discriminator tap scanner question

[ShawnCowden]

why is it so hard to find someone to install this into a scanner ? I am needing help and willing to pay to get this done. I just need someone who knows how to do this for me. thanks

[n4yek]

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't want to accidentally mess up someone else's scanner causing me to have to replace it for them. If i tried to do mine and made some kind of 'oops', then I have no one to blame but myself.
I have successfully done my Pro 95 scanner, but it was an old scanner and if I messed up I didn't lose anything as I didn't hardly ever use it.
I can barely afford to buy myself a scanner much less have to purchase one for another person.
That's why I won't do it for friends, even though they have told me they wouldn't be mad if something did happen. That doesn't matter, I would have felt a responsibility to replace it as I was the one that damaged it.
I hope you can soon find someone to help you.

[ka3jjz]

Maybe you're not looking hard enough...try here for starters...

Discriminator Tap Modification Services

HTH...Mike

[ShawnCowden]

@ka3jjz I contacted that service and he wanted to know what scanner I was wanting tapped. I told him and then he hasn't emailed me back. A few weeks later I sent another email to him without a reply. so I am needing someone else to do it if he isn't interested in doing my scanner

[ShawnCowden]

I did ask him a weird question that he may have thought was kinda crazy. I asked him if the internet was required to use the discriminator tap to get a digital signal. By the way the scanner I am looking to get tapped is the radio shack pro-136 and will this affect much of anything since it doesn't do narrow band ?

[BamaScan]

A Tap is the "True" Frequency. The signal has to be clean signal is why the Tap is used. It has nothing to do with the internet. You only use the internet to email him and download the DSD software program. Your scanner is set on a frequency that you are trying to decode. It must be a Digital Frequency. And not all digital frequencies can be decoded by using a Tap. The audio signal comes down your antenna and goes to your scanner then to a computer that runs the DSD program that you can get here on Radio Reference. When you have the DSD program running and your audio signal levels set right you can hear the audio. It is a job trying to get your audio signal levels just right. My levels are not perfect, but it works. I lucked out and had a Icom R8500 so all I had to do was open the case up and move a jumper by hand no solder at all.
WISCO International (ICOM- IC-R8500)

[vans113]

First off why are you wanting a tap installed? Second I would buy a 2nd scanner to get it done, with a tap you don't have to have a digital scanner to hear digital audio. For example my local pd system is an edacas with esk, and they use provoice modulation. I have an old bct8 analog scanner I use to hear them on.

[beachmark]

Shawn, do you have the computer to run the DSD software with the COM serial port? You probably do, but just checking to see; as BAMASCAN said, you only need I-net to get the software downloaded to your computer. I think you can also buy a CD or DVD with the program if you don't have I-net.

The older discriminator for wideband might have a lower output voltage when demodulating the narrow-band digital stream, but that is impossible to know without testing. The wider IF filters will probalby let more noise into the discriminator, therefore the wider-band discriminator will proably be not as sensitive, but you can often make up for that with antennas. These unknowns might be giving pause to the tap services guy.

When I retire, maybe I'll do tap services on the side!