Since my last post regarding my R-20 I have sat down and programmed both
frequencies and labels for about 200 channels. Here are a few observations
for anyone who is interested:

Programming the R20 is different than any other scanner I've owned.
Excluding Scan Edges, etc.. you basically have 1000 memory channels that you
can arrange into 27 different banks of UP TO 100 ch. per bank. As for
myself, this was difficult to get used to because of the way all of my other
scanners were programmed (i.e. you identified a freq and programmed it into
a specific bank/channel). With the R20, you program your memory channels
and THEN assign them to a specific bank/ch. number.

For Example. Let's say I have 20 police freq's, 15 fire Freq's, and 10
Public service Freq's I want to program. With my other scanners, If I
wanted to have a different bank for each group (let's name the bank's
POLICE, FIRE, PUBLIC), each group would reserve X amount of channels
(usually 50 or 100) per group regardless of how many channels were
programmed. In the past I have had to mix what I consider different Freq's
(i.e. Police/Fire) just to take advantage of the total number of memory
channels my scanner had. The R20 has made significant changes in the way
that memory/bank/ch. are assigned and once I got used to it, I loved it.

The first thing to remember with the R20 is that you have 1000 memory
channels that are independent of the bank/channel system used by most
scanners. Here is an example of how I would have programmed the above into
my radio (keep in mind that ICOM's channel's start with 00 not 01 but I
start programming with 01).

ICOM Memory Channels 1-20 - Police
ICOM Memory Channels 21-35 - Fire
ICOM Memory Channels 36-45 - Public Service

At this point all freq's are programmed into the scanner, but not yet
assigned to individual Banks/Channels.

At this point I do the following:
Identify Bank A Label as "POLICE"
Identify Bank B Label as "FIRE"
Identify Bank C Label as "PUBLIC"

Now, once I have identified each bank (A, B, and C) I then go back and
ASSIGN memory channels to each bank/channel. For example, I go to ICOM
Memory Ch. M1 and then assign it to Bank A ch. 1. Memory Ch. M21 is
assigned to B-1, and Memory ch. M36 is assigned to C-1 (and on and on).
Whats important to remember is that even though you have assigned a memory
channel to a Bank/Ch#, the Memory channels do not change. In other words,
Even though you have assigned all of your bank/channels, the radio still
holds all of the freq's in their original Memory format. Once you have
assigned the memory channels, you can then go back and add labels.

I have found this to be very useful when changing my mind on how a freq
should be stored. For example, Lets say you programmed a frequency for your
local AIR MED and initially assigned it to your "FIRE" or "POLICE" bank and
after the fact, you decide to have a dedicated "Medical" bank that you think
would make more sense to have the freq. The way the R20 is setup, all you
have to do to change this is go to your Memory settings (remember, they do
not change) and just Re-assign the freq to whatever bank/ch. you want

The best part of all of this is that if you assign 20 police freq's to Bank
A; CH1-20, Bank A will only take up 20 of your 1000 memory channels. With
27 Banks to work with (banks A-Z) the ability to customize your banks/ch.'s
exceed any other scanner I have worked with.

Again, these are my novice observations of the R20. Hope this information
helps.

Regards,
David
KD5LQV