Understanding Scanning and the UBCD996T
This section provides you with additional background on how scanning works and how your scanner provides that feature. You don’t really need to know all of this to use your scanner, but some further background knowledge will help you get the most from your UBCD996T.
Understanding the Scanner’s Memory
Your scanner’s memory is organized in an architecture called Dynamic Allocated Channel memory. This type of memory is organized differently and more efficiently than the bank/channel architecture used by traditional scanners. Dynamic Allocated design matches how radio systems actually work much more closely, making it easier to program and use your scanner and determine how much memory you have used and how much you have left.
Instead of being organized into separate banks and channels, your scanner’s memory is contained in a pool. You simply use as much memory as you need in the pool to store as many frequencies, and talk group ID’s as desired. No memory space is wasted, and you can tell at a glance how much memory you have used and how much remains.
With a traditional scanner, when you program it to track a trunked system, you must first program the frequencies. Since you can only program one trunking system per bank in a traditional scanner, if there were (for example) 30 frequencies, the remaining channels in the bank are not used and therefore wasted. Also, since some trunked systems might have hundreds of talk groups, you would have had to enter those types of systems into multiple banks in order to monitor and track all the ID’s.
Understanding Quick Keys
Traditional “Banked” scanners let you select and deselect banks by pressing a single digit on the keypad. The UBCD996T uses a similar method to turn on and off scanning sites and systems. When you program a system or site, you assign a quick key (System/Site Quick Key, or SQK) from 0 to 99. You can use the same quick key for multiple systems, so that the systems are turned on and off together. To turn a system/site on or off, just press the digit corresponding to the assigned SQK. For
The UBCD996T lets you assign another quick key to a group of channels within a system. This group quick key (GQK) can be from
groups, you press 
while the scanner is scanning the system containing the channels, then press the GQK within 2 seconds. Systems can have up to 20 channel groups, and multiple channel groups can be assigned to the same GQK.
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