at least, not in quite a while). In those cases, using the main database as well as a GPS for location, the scanner will enable or disable systems as they come into, and then pass out of, range.
You might also consider posting your Favorites list in the thread, so that someone can look at it & see if there are any apparent errors or omissions. To do that, follow these instructions:
If possible, use Sentinel to "read from scanner" if you have made changes on the scanner that were not also made in Sentinel.
Then, export the resulting Favorites list(s) into an *.hpe file. Then, attach that to a post and upload so that we can take a peek & see if anything is out of place. The Export is listed under the File drop-down menu.
Note: To upload an *.hpe file, to the Forums, you must change the file extension to one acceptable per forum requirements. To do that, note where your exported *.hpe file is saved on your PC.
Using Windows Explorer, find the file.
There are two ways to do this. You can either change the file extension itself, or compress the file using 7-Zip or other file utility. The *.zip file extension can be attached to a post and uploaded to the Forums.
Or, using Windows Explorer, rename your file one of these two ways:
For illustration, let's call your exported file 'MyFile.hpe' (without the quotes).
<Right><Click> on the file & choose Rename from the pop-up menu.
You can then rename your file to MyFile.txt, or MyFile.hpe.txt in order to attach it to a post. Whoever views the file will need to reset the file name back to MyFile.hpe, then it can be imported into Sentinel for viewing.
motorola_otaku
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Something to watch out for with Pasadena specifically: they have talkgroups on both Zone 3 (Houston) and Zone 1/2 (Harris County.) Primary dispatch for PD and Fire is on Zone 3 and uses the 3xxxx talkgroups, but several of their back channels are on Zone 1. These would need to be set up as different systems since the sites they use are different.
Can't help with the database issues, I build all of my programming manually.
Can't help with the database issues, I build all of my programming manually.
Great info thank you!!! but This might be a dumb question put if the scanner has all frequencies loaded should it be capable to show the name of the UID? why does it have to be on one of my favorites list?
The scanner will only show the name of a talkgroup ID, or UID (User, or radio ID) if that is programmed in the Favorites list, regardless of whether you have all site frequencies, or only the control channels, programmed. The data stream that the scanner uses to determine what ID's are in use only has those TGID's and UIDs. No text name is a part of that data. So, if you have text tagged the TGID (talkgroup) or UID (radio/user), that information would display on your screen (this is also affected by which display mode you have selected). If you are running in ID Scan mode, you'll only see the talkgroups you have programmed. In ID Search mode, you would get all active talkgroups, regardless of what is programmed, as long as the TGID is not Avoided, and is not in a Department that is set as Avoided. For UID's, unless you have them tagged, you would only see the number. Text will only appear if you have entered the information for that ID.
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