Please see this thread on radio reference for pictures:
http://forums.radioreference.com/general-scanning-discussion/305241-ces-2015-starts-tomorrow.html#post2316267
From the pictures, the scanner has a nice minimalist look to it. The SD Card is easily accessible from behind the detachable radio head. The display is nice and of course the remote head is a much welcomed and overdue feature.
If anything beats the Uniden 536, it is the remote head. I never liked the fact of having to use my phone, or an old ipod/tablet for a remote display. The last thing I want to do when I get in my car is have to manually turn something else on, worry if the batteries are charged, or even coming up with a way to mount it. Lets all not forget that this is still speculation, and that a year later, we still have no remote head option from Uniden. I would not be surprised if the 1095 comes out before Uniden has the software out. Fortunately, I never planned on using the wifi option to begin with.
Operational wise, I posed a blog a while back comparing the Uniden's to the PRS-800/WS-1080 radios. My opinion hasn't changed much. Bear in mind that this is essentially a 2+ year old scanner in mobile form. If you already have a PRS-800 or WS-1080, you already know the pluses and minuses.
Without GPS, or an easy access to the scan list, I still don't feel this is really a great mobile scanner. The exception is if you only keep to 1 or 2 area's, or plan on monitoring a statewide trunk system. The radio can by design change to the trunk site with the strongest control channel. There will come a day when most of the state is on the NJICS Trunk system, or their own county 700 systems, tied into the state system. When that takes place many years from now, this scanner would surely be a winner.
As a base scanner, this is sure to be a nice addition, however you will probably run into the VHF overloading if you have a base antenna. From what I have seen and read, the GRE/Whistler scanner either works great for some people, or it works like crap. There seems to be no middle ground. If you are one of the lucky ones, then this radio will be for you. I had been considering this one to replace my Home Patrol 1 on my desk, however I am probably more likely to go with the HP-2. Now that I have perfected the radio id import script, it makes more sense for me to stick with Uniden (despite how pissed I still am at them). I also had problems with VHF overloading, so the Uniden makes sense for me.
I give Whistler credit for jumping into the scanner arena and coming out with this finally. Although I will be passing this one up, I am hoping that within a few years, we will be seeing newer scanner models designed by Whistler and with improvements over the current scanner shortcomings.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
Importing a Radio ID listing into your HP Series Scanner Favorite List
Yesterday I showed how you can export a list of Radio ID's from Unitrunker. Today I will show how you import those into your Home Patrol Favorite list.
If you do not have Unitrunker, but want to import the ID's, you can always download my list (which is updated several times a week) from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4rxgywkd7xe6fch/AAAxFoNA-CToO9WxjT2iLqJka?dl=0
Again, you will need access to a bash shell to follow my instructions. Again I suggest installing cygwin on the same computer where you have your Uniden software installed.
I should also point out that since I have so many radio id's in my NJSP and NJICS systems, each one has their own favorite list. This will probably not work if you have multiple systems in the favorite list you want to import ID's to.
I will say this again, BACK UP Everything before attempting this. If you do not back up and render your favorite list un-usable, you are out of luck. I managed to break mine several times before I got the process right.
First thing you need to do is determine which file you need to copy. Usually the folder in is your Documents, Uniden, BCDx36HP or HomePatrol, FavoriteLists.
You will find a bunch of files similar to f_000001.hpd or favorites_000001.hpd. look for a f_list.cfg or favorites_lists.config file. Open it with notepad and you can figure out which list you need to edit.
Because there are hidden control characters in the favorite lists, we need to take the radio ID list I exported from Unitrunker and reformat it. Also, the Home Patrol list is formatted somewhat different than the BCDx36 lists.
This file with the ID's is 700ids.txt, and the favorite list is f_000011.hpd
First step is to process the radio id list and create a new list that can be imported into Sentinel (BCDx36 lists only). Also, if you are planning on importing the ID's into multiple favorite lists, you only have to perform this step once.
rm rid.out
cat 700ids.txt | while read line
do
a=$(echo $line)
echo -e "UnitIds\t\t\t"$a"\tOff\tAuto\tOff\tOn" >> rid.out
done
If you are doing this for a Home Patrol 1, replace the echo line with this:
echo -e "UnitIds\t\t\t"$a"\tOff\tAuto" >> rid.out
This may take over 5 minutes to run, however if you are working with multiple favorite lists, it will save time in the long run.
The next step is to cut the top and bottom of the favorite list (the id's are in the center)
sed -n '/UnitIds/q;p' f_000011.hpd > top.out
sed -n '/Site/,$p' f_000011.hpd > bottom.out
Now we put it all back together again
cat top.out > f_000011.out
cat rid.out >> f_000011.out
cat bottom.out >> f_000011.out
Finally, we need to run the unix2dos command, otherwise the software will not read the file properly and it will not work.
unix2dos -n f_000011.out f_000011.hpd
If you did everything properly, it should have worked. Because everyone's setup is different, it would be impossible to a simple script for everyone to use. Since I have several favorite lists, I setup a script that copies all the favorites over, creates the new radio ID section, updates all the lists and copies them all back. I also incorporated the Unitrunker export from yesterdays blog, so I can accomplish all this in 1 step.
Finally, I do not have a Home Patrol-2, so I have no way of knowing if this will work on that. If someone wants to provide me a favorite list from one (Trunk System with Radio ID's), I can look at it and I will update the instructions.
Remember, if you are going to try this...BACK UP EVERYTHING FIRST, and make sure your backup works.
If you do not have Unitrunker, but want to import the ID's, you can always download my list (which is updated several times a week) from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4rxgywkd7xe6fch/AAAxFoNA-CToO9WxjT2iLqJka?dl=0
Again, you will need access to a bash shell to follow my instructions. Again I suggest installing cygwin on the same computer where you have your Uniden software installed.
I should also point out that since I have so many radio id's in my NJSP and NJICS systems, each one has their own favorite list. This will probably not work if you have multiple systems in the favorite list you want to import ID's to.
I will say this again, BACK UP Everything before attempting this. If you do not back up and render your favorite list un-usable, you are out of luck. I managed to break mine several times before I got the process right.
First thing you need to do is determine which file you need to copy. Usually the folder in is your Documents, Uniden, BCDx36HP or HomePatrol, FavoriteLists.
You will find a bunch of files similar to f_000001.hpd or favorites_000001.hpd. look for a f_list.cfg or favorites_lists.config file. Open it with notepad and you can figure out which list you need to edit.
Because there are hidden control characters in the favorite lists, we need to take the radio ID list I exported from Unitrunker and reformat it. Also, the Home Patrol list is formatted somewhat different than the BCDx36 lists.
This file with the ID's is 700ids.txt, and the favorite list is f_000011.hpd
First step is to process the radio id list and create a new list that can be imported into Sentinel (BCDx36 lists only). Also, if you are planning on importing the ID's into multiple favorite lists, you only have to perform this step once.
rm rid.out
cat 700ids.txt | while read line
do
a=$(echo $line)
echo -e "UnitIds\t\t\t"$a"\tOff\tAuto\tOff\tOn" >> rid.out
done
If you are doing this for a Home Patrol 1, replace the echo line with this:
echo -e "UnitIds\t\t\t"$a"\tOff\tAuto" >> rid.out
This may take over 5 minutes to run, however if you are working with multiple favorite lists, it will save time in the long run.
The next step is to cut the top and bottom of the favorite list (the id's are in the center)
sed -n '/UnitIds/q;p' f_000011.hpd > top.out
sed -n '/Site/,$p' f_000011.hpd > bottom.out
Now we put it all back together again
cat top.out > f_000011.out
cat rid.out >> f_000011.out
cat bottom.out >> f_000011.out
Finally, we need to run the unix2dos command, otherwise the software will not read the file properly and it will not work.
unix2dos -n f_000011.out f_000011.hpd
If you did everything properly, it should have worked. Because everyone's setup is different, it would be impossible to a simple script for everyone to use. Since I have several favorite lists, I setup a script that copies all the favorites over, creates the new radio ID section, updates all the lists and copies them all back. I also incorporated the Unitrunker export from yesterdays blog, so I can accomplish all this in 1 step.
Finally, I do not have a Home Patrol-2, so I have no way of knowing if this will work on that. If someone wants to provide me a favorite list from one (Trunk System with Radio ID's), I can look at it and I will update the instructions.
Remember, if you are going to try this...BACK UP EVERYTHING FIRST, and make sure your backup works.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Exporting Radio ID's from Unitrunker
Happy New Year!
I still have to complete my GPS series, but for now I am changing gears for a bit and going to post how to easily export Radio ID's from Unitrunker, so you can easily cut and paste them into Uniden Sentinel or GREComm software. In my 2nd part to this, I will show you a way to update your Sentinel favorite lists without the hassle of cutting and pasting.
First a warning, unless you are somewhat familiar with Linux, this probably isn't going to be for you. 2nd, before attempting anything like this, BACK UP EVERYTHING. I would go so far to back up your files, move them to another computer if you have one, and make sure they work there. I am not responsible if you make a mess of your stuff.
Unitrunker is a great problem, and for keeping a watch on a trunk system, it is invaluable. You can alpha tag all the talkgroups and radio id's and keep watch for new users and/or new talkgroups. Where it falls short is that it does not really give you an easy way to export the data into something usable. You can load up the unitrunker file in excel and do the manipulation there, however it is messing and time consuming.
It is very simple to export the radio ID"s out. My method requires you to have access to a linux bash shell. This means either a PC with linux on it, running it in a virutal machine, or you can install cygwin (https://www.cygwin.com) and do everything from there.
First step is to copy your Unitrunker.xml file over to a working directory. Before you do, you should hit the "X" on the main unitrunker screen. It will say it saved the data and ask you if you want to quit. We do this to make sure all the updated data has been saved.
Since I have cygwin on the computer that runs unitrunker, I do this:
cp "/cygdrive/c/Users/John/AppData/Roaming/UniTrunker/Unitrunker.xml" .
Next we want to pull out only the Radio ID's
grep User Unitrunker.out > uni.out
Which leaves you a file with a bunch of lines that resemble this:
<User id="9681" label="Troop Car 2212P" color="00FF00" lockout="0" rank="50" group="53296" first="20140318174455" last="20140718182323" hits="11" voice="1" mask="1" logon="2" />
Next we issue this command to grab only user ID and Label, it also will move label to the left for easier import into Home Patrol.
paste <(cut -d "\"" -f 4 uni.out) <(cut -d "\"" -f 2 uni.out) > uni1.out
Finally, more often than not, there are a bunch of radio id's that have not been identified or alpha tagged yet, you won't want to import those, so we issue this command to ignore those, and create the text file:
grep -Ev '00FF00' uni1.out > 700ids.txt
You now have a text file that you can load into excel and cut and paste into Sentinel or the GRE program. That User id entry above now looks like this:
Troop Car 2212P 9681 (There is actually a delimiter between 2212P and 9681)
One final caveat to this, if you have several systems in your Unitrunker file, you will have to isolate the system before pulling out the radio id's, otherwise you will wind up with a file with all the id's from all your systems in your Unitrunker setup. By looking for a unique pattern (The system ID is usually a good one), you can do this this the sed command:
Cuts from the top of the file to a pattern match:
sed -n '/pattern/q;p' old_file > new_file
Cuts from a pattern match to the bottom of the file:
sed -n '/pattern/,$p' old_file > new_file
You can combine the 2 commands above if you have a bunch of systems and the one you want is in the middle.
As you can see, this is very specific to how each person has things setup, so there really is no way to come up with a universal setup.
The next segment will show how I take apart a Home Patrol favorite list, and re-assemble it with an updated ID list.
I still have to complete my GPS series, but for now I am changing gears for a bit and going to post how to easily export Radio ID's from Unitrunker, so you can easily cut and paste them into Uniden Sentinel or GREComm software. In my 2nd part to this, I will show you a way to update your Sentinel favorite lists without the hassle of cutting and pasting.
First a warning, unless you are somewhat familiar with Linux, this probably isn't going to be for you. 2nd, before attempting anything like this, BACK UP EVERYTHING. I would go so far to back up your files, move them to another computer if you have one, and make sure they work there. I am not responsible if you make a mess of your stuff.
Unitrunker is a great problem, and for keeping a watch on a trunk system, it is invaluable. You can alpha tag all the talkgroups and radio id's and keep watch for new users and/or new talkgroups. Where it falls short is that it does not really give you an easy way to export the data into something usable. You can load up the unitrunker file in excel and do the manipulation there, however it is messing and time consuming.
It is very simple to export the radio ID"s out. My method requires you to have access to a linux bash shell. This means either a PC with linux on it, running it in a virutal machine, or you can install cygwin (https://www.cygwin.com) and do everything from there.
First step is to copy your Unitrunker.xml file over to a working directory. Before you do, you should hit the "X" on the main unitrunker screen. It will say it saved the data and ask you if you want to quit. We do this to make sure all the updated data has been saved.
Since I have cygwin on the computer that runs unitrunker, I do this:
cp "/cygdrive/c/Users/John/AppData/Roaming/UniTrunker/Unitrunker.xml" .
Next we want to pull out only the Radio ID's
grep User Unitrunker.out > uni.out
Which leaves you a file with a bunch of lines that resemble this:
<User id="9681" label="Troop Car 2212P" color="00FF00" lockout="0" rank="50" group="53296" first="20140318174455" last="20140718182323" hits="11" voice="1" mask="1" logon="2" />
Next we issue this command to grab only user ID and Label, it also will move label to the left for easier import into Home Patrol.
paste <(cut -d "\"" -f 4 uni.out) <(cut -d "\"" -f 2 uni.out) > uni1.out
Finally, more often than not, there are a bunch of radio id's that have not been identified or alpha tagged yet, you won't want to import those, so we issue this command to ignore those, and create the text file:
grep -Ev '00FF00' uni1.out > 700ids.txt
You now have a text file that you can load into excel and cut and paste into Sentinel or the GRE program. That User id entry above now looks like this:
Troop Car 2212P 9681 (There is actually a delimiter between 2212P and 9681)
One final caveat to this, if you have several systems in your Unitrunker file, you will have to isolate the system before pulling out the radio id's, otherwise you will wind up with a file with all the id's from all your systems in your Unitrunker setup. By looking for a unique pattern (The system ID is usually a good one), you can do this this the sed command:
Cuts from the top of the file to a pattern match:
sed -n '/pattern/q;p' old_file > new_file
Cuts from a pattern match to the bottom of the file:
sed -n '/pattern/,$p' old_file > new_file
You can combine the 2 commands above if you have a bunch of systems and the one you want is in the middle.
As you can see, this is very specific to how each person has things setup, so there really is no way to come up with a universal setup.
The next segment will show how I take apart a Home Patrol favorite list, and re-assemble it with an updated ID list.
Friday, November 21, 2014
GPS Scanning Part 1
I have been trying to figure out the best way to go about this particular blog. This would really be suited for a youtube video, but that really isn't my thing, so I will span this over several parts. This part we will focus on a basic overview and the GPS hardware.
What does adding a GPS do for you?
If you setup your scanner right, everything will turn on and off automatically and you won't have to touch a thing. In my personal setup, I can drive anywhere in NJ or the surrounding areas and never have to touch anything except volume and the occasional locking out an annoying channel.
Which scanners support this and the differences
If you are a GRE/Whistler person, you are out of luck. Only Uniden's do this currently.
Most of T Models (BCD996T etc)
All the XT Models
All the Home Patrol Models
Supported GPS's
You need a GPS that supports NEMA and has a serial connector. The Garmin PC 18 is a popular one and works very well. Uniden makes one along with other manufactures. Some you can buy on ebay very cheap and just add your own power source and connector.
Some hand held GPS units will work too, such as the Garmin eTrex Legend. I would suggest going with a newer model, since they tend to lock on to the satellites a lot faster and tend to hold the signal.
My first experience was with the hand held eTrex and it would take 5+ minutes to sometimes lock and would often lose the signal. At the time, they did not have an external power option for my eTrex, so I would have to run it on AA batteries. As you can imagine, I would often get halfway to work and the gps would die. They is now a splitter/power cable available for these units, but I still highly recommend against using these for your scanner install.
Another advantage to the "Hockey Puck" style GPS Units, you can have it hooked up to your ignition power, so it will power on and off with no action from you. I have found that these units will generally lock on before I get out of my driveway.
My next installment will focus on the differences between the scanner models.
What does adding a GPS do for you?
If you setup your scanner right, everything will turn on and off automatically and you won't have to touch a thing. In my personal setup, I can drive anywhere in NJ or the surrounding areas and never have to touch anything except volume and the occasional locking out an annoying channel.
Which scanners support this and the differences
If you are a GRE/Whistler person, you are out of luck. Only Uniden's do this currently.
Most of T Models (BCD996T etc)
All the XT Models
All the Home Patrol Models
Supported GPS's
You need a GPS that supports NEMA and has a serial connector. The Garmin PC 18 is a popular one and works very well. Uniden makes one along with other manufactures. Some you can buy on ebay very cheap and just add your own power source and connector.
Some hand held GPS units will work too, such as the Garmin eTrex Legend. I would suggest going with a newer model, since they tend to lock on to the satellites a lot faster and tend to hold the signal.
My first experience was with the hand held eTrex and it would take 5+ minutes to sometimes lock and would often lose the signal. At the time, they did not have an external power option for my eTrex, so I would have to run it on AA batteries. As you can imagine, I would often get halfway to work and the gps would die. They is now a splitter/power cable available for these units, but I still highly recommend against using these for your scanner install.
Another advantage to the "Hockey Puck" style GPS Units, you can have it hooked up to your ignition power, so it will power on and off with no action from you. I have found that these units will generally lock on before I get out of my driveway.
My next installment will focus on the differences between the scanner models.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
The Future WS1095 Scanner vs the BCD536HP & Home Patrol 2
Up until recently, it was easy to program your scanner for wide area/mobile listening. Each bank had a quick key, you hit the key and at first you had 0-9 to select from. Uniden upped the anti when they expanded it to 99 keys, then you had to hit .21 for bank 21. Still not a bad system and it works (and still does with the BCD536HP).
Thngs got more complicated with some of the newer radios. The Home Patrol has no quick keys, and fumbling through the menu's while driving is just as bad as texting. Same will go with the WS1095 if Whistler doesn't change anything. The 1095 menu actually is worse than the Home Patrol when it comes to that.
Uniden introduced GPS scanning with the BCD996T scanner and has improved upon it with every new radio, and if properly setup it works great. This puts the WS1095 at a major disadvantage, at least for anyone who wants to use the scanner outside their local area.
The one advantage whistler has (and some of the older Whistler/GRE scanner's do this), is the ability to lock on to the trunk site with the strongest control channel signal. That will eliminate the need to manually turn trunk sites on and off. I have never found that feature to work all that great while stationary, but mobile I think it would be better.
My programming has the entire state of NJ, Eastern PA and parts of NY & CT. The Whistler radio just wouldn't work for me. Where I do see value in it, is the Statewide 700 & 800 systems. If that is all you listen to, or as a dedicated scanner (with a matched 700/800 Mhz antenna), the scanner could be a big win for people who just are interested in the state systems.
On the physical hardware side, the 1095 is supposed to have a detachable head, that is a big plus, especially in these newer cars. The Home Patrol has no remote option, but the slim design actually would make it much easier to install in a modern vehicle. Unfortunately, due to how the cables hang off the site, and the crappy audio outputs Uniden decided to use, really doesn't make the HP series all that easy to setup in a mobile environment. I won't even address the 536 siren app issue, but if you don't need a remote head, the 536 works great in the car.
Conclusion: The 1090 has potential to say the least. If you need P25 Phase 2 capability and don't travel outside your area much, it may suit your needs. As more of the state joins the 700 systems, there may come a day when all you need is just 1 system in the scanner. Until then, you need something with at least quick keys, or GPS.
My next blog will give an GPS scanner over view and some advice for those who are interested in jumping into it.
Thngs got more complicated with some of the newer radios. The Home Patrol has no quick keys, and fumbling through the menu's while driving is just as bad as texting. Same will go with the WS1095 if Whistler doesn't change anything. The 1095 menu actually is worse than the Home Patrol when it comes to that.
Uniden introduced GPS scanning with the BCD996T scanner and has improved upon it with every new radio, and if properly setup it works great. This puts the WS1095 at a major disadvantage, at least for anyone who wants to use the scanner outside their local area.
The one advantage whistler has (and some of the older Whistler/GRE scanner's do this), is the ability to lock on to the trunk site with the strongest control channel signal. That will eliminate the need to manually turn trunk sites on and off. I have never found that feature to work all that great while stationary, but mobile I think it would be better.
My programming has the entire state of NJ, Eastern PA and parts of NY & CT. The Whistler radio just wouldn't work for me. Where I do see value in it, is the Statewide 700 & 800 systems. If that is all you listen to, or as a dedicated scanner (with a matched 700/800 Mhz antenna), the scanner could be a big win for people who just are interested in the state systems.
On the physical hardware side, the 1095 is supposed to have a detachable head, that is a big plus, especially in these newer cars. The Home Patrol has no remote option, but the slim design actually would make it much easier to install in a modern vehicle. Unfortunately, due to how the cables hang off the site, and the crappy audio outputs Uniden decided to use, really doesn't make the HP series all that easy to setup in a mobile environment. I won't even address the 536 siren app issue, but if you don't need a remote head, the 536 works great in the car.
Conclusion: The 1090 has potential to say the least. If you need P25 Phase 2 capability and don't travel outside your area much, it may suit your needs. As more of the state joins the 700 systems, there may come a day when all you need is just 1 system in the scanner. Until then, you need something with at least quick keys, or GPS.
My next blog will give an GPS scanner over view and some advice for those who are interested in jumping into it.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Another Look at the Whistler WS1080 AKA GRE PSR-800
Funny thing about some of these new scanners, they either work well for you or they do not. There seems to be no middle ground. Many people swear behind the WS1080, other's like me hated it. I had the PSR-800 for about a year and it was a battle to say the least. I am revisiting this due to the expectation of the mobile equivalent (WS1095) which will hopefully be released next year.
The 1080 has a VERY sensitive receiver, which either works for or against you. A lot has to do with your environment (wifi, cell phones, laptops etc), your antenna and what you are trying to monitor. Part of my issue may have been my antenna selection. I had tried several different ones, but settled on the Seeker800, which in hindsight may have been too much gain on 800 & 700. Another common issue is that VHF tended to get overloaded very easily, which then required you to run those channels with the Attenuation on, and that often made the signal weak and scratchy.
Like I said, at home it was a constant battle. I did take several trips with it over the year and had varied results.
The first trip was to Southern California soon after I bought it. LAPD came in pretty good, along with most of the other systems I programmed in. Over all it was a pretty good trip.
2nd Trip was just north of Chicago. Trying to monitor the STARCOM21 turned out to be a disaster, which a lot of interference (from the hotel I imagine). I had to lock out several of the trunk channels and wound up hearing very little. I was just outside the Chicago range, but was able to pick up some of their UHF channels.
The 3rd trip was to Brownsville Texas. I had monitored the city trunk system several times in the past with Uniden Scanners and expected the same type of results. I did get more interference than the Unidens, but it wasn't as bad as it was in Chicago, I still had wished I had my Uniden with me through.
On to the sofware. A big positive is that you are limited only by the size of your sdcard (more on sdcard's later). Uniden HP series limits you to 1 meg per scan list, and if you have a lot of radio ID's, that space goes quickly. A big negative is that the software updates your list in real time, so if you accidentally a bunch of things, they are gone forever, unless you backed it up before you started. I had done this many times when I thought I was deleting all the radio id's and instead deleted all the talkgroups. If Whistler has learned anything, please change that in the next generation of radios.
Although the 1080 has a USB interface similar to the Uniden, write speed was painfully slow, and often wound up corrupting the sdcard. I found that you had to remove the sdcard from the scanner and plug it directly into the computer to program it, otherwise it took 15 minutes or so to program. This is another area which really needs improvement.
Sadly, I never really tested the scanner inside the car with the outside antenna. I wish I had because now that the mobile version may be upon us, I would have liked to see how it would perform on the road.
Finally, one of the biggest drawbacks, is there is no programming this without a computer. If you are like me and use your own scan lists, if you leave for a trip and mess something up, your only recourse is to try and import it from the database. Sometimes that works, other not so much. I found that the alpha tagging is often very generic and you may wind up with something that just shows up as "Police 1", but you have no idea which police it is.
On the next installment I plan on comparing the future WS1095 mobile to the Uniden BCD536HP & Home Patrol 2.
The 1080 has a VERY sensitive receiver, which either works for or against you. A lot has to do with your environment (wifi, cell phones, laptops etc), your antenna and what you are trying to monitor. Part of my issue may have been my antenna selection. I had tried several different ones, but settled on the Seeker800, which in hindsight may have been too much gain on 800 & 700. Another common issue is that VHF tended to get overloaded very easily, which then required you to run those channels with the Attenuation on, and that often made the signal weak and scratchy.
Like I said, at home it was a constant battle. I did take several trips with it over the year and had varied results.
The first trip was to Southern California soon after I bought it. LAPD came in pretty good, along with most of the other systems I programmed in. Over all it was a pretty good trip.
2nd Trip was just north of Chicago. Trying to monitor the STARCOM21 turned out to be a disaster, which a lot of interference (from the hotel I imagine). I had to lock out several of the trunk channels and wound up hearing very little. I was just outside the Chicago range, but was able to pick up some of their UHF channels.
The 3rd trip was to Brownsville Texas. I had monitored the city trunk system several times in the past with Uniden Scanners and expected the same type of results. I did get more interference than the Unidens, but it wasn't as bad as it was in Chicago, I still had wished I had my Uniden with me through.
On to the sofware. A big positive is that you are limited only by the size of your sdcard (more on sdcard's later). Uniden HP series limits you to 1 meg per scan list, and if you have a lot of radio ID's, that space goes quickly. A big negative is that the software updates your list in real time, so if you accidentally a bunch of things, they are gone forever, unless you backed it up before you started. I had done this many times when I thought I was deleting all the radio id's and instead deleted all the talkgroups. If Whistler has learned anything, please change that in the next generation of radios.
Although the 1080 has a USB interface similar to the Uniden, write speed was painfully slow, and often wound up corrupting the sdcard. I found that you had to remove the sdcard from the scanner and plug it directly into the computer to program it, otherwise it took 15 minutes or so to program. This is another area which really needs improvement.
Sadly, I never really tested the scanner inside the car with the outside antenna. I wish I had because now that the mobile version may be upon us, I would have liked to see how it would perform on the road.
Finally, one of the biggest drawbacks, is there is no programming this without a computer. If you are like me and use your own scan lists, if you leave for a trip and mess something up, your only recourse is to try and import it from the database. Sometimes that works, other not so much. I found that the alpha tagging is often very generic and you may wind up with something that just shows up as "Police 1", but you have no idea which police it is.
On the next installment I plan on comparing the future WS1095 mobile to the Uniden BCD536HP & Home Patrol 2.
Monday, November 10, 2014
NJSP 800 Trunk System vs NJICS 700 system Part 2
So you have both systems programmed into your scanner, sometimes you hear things on 1 system, but not the other. What is going on?
Most of it has to do with radio affiliations. A good example of this are the NJSP radio's. Most are 800 only, but the newer APX 700 radio's are slowing being introduced. Not only NJSP, but other agencies as well. As I said in Part 1, the 700 sites are smaller, so if you live near the coast, you may hear the NJSP Marine police on 700, but those of us on the North West part of the state may never see that show up.
There is a 700 talkgroup equivalent for every 800 talkgroup. On the 700 side, if you are trying to identify a 700 talkgroup, multiply it by 16, and chances are it will be an existing talkgroup on the 800 side. If the 700 talkgroup is larger than 4096, then it would be a 700 only talkgroup (The 800 system will only go up to 65536). Same thing goes for radio ID's, anything you see 66000 or higher will be a 700 only ID. Any of the upper ID's will show up on the 800 side as 65520.
Real world example
Lets say we have 3 users all on StateCom 2. User 1 has an 800 radio and is in Morristown. User 2 has a 700 radio and is in Cape May with a Cape May Co radio (Woodbine Site) and User 3 has a 700 radio and is in Camden with a Camden Co Radio(Berlin Site). No one else has affiliated with this talkgroup.
In this scenario, what you will wind up with is this:
StateCom 2 will come across the entire Troop B System, the Woodbine site and Berlin site. No one anywhere else will hear it. In addition, the 2 South Jersey sites will see all the radio ID's correctly, since they are both 700, however on the North Jersey 800 side, you will see the right radio ID for the guy in Morristown since it is an 800 radio, but for the 2 700 radios in South Jersey, both will show up as 65520.
Not everything can go everywhere, or sometimes they just don't
Not every talkgroup on the 700 can go everywhere in the state. Union County talkgroups appear to be restricted to the Union and West Orange sites (maybe others). They do not carry over to the Hunterdon Site, even though Union County radio's frequently show up in Unitrunker. Another recent development is the new Rutgers 700 site, soon as that went live, the Rutgers activity on the Hunterdon site pretty much stopped.
Another thing to bear in mind is that most, if not all the radios programmed on the 700 have all the StateCom talkgroups, so it is very possible to hear some units that you do not normally hear on them. This is why it is important to program the radio ID's in your scanner if it is capable. If someone shows up on one of these channels, you can easily identify who it is.
One Final Thought
There has been discussion on the NJ Transit radio's recently. Often you hear activity on 800, 700, sometimes both, sometimes it bounces from 1 to the other. They may be a few reasons for this. 1 is different radio's affiliated at different locations, plus these guys outside the North East are always on the move, so sites change often. The other possible explanation for this may be that some of these guys keep their radios on scan, so they may be bouncing between the 700 & 800 talkgroups, depending on the radio.
Most of it has to do with radio affiliations. A good example of this are the NJSP radio's. Most are 800 only, but the newer APX 700 radio's are slowing being introduced. Not only NJSP, but other agencies as well. As I said in Part 1, the 700 sites are smaller, so if you live near the coast, you may hear the NJSP Marine police on 700, but those of us on the North West part of the state may never see that show up.
There is a 700 talkgroup equivalent for every 800 talkgroup. On the 700 side, if you are trying to identify a 700 talkgroup, multiply it by 16, and chances are it will be an existing talkgroup on the 800 side. If the 700 talkgroup is larger than 4096, then it would be a 700 only talkgroup (The 800 system will only go up to 65536). Same thing goes for radio ID's, anything you see 66000 or higher will be a 700 only ID. Any of the upper ID's will show up on the 800 side as 65520.
Real world example
Lets say we have 3 users all on StateCom 2. User 1 has an 800 radio and is in Morristown. User 2 has a 700 radio and is in Cape May with a Cape May Co radio (Woodbine Site) and User 3 has a 700 radio and is in Camden with a Camden Co Radio(Berlin Site). No one else has affiliated with this talkgroup.
In this scenario, what you will wind up with is this:
StateCom 2 will come across the entire Troop B System, the Woodbine site and Berlin site. No one anywhere else will hear it. In addition, the 2 South Jersey sites will see all the radio ID's correctly, since they are both 700, however on the North Jersey 800 side, you will see the right radio ID for the guy in Morristown since it is an 800 radio, but for the 2 700 radios in South Jersey, both will show up as 65520.
Not everything can go everywhere, or sometimes they just don't
Not every talkgroup on the 700 can go everywhere in the state. Union County talkgroups appear to be restricted to the Union and West Orange sites (maybe others). They do not carry over to the Hunterdon Site, even though Union County radio's frequently show up in Unitrunker. Another recent development is the new Rutgers 700 site, soon as that went live, the Rutgers activity on the Hunterdon site pretty much stopped.
Another thing to bear in mind is that most, if not all the radios programmed on the 700 have all the StateCom talkgroups, so it is very possible to hear some units that you do not normally hear on them. This is why it is important to program the radio ID's in your scanner if it is capable. If someone shows up on one of these channels, you can easily identify who it is.
One Final Thought
There has been discussion on the NJ Transit radio's recently. Often you hear activity on 800, 700, sometimes both, sometimes it bounces from 1 to the other. They may be a few reasons for this. 1 is different radio's affiliated at different locations, plus these guys outside the North East are always on the move, so sites change often. The other possible explanation for this may be that some of these guys keep their radios on scan, so they may be bouncing between the 700 & 800 talkgroups, depending on the radio.
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