Is it Possible to Optimize the Time if Takes to Scan a Scan Group?

[CALO50]

Situation: 100+ disparate emergency (primarily fire & EMS, obviously for listening only) repeater frequencies across the 6 disparate counties I spend the most time in. The frequency range is somewhat broad. Will the group scan faster if the frequencies are listed in numerical order? Most likely would not make a differences for a small scan group, however not sure for a large group.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, CALO50 said:

The frequency range is somewhat broad. Will the group scan faster if the frequencies are listed in numerical order?

No.

[OffRoaderX]

Probably depends on what you are using to scan with, but, I guess we'll never know.

[WRQW589]

1 hour ago, CALO50 said:

Situation: 100+ disparate emergency (primarily fire & EMS, obviously for listening only) repeater frequencies across the 6 disparate counties I spend the most time in. The frequency range is somewhat broad. Will the group scan faster if the frequencies are listed in numerical order? Most likely would not make a differences for a small scan group, however not sure for a large group.

Your other posts mention a couple of Wouxton radios; KG1000G and an 805G. Those are both nice radios, but I've never seen a two-way radio that scans anywhere near as fast as a dedicated handheld or desktop scanner like even a basic Uniden BC125. A scanner like that would scan through 100 memory slots in two to four seconds. Things slow down if there's traffic, of course, and even if you've got PL tones set on the scanner, it has to pause long enough to hear the tone. So there are limits. But a dedicated scanner from 20 years ago will beat most two-way radios in scan mode.

[CALO50]

2 hours ago, WRQW589 said:

Your other posts mention a couple of Wouxton radios; KG1000G and an 805G. Those are both nice radios, but I've never seen a two-way radio that scans anywhere near as fast as a dedicated handheld or desktop scanner like even a basic Uniden BC125. A scanner like that would scan through 100 memory slots in two to four seconds. Things slow down if there's traffic, of course, and even if you've got PL tones set on the scanner, it has to pause long enough to hear the tone. So there are limits. But a dedicated scanner from 20 years ago will beat most two-way radios in scan mode.

My bad... question was about using KG-1000G+ and/or KG-935G+ while on the road. Good point regarding having to pause to hear PL tones.

Uniden sits in the house.

[WRKC935]

You didn't give much info other than your number of channels and that it's across multiple counties. 

First off, are you running these frequencies in a radio or a scanner?

Second, are you wanting to hear what's going on it the county you are currently in or all the counties all the time?

And if all this stuff is crammed into a transceiver, are you also using that radio to communicate on ham / GMRS?

 

So the first thing I would do is verify that 'priority scan' was disabled.  Priority scan will look at the channel on the dial, then the priority member, then the next member of the scan list.  This repeats for EACH frequency/ channel in the scan list.  This of course slows scanning WAY down.

Assuming that we are talking about conventional radio channels and not trunked talk groups.  Scanning between conventional and trunked talk groups the radio has to change modes, again slowing things down a lot.  I am going to assume that this is all conventional since you are at least inferring that it's in a transceiver and not a scanner.

My advice would be find a scanner that was conventional only, which are cheap to get, and put all that stuff in it.

That enables you to create different scan zones that can be broken down by county / service (fire, PD, GMRS, etc) and then quickly selected or unselected from the front panel.  But you also need to be aware that some states have laws on mobile scanners, pertaining to having one at all, or having one with public safety stuff in it while mobile.  That's on you to figure out.  But if it's legal, a scanner is going to be able to scan much faster than any radios you are going to come across.  Even my old outdated radio shack scanners that are 20 years old scan faster than my APX7000 Motorola radio.  So that's something to consider as well.

 

[MarkInTampa]

On 6/13/2024 at 8:17 PM, CALO50 said:

My bad... question was about using KG-1000G+ and/or KG-935G+ while on the road. Good point regarding having to pause to hear PL tones.

Uniden sits in the house.

Here's a way to double the scan speed up the 1000G+ if you aren't doing it already. Just use both VFO's in scan mode. Setup at least two scan groups in the radio, assign one group to the "A" VFO and another group to the "B" VFO. Start scanning on one VFO, hit the AREA button on the microphone to switch VFO's then start scan on the other VFO.

FYI - I bought the 1000G+ the week they came out for the dual scan feature. I didn't think it worked, if I started scanning on one side, pressed the "Area" button on the radio to switch to the other side to start scanning (as according to the manual), the first area would stop scanning. Randy saw my question about this issue and asked Wouxun about it. There is (or was, don't know) a bug that the radio would do this if you pressed the "Area" button on the radio itself but works fine if you press the "Area" button on the microphone. Don't know if this has been fixed or not. You can also name your scan groups to anything you want but must be done from software - not the radio itself.

 

[CALO50]

On 6/16/2024 at 5:07 AM, MarkInTampa said:

Here's a way to double the scan speed up the 1000G+ if you aren't doing it already. Just use both VFO's in scan mode. Setup at least two scan groups in the radio, assign one group to the "A" VFO and another group to the "B" VFO. Start scanning on one VFO, hit the AREA button on the microphone to switch VFO's then start scan on the other VFO.

FYI - I bought the 1000G+ the week they came out for the dual scan feature. I didn't think it worked, if I started scanning on one side, pressed the "Area" button on the radio to switch to the other side to start scanning (as according to the manual), the first area would stop scanning. Randy saw my question about this issue and asked Wouxun about it. There is (or was, don't know) a bug that the radio would do this if you pressed the "Area" button on the radio itself but works fine if you press the "Area" button on the microphone. Don't know if this has been fixed or not. You can also name your scan groups to anything you want but must be done from software - not the radio itself.

 

Great suggestions!

[CALO50]

On 6/16/2024 at 1:10 AM, WRKC935 said:

You didn't give much info other than your number of channels and that it's across multiple counties. 

First off, are you running these frequencies in a radio or a scanner?

Second, are you wanting to hear what's going on it the county you are currently in or all the counties all the time?

And if all this stuff is crammed into a transceiver, are you also using that radio to communicate on ham / GMRS?

 

So the first thing I would do is verify that 'priority scan' was disabled.  Priority scan will look at the channel on the dial, then the priority member, then the next member of the scan list.  This repeats for EACH frequency/ channel in the scan list.  This of course slows scanning WAY down.

Assuming that we are talking about conventional radio channels and not trunked talk groups.  Scanning between conventional and trunked talk groups the radio has to change modes, again slowing things down a lot.  I am going to assume that this is all conventional since you are at least inferring that it's in a transceiver and not a scanner.

My advice would be find a scanner that was conventional only, which are cheap to get, and put all that stuff in it.

That enables you to create different scan zones that can be broken down by county / service (fire, PD, GMRS, etc) and then quickly selected or unselected from the front panel.  But you also need to be aware that some states have laws on mobile scanners, pertaining to having one at all, or having one with public safety stuff in it while mobile.  That's on you to figure out.  But if it's legal, a scanner is going to be able to scan much faster than any radios you are going to come across.  Even my old outdated radio shack scanners that are 20 years old scan faster than my APX7000 Motorola radio.  So that's something to consider as well.

 

Good ideas!