The Radio Information Board

Having the pleasure of playing with a number of different brands of radios, you get to see the trend of how each company has handled the scan list issue.

With that said, I have found that EFJ has not modified their way of working with scan lists. They have chosen to force the user to create a list and then select that list as they turn the scan on
from the front panel. if you look at this from the user's point of operation, it causes some big problems. The main one is trying to remember which list you need for what channels your trying
to listen to. Now take a look at how they handle the scan list in the trunking modes. You have the ability to assign the scan list by a per channel basis right in the software. You don't have
to stop and think which scan list to press the scan button so many times to get to the scan list needed.

If the scan list can be done in a normal fashion in a trunking radio software, why can't it be done that way in a conventional way? It's just software and would make a much better performing radio
for the public safety users. They don't have the time to remember how many times they need to press the scan button to select up the scan list they need. Plus, I think your limited to only 3 or 4
scan lists in the conventional radios. That is not what you get with Motorola. You get a scan list for every zone you put into the radio.

This may not seem like a big deal to EFJ, but this simple issue could be a deal breaker in selling radios. That's the name of the game today. Sell a pile of radios and keep the customer happy.

Hey EFJ, you need to listen to your customers. I like your radios, I like your prices, but I don't like a deaf ear to a simple solution.

Jim

Jim,

When setting up the conventional programming you have the same ability as you do in trunking to have each channel default to specific list. Thus when entering Scan Edit or Scan it will default to that list. From there, you can change to a different list.
Maybe I am not reading your question right though.

If you have an older radio with older firmware what you have stated is correct. Back in the day, in Conventional you could only have 3 scan lists and each time you pressed scan it would cycle between the lists.

I.S.

Intrinsically Safe wrote: If you have an older radio with older firmware what you have stated is correct. Back in the day, in Conventional you could only have 3 scan lists and each time you pressed scan it would cycle between the lists.
I.S.

Absolutely true for the older radios. So Jim, you have two choices:

1) Stay with the cycling though the scanlists scenario you pointed out, upon scan start, or
2) If you don't mind only forcing a SINGLE scanlist, you can slave the entire zone by selecting it in the Edit Zone screen.

Again, as IS implied, the newer radios don't have this behavior and allow you to default a scanlist per-channel, and can still manually select a specific scanlist in the field through the menu or programmed keys.

-f4t