The past week I have been reading over and over the Motorola Planning Guide (500 some pages) and been playing around to improve my scanlist to speed it up and other features on my radio.
First I thought I would just reduce the number of channels in my scan list, down to 7 TG plus one simplex. That was a bit better but at the cost of not scanning 8 not so busy TG.
No big deal, by the looks on Netwatch and CAN-TBRO last heard, they are rarely used, or rarely UA in Ontario. ( test, DCI,MIT,NB,QC,MB,AB,BC )
So Monday eve while having dinner at a restaurant and reading again that planning guide on my iPad since this was bugging me and was telling Victor and Walter about my testing minutes before my dinner. Then Bingo !! there it was in the guide.. use groups in the scanlist instead of channels.. So when I went home Monday eve I tried it and so far so good. The results were Fast ! the only 3 items in my scan list. TS1, TS2 and one digital simplex; it could be 2 items but I like to have a simplex included.
Create the following Rx Group lists
TS1 with WW, EN, NA, CDN, DCI, MIT, TAC310, Test
TS2 with QC, ON, MB, AB, BC, NB, Local
Edited all the channels for the Toronto repeater or more for your testing..( Raglan, Hamilton..)
so for every channel that is on TimeSlot 1 it's RX Group is TS1 and every channel on TimeSlot 2 it's RX Group is TS2.
Next step is to modify your scan list for that repeater....
Remove all channels in that scan list, except one channel from TS1 & one from TS2 and a digital simplex if you care.
So your scan list can have NA, Local channels for that repeater and Simplex channel.
Since NA listens to all TG on TS1 and Local listens to all TG on TS2 you will be covered for all TG just by scanning those two channels and faster than scanning 15-16 channels.
So for past three days it has worked fine; scanning is fast and even when the unit is not scanning I know and hear when the TS I am sitting on is busy, without having to key up and get the "repeater busy" tone. So now I just wait for the other TG on same TS to finish their QSO or a break to key up my TG on that TS. Or even sometimes it saved me from keying up my TG because now I knew the person I was trying to reach was on different TG same TS without scanning.
