x36 FL updating strategies

[wm8s]

My BCDx36HP Favorites List update procedure will eat a week's vacation every year at this rate, and it still isn't very satisfying. What am I missing?

I have 90 FLs, almost all created by appending systems from the master DB, and a few custom ones (to make up for the deleted service searches, for example). [If you think that's a lot, move to a city with 6.5 million people in 10,000 square miles. There are a LOT of channels here that I am not scanning.]

So every week, I first have to update the master database with Sentinel. Then I have to peck through the surrounding 7 counties, the statewide systems, and the nationwide systems hunting down all of the systems that correspond to my FLs, and re-Append them one at a time to the corresponding FLs, with Sentinel constantly frustratingly jumping around in the system explorer tree. At even 30 seconds an FL on a good day, that's pushing an hour already.

Then God forbid I should want to customize anything. If I want a 5-second delay instead of the default 2-second delay, I have to hunt through every department in every system in every FL looking for ones that might have gotten appended so that I can change their delays (and colors, and alert tones, and ...). ONE system here has 1,653 channels in 101 departments. Now I'm way over an hour.

But don't touch the channel name!!! If I do, Sentinel will ignore the perfectly good unique internal code that it had for that channel, forget that I already have that channel in this system, and add it again with the old name.

Is there a better solution?

 

[lep]

And all the things have so many changes you have to do that every week? I live in a much smaller area and have only a few FL but there is rarely a change, and if there is a change, it is unusual for it to be something I did not submit to rr.com in the first place so I already know about it and it is already in my data.
But, to answer your original Query, No, if there is a better way those of us who have been using the HP-1 for the last 3 years haven't found another way.

 

[wm8s]

And all the things have so many changes you have to do that every week?

"Have to" is a little strong but yes: If you combine the analog and P-25 layers of just one trunked system here, it's 80 sites, 627 repeaters [!], and 3,290 talkgroups. It gets new TGs more or less every week, and new sites at least monthly. And that's just one FL. The last couple weekly updates I did each had a couple dozen new channels across all of my FLs. But no, I will not have the luxury of keeping them up-to-date.

 

[detroit780]

Database changes for radio updates

I agree with you. I update my Michigan MPSCS each week too. It's a massive state system and new counties and cities come online each week. There may be some weeks where nothing changes. Great! But mostly there are new editions.

Each system has a SID. RR turns the changes to green when they are made and yellow after 24 hours. I wonder if they could leave it yellow for a week until the update comes out. That way at least we could glance at the DB and see what exactly changed during the week. Since Uniden updates on Monday and GRE on Saturday the changes could stay until Tuesday each week to cover all. Or turn orange for another week if need be.

Just a thought.

"Have to" is a little strong but yes: If you combine the analog and P-25 layers of just one trunked system here, it's 80 sites, 627 repeaters [!], and 3,290 talkgroups. It gets new TGs more or less every week, and new sites at least monthly. And that's just one FL. The last couple weekly updates I did each had a couple dozen new channels across all of my FLs. But no, I will not have the luxury of keeping them up-to-date.

 

[lep]

My BCDx36HP Favorites List update procedure will eat a week's vacation every year at this rate, and it still isn't very satisfying. What am I missing?

<DEL>

So every week, I first have to update the master database with Sentinel. Then I have to peck through the surrounding 7 counties

I have to hunt through

Is there a better solution?

Have to? I was just quoting Your use of the phrase 3 times in your Query.
No, I am not aware of another solution? Since the HP-1 also uses a version of Sentinel to update, this topic has been discussed many time over the last 4 years and UPMAN has explained several times why the Uniden update of rr.com data can only update the overall database and not your customized FLs. Whatever is contained in your FLs is strictly up to you to modify as you wish (or not). I rarely have a reason to update my own small lists.

 

[ofd8001]

If there was a date field added to each line of the RR database which carried over to the Master HP Database showing something like "Date Added" or "Date Modified", that should be the answer.

Someone perusing through the database would then know if there's a new or changed entry, in which case he might append the changes. Or, if the date is "old" then he'd pass them by.

 

[RBMTS]

I'm confused why WM8S feels compelled to need to update his FL's every time an update occurs to the RR database for the Houston area. To me, a favorite list is the most listened to talk groups or conventional frequencies that a person would want to monitor. For my listening habits that means I only listen to specific PD, FD, or Interop talk groups. Those rarely ever change in large systems. In fact, I greatly modified the alpha-tags on my favorite's list to better serve my needs for what I needed to see on the scanner display. After the initial setup, I rarely ever have the need to update my favorites list in my HP-1. Do I personally care to have to update or add a talk group listed for a small town that might be 20 miles away that I would never listen to - no. If I wanted to make sure I was listening to everything in my area I would do a "full county" scan using the full DB that is updated each week. If I travel I am using the GPS and the full database. Granted there might be a time when a new TG or frequency would need to be added to my favorites list and that is easily accomplished by editing the specific favorites list.

This is not a criticism of what WM8S is doing or feels necessary to complete. I realize that everyone's listening preferences differ and mileage may vary from person to person. So please don't take my comments as any criticism or flame as to what is being done. I just never found the process to be difficult and I'm just curious and trying to understand why WM8S feels it necessary to update it so much and maybe I am missing something. Are settings or individual specific alpha-tags not staying stored after a full DB update?

 

[wm8s]

Thanks. That was very helpful.