A full featured scanner

[gbowne1]

Hi all!

I am doing the R&D for designing and building a desktop/base scanner. I would like your input into what to include in the design. Here is what I started out with as far as features:

1,000 Channel miniumum
10 bank minimum
storage for tons of talkgroups per bank or channel (I'm gonna say 500 miniumum per system bank)
Support for: Motorola SmartNet and SmartZone, EDACS 4800 and 9600, LTR Multinet, MPT, APCO P25
Motorola Hybrid, EDACS Narrowband, OpenSKy, Proj. 25 Std., LTR Std.
Support for: Any analog, APCO P25 or digital system voice
Modes: AM, FM, DCS, CTCSS/PL/CTS/CSQ
Frequency Range: 29MHz through 1.3GHz, not including celluar or PCS for the USA
Support for rebanding through software
Antenna Connector: BNC and PL-259/SO-239 and Motorola (for those who have that old RS motorola ant.)
Antenna Connector: Push terminals or screw terminal / posts for longwire antennas
Volume Control
Squelch Control
Manual tuning & manual frequency input (for conventional scanning)
Backlight control (User- Settable DIM control)
Power: AC 108v through 240v
DC 13.8v External (for mobile operation)
Mobile bracket
Ajustable Feet or Non-marring Rubber feet
Cooling fan (if nessesary)
Heavy duty tilting wire stand
Antenna switch (for switching between the three antennas)
mounting for telescoping rod/whip antenna antenna
DB 9pin, 15pinor 25pin Serial/Paralell interface for programming/control
3.5mm/1/8" stereo headphone jack
Limit Search
Control Channel Only operation
USB interface for programming from laptop/mobile
GPS interface ?????????
SPDIF Optical Audio
User settable Audio Attenuator (ATT in display)
External Speaker jack (RCA jacks and/or 3.5mm/1/8" audio connectors)
Manual Channel Change (key up arrow or down arrow)
0-9, ., *, & # keypad with enter and clear button all blacklit
Blue, Orange or Green backlit LCD or LED display, maybe even a Touchscreen LCD
Full featured Control, Programming & Logging Software on DVD-ROM (CD-ROM by special request)
Handy guides & manuals and a instruction / setup video on DVD and also printed
Flash ROM updatable
Channel/Bank auto-programming from a limit search
Single to Quad DSP (1, 2 , 3 or 4 chips) and updateable DSP software
Backplane construction (similar to FlexRadio SDR-1000 or SDR-5000)
Support for addin cards/daughterboards, etc. 1 or 2 extra empty slots in backplane
Virtual Scanners and software included frequency database files (on DVD)
Features that will allow the user to hear the signals closest to their location
Full Priority call listening
Built in Speaker 4ohm, 6ohm, 8ohm??????
Main display: Frequency, CTCSS/PL/DPL tone, Bank/Memory Channel #
Mechanical and digital software and/or hardware audio filtering (user settable); Filters for RFI/TVI??
Software features: Full Logging in a Scancat type layout
Spectrum Analyzer/Panadapter/O'scope/Waterfall Display, etc
Direct Band Hotkeys (police/fire/ems, ham, railroad, marine, aircraft, FRS/GMRS, etc)
Full programming control including firmware updates
Audio Playback/Recording
Control Channel Datalogging (like Trunker/Etrunker/MTRunker/UniTrunker)
-including CC health/status
-display of control channel output in both Decimial and Hex values
-display of System ID
-display of System Connect Tone
Digital/Analog S-meter in dB or full S-Units
Full trunk site programming from RadioReference dB with login
Alpha tagging (sent to main LCD display)
Support for Trunker/Etrunker/MTRunker/UniTrunker, etc.
Import/Export db or log files in different various formats, (Excel, ScanCAT, FCC, etc)
Saving & printing logbooks & paper log sheets
Reporting feature for sending Updates to RadioReference Database
Intelligent squelch control (will set its own squelch level base on calculated info)
A lot of user editable controls and functions??
Re-Band hotkey for new 700MHz systems
Will do audio following for control channel operation only

Ok anything else?

Greg

 

[Don_Burke]

removeable memory (probably SD card)

provision for remote mounting and control

over one thousand talkgroups per system

 

[firemedic78]

I don't know if I missed it, but maybe having FIPS for severe weather and fire tone out option.

 

[davidmc36]

police/fire/ems Direct-band Hot keys are a little useless nowadays (unless you could program them with somthing you wanted) with so much of it going to trunking. They never were much good North of the Border. If you are going to go with GPS you should provide bluetooth support for one less wire to play with in the car for those who have Bluetooth recievers. Why banks and channels and not DMA memory? Have a "Tone" control knob for quick adjusting of audio when all of a sudden a comm comes in where the user has swallowed the mike and it has way too much low freq audio. Remote head or have face-plate removable to use as remote head or just anti-theft like a car stereo. Include the double male ended 1/8 stereo cable (two feet long)for going from the headphone jack to the front line input on your car stereo. Shortwave freqs.

 

[georged4997]

also monitor nac , i wish some radios had preamps to pickup some of the signals better.

 

[fineshot1]

Oh Oh - yes and i'd like to have subspace communications capability - ya know - like they have in star trek.

Oh - and I want it for under $100

 

[bee]

Number of "hits" a frequency gets. I think the only scanner I know of that did this, was the 890 XLT by Uniden. This would show you how often, a frequency was used, if at all!

 

[rwl48]

Temporary lock out.

 

[maxpi]

Line out.

 

[smason]

Modes: add Wide FM!
40 scanlists (banks) minimum
TIGHT front end.
Software control of volume/squelch for remote use

 

[rdale]

Number of "hits" a frequency gets. I think the only scanner I know of that did this, was the 890 XLT by Uniden. This would show you how often, a frequency was used, if at all!

GRE's do that.

And who is this you are designing for that has the ability to put OpenSky and ProVoice in a scanner?

 

[chrismol1]

maybe some decoding for ACARS, alpha pagers and more and have a feature that records them and stores it

 

[Smerri]

No banks. Do systems and groups like Uniden has.

 

[DPapay]

Nice one Fineshot!!!!
If you charge more than $29. for it than it's no deal for me.
Maybe if you would program the thing for all the channels in the tri-state area, I might consider it.

By the way, to all the flamethrowers out there, I am just kidding here...

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Good luck with the ProVoice and OpenSky, when you get them worked out I will volunteer to beta test it for you.

Back in the real world I have always wanted to see the ability to prioritize my list of priority channels. That is have any pri channel interupt any non-pri channel. AND have a heirarchy within the pri list, higher ranked pri channels would interupt pri channels with a lower ranking.

 

[DPapay]

Don't forget the 20 year, unlimited, no questions asked, replacement warranty.
Build all of that, and you would sell a few of them, however I suppose a few people would have a problem with the $29. price tag.
Ha Ha...

 

[maxpi]

sensitive front end and 20-40-60 db selectable rf reduction. People can set the unit up for a very noisy environment or a quiet one...

Audio DSP with noise reduction and a graphic equalizer.

 

[smokeyjones666]

Well if this is a wish list, my big ones right now would be selectable band-specific attenuation or filtering for a few common sources of interference - FM radio, pagers, weather radio transmitters. I like having a sensitive front end, but not so much when it's constantly overloaded by nearby powerhouse transmitters.

 

[chrismol1]

one that will be produced within a reasonable time and put in the market

 

[gbowne1]

Great choices guys. Thanks for the input.
It will definitely have both NFM and WFM, and display as such.
Weather Alert w/SAME/FIPS is in the works
Price tag will be $500-1000 with warranty and/or gaurantee
Delco, I like that about the priorty control function.
Provoice and Opensky are only a possiblity. Perhaps we could get a group working on that.
Definitely will have DSP with basic & advanced controls and EQ
ACARS is cool on HF. Paging as well. I don't hear a lot of paging here.
Lockouts will be included
Line out for recording or for sending audio in/out for processing
Connection linkup for a 2nd receiver (for following)
The internal speaker wouldnt be a crappy one but you could elect to turn it off and run it from ext.
Good idea, Bee.. how about seeing that in the software.
Hotkeys would be user programmable. You could set up the bands for your area.
I always hated the poor squelch controls on lots of RS rigs.. it would be nice to have a more advanced squelch. Perhaps even a linked tone/volume/squelch.
How about a USB feature to allow people with datasticks/flash drives, etc. save their data

Anything else?