Wiki News and Maintenance

[ka3jjz]

Mike, this is not quite correct. If the scanner is capable of CCh only mode, then it will function that way on any band that it will trunk a Motorola system on. That is the purpose of providing the base/offset/spacing for the VHF/UHF trunking system. I am not aware of any CCh capable scanner that does not allow CCh in VHF/UHF (providing of course that it trunks in VHF/UHF at all), I know that all of my CCh capable scanners will do this. The Plans required in the older Uniden scanners (like the 796) are only required for the 800 MHz band; 900 MHz, UHF, & VHF do not require a Plan, but the UHF & VHF do require the proper base/offset/spacing to be set.

Hmm, that's a new one on me. Then go ahead and fix the article, Lou. I had always thought that CCO was for 800 and 900 Mhz trunks only. Thanks for the correction 73s Mike

 

[fmon]

Mike, this is not quite correct. If the scanner is capable of CCh only mode, then it will function that way on any band that it will trunk a Motorola system on. That is the purpose of providing the base/offset/spacing for the VHF/UHF trunking system. I am not aware of any CCh capable scanner that does not allow CCh in VHF/UHF (providing of course that it trunks in VHF/UHF at all), I know that all of my CCh capable scanners will do this. The Plans required in the older Uniden scanners (like the 796) are only required for the 800 MHz band; 900 MHz, UHF, & VHF do not require a Plan, but the UHF & VHF do require the proper base/offset/spacing to be set.

Lou,

I can't find any comment regarding CC only mode in the 396/996 owner manuals, but the 250/785/296/796 scanners clearly state 800/900 only for this feature. With my 785D when UHF or VHF is selected in menu, CC only option is not available. In ScanControl, if V/U HF are selected, a N/A is the only option in the CC only pulldown and ARC doesn't even offer the setting for these two bands.

I made the corrections last night for the 7 GRE made Radio Shack scanners but the 4 Unidens I mentioned need to remain as indicated in the Wiki.

No doubt the new GRE's coming out this fall will also function with this feature. Seems cpunut {beta tester here in VA) may have mentioned they do.

 

[loumaag]

Lou,

I can't find any comment regarding CC only mode in the 396/996 owner manuals, but the 250/785/296/796 scanners clearly state 800/900 only for this feature. With my 785D when UHF or VHF is selected in menu, CC only option is not available. In ScanControl, if V/U HF are selected, a N/A is the only option in the CC only pulldown and ARC doesn't even offer the setting for these two bands.

I made the corrections last night for the 7 GRE made Radio Shack scanners but the 4 Unidens I mentioned need to remain as indicated in the Wiki.

No doubt the new GRE's coming out this fall will also function with this feature. Seems cpunut {beta tester here in VA) may have mentioned they do.

Frank (and Mike):

Well I cannot verify it right now, I have no VHF or UHF Moto systems anywhere in the Amarillo area (indeed the only Moto system is a VSLEP system); however, it seems to me that the purpose of supplying the Base/Offset/Spacing parameters takes the place of picking a Plan in the 800 MHz otherwise there is no purpose in supplying them. By supplying the band parameters, you are telling the radio what voice frequency to go to based on the channel number supplied by the grant. If my memory serves, this worked just fine when I was in SD for the SD State system. If either of you have a VHF/UHF Moto system near you, set it up in another bank supplying the proper Base/Offset/Spacing and only enter the current control channel, then ID Search and see if works.

Another oddity (not really dealing directly with this) about the 796D, is on VHF/UHF P25 systems, it makes no difference what you put in the Base/Offset/Spacing, as the 796D figures out the proper band plan based on CCh supplied data, but you must put something in there because the radio expects to see something.

 

[fmon]

Lou,

I have several UHF Mot systems and CC only won't work on my 785 and the 796 manual uses the same wording.

Also, I know of at least two UHF and one VHF P25 systems which the 796 will not trunktrack for lack of table settings...Ft Leonard Wood MO, WV Inop and VA STARS. I just had a look at your former SD VHF system thinking you maybe had it working on a 796 but that system doesn't appear to be P25 with those trunking tables.

 

[loumaag]

Lou,

I have several UHF Mot systems and CC only won't work on my 785 and the 796 manual uses the same wording.

Also, I know of at least two UHF and one VHF P25 systems which the 796 will not trunktrack for lack of table settings...Ft Leonard Wood MO, WV Inop and VA STARS. I just had a look at your former SD VHF system thinking you maybe had it working on a 796 but that system doesn't appear to be P25 with those trunking tables.

Hmm, okay the SD System is a Moto Type II and with the table settings there (all three) I seem to remember the 796 working in CCh only but maybe I am remembering wrong, that is why I said what I did initially.

The P25 comment I made was in reference to an actual P25 system (Ellsworth AFB) which worked without setting the tables to anything valid, I seem to remember leaving the default values (whatever they were) when setting up the 796 but cussing up a storm trying to get the Pro-96 to work with that table setup, and since I was the one who supplied that system (using Pro96Com) I know that I was monitoring with the 796 and mapping with the Pro96 at the same time.

I am wondering now, if I was confusing the BCD396T with the BC796D, since I had them both in SD. I know that the BCD396T works in CCh on VHF as the option is there.
I think this is one of those instances when I typed before I looked. :roll:

 

[fmon]

Well the issue in this thread is to provide a source for members to review regarding scanners and trunking systems. We have the 7 RS GRE built scanners and 2 RS Uniden built scanners taken care of. I think the non DMA scanners (250/296/785/796) are correct as stated in the Wiki but I'm sure the 246/330/396/BCt15/996 need attention.

 

[loumaag]

You are correct and in that regard I have altered the article to reflect those changes. It did require adding a new page to explain the banks and lists concept but what-the-hey.

 

[ka3jjz]

First off I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has pitched in over the last week or two to keep our Wiki free of spam. I've been tied up at work lately (end of federal fiscal year 07) and family needs in NJ really makes having a 'team' very important. In addition, Bezking has assumed the mantle as the second admin for the wiki. He has a far better understanding of the internal workings of the wiki, and is well suited for the job.

Along with that, our changes page is pretty clogged with Bot reports and spammed pages; if I don't mention your changes, be assured that it isn't intentional; it's hard to spot stuff with all the clutter there. Onward...

• cubn has continued adding more data to the Starcom21 article, and added many more sports related entries as well. He is now offering PRO96Com files for other Illinois PRO-96/2096 users.

• GaryTX has added numerous pix of public safety equipment. There's far and away too many to list here, so please see our Public Safety Apparatus article for more

• During the last month or so, tropo and some E skip has been noted on the VHF bands - so I thought it was time to add a Skip Above 30 Mhz category page to capture any related articles. There's one there already, and it has several links. Some of them point to the well-known club specializing in TV/FM DX in the US, the Worldwide TV FM DX Association. More related links and articles are certainly welcome

• Traveling to Colorado and want a quick amateur repeater list? BlackIce (one of the ones who has been putting in more than his share of time on keeping an eye on the Wiki) has put together a
  Colorado repeaters article in our US section

• As mentioned elsewhere, Aubs has begun an article on new freeware for the DMA radios called
  BCTool . This is freeware (programming and control) for the Uniden DMA scanners. I've been in contact with the author, and he is willing to research adding RR database import into his software. He also runs a seperate Yahoo group and yet another forum for reporting bugs. This is very much a beta package, so expect there will be bugs, and as they always say, backup, backup, backup first....

In addition to these changes, there's been some smaller edits as well;

• A brief article on the LPGA by cubn

• Frank made a fix to the
  Pro92 Programming Shortcut article to correct a step regarding setting up trunking

• EBurns added some info to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) railroad article

• Wa4hrk made a small change to our
  Recording Software and Tips article

• Finally Gaaf05 has a stub built for the
  Grand Ledge 3/238th squad. Michigan Milcomers, please add to this article - all it has at the moment is a callsign

That's it for another month or so. Hopefully by this time next month, the 3.0 changes for the wiki will be in place, it will have turned cooler, and we'll all breathe a little easier. I know I will. 73s Mike

 

[bezking]

Hi everyone,

I'm glad to be able to help with the Wiki and hope I am doing a good job!

 

[ka3jjz]

To me, you're doing great. Having more than 1 set of eyes on the wiki is a big help to me, and to our users as well. 73s Mike

 

[bezking]

Awwww - Thanks Mike!

 

[ka3jjz]

Over the last several months, I've noted that our Wiki has vastly outgrown the structure of the current first article (the very first one you see when you click on 'wiki' in the blue toolbar, or in the left frame of the first page of the site). We now have so many articles, and many of them are buried, and difficult to get to if you are not familiar with how to navigate.

That problem has largely now been addressed with the new version 2.0 of the first article, which has just been installed. As mentioned in previous reports, the new article heavily uses the MediaWiki Category command and indexes already constructed by other contributors to make things lots easier to find.

Let's talk about some of the new features....

• The section called 'Forum Specific Topics' and right below it, 'Location Specific Info' are meant to mimic, as much as possible, the current structure of the forums. They are constructed to describe in more detail, or link to other pages, a topic or group of topics. Each of the articles listed has a link back to the specific forum it is designed to address. This adds a small degree of flexibility, since it's possible one might wish to return to a forum to ask more questions or make other comments. A few links go right back to the forum directly, as we don't have any articles for these topics - yet. You can figure out which ones

• The 'Accessories' section outlines items such as scanner antennas, data slicers, power supplies (such as batteries) and so on. A popular topic involves mounts and stands - they are listed in the 'Scanner Accessories' link

• Several questions that were on the main article have been folded into the FAQ, and the links about the subscription and web services have been moved way up on the article. This should make it lots easier to find. The 'create an account' link will be dropped when the 3.0 changes for the wiki are installed - hopefully very soon

• I've installed category pages outlining the different trunktrackers; more importantly, which ones are analog and which are digital capable. I've seen so many posts of folks buying a 246 or PRO-97 only to find out they bought the wrong scanner for the wrong system - this should at least start to address the issue

• The 'Special Topics' section addresses the problem of the buried articles that are hard to find - these include articles on ACARS, modifications, programming shortcuts, DMA hints and kinks and much more. One that will hopefully expand in the future is the RR Glossary - a category article with over 100 different terms and phrases. This barely scratches the surface, but it's a good start

This reconfiguration has brought the number of articles not linked to anything - and therefore very hard to find - down from just under 4 dozen to only 7 at this writing. When creating a new article, please be sure to add it to a Category, or one of the indexes as mentioned previously. There are 40+ categories now, and we can add more, so don't feel shy about adding one if you feel it's necessary. This way, an article can be quickly indexed and referenced.

73s and enjoy...Mike

 

[hoser147]

Good Job to All involved!!! You just help making this the Best site for anything to do with Comm s ................Hoser147

 

[bezking]

UPDATE: Bezking has categorized all of the apparatus pages as [[Category:Apparatus]] Please do the same when creating an apparatus page. Also, the original listing has been redirected to the category listing.

 

[ka3jjz]

I saw that, Ben. Nicely done. Now we only have just under 4 dozen uncategorized articles. Next week I might take a look at all those frequency listings, rebuild a category and change the index to a redirect like you have done. Then it can be added to the new main article. Then I'd like to tackle the RR related uncatagorized entries; after that, I think it's time the FAQ got some attention. But by and large, I think we're in pretty good shape.

One thing I think that should be done is something you did with the new category page - put in a request along with the exact syntax of the command to be used when anyone adds an article. That's an excellent idea, and probably should be replicated across all the other categories - in fact, it's so good we should probably make it a site standard. I wrote it up in the new articles page as a 'strongly recommended' but it can't hurt to reinforce it.

73s Mike

 

[bezking]

Cool. Yeah, with the Cat syntax, all the pages are organized, because some apparatus pages weren't on that list and now all of them will be in 1 place! Let's get that uncategorized page down to 0!

 

[tonsoffun]

Great work guys! It looks terrific.
Take care

 

[eorange]

Agreed - the opening page and categorizations are fantastic!

 

[blantonl]

To the wiki admin team - kudos on your outstanding changes! Looks fantastic!

Thank you!

Lindsay

 

[bezking]

To the wiki admin team - kudos on your outstanding changes! Looks fantastic!

Thank you!

Lindsay

No prob, Lindsay

Glad to help!