I received a new digital scanner.

[orcomedic]

I purchased a new Trunktracker IV scanner and reside in CA. There are no pre-programmed channels or frequencies for San Diego, Orange County, or Los Angeles, San Bernardino, etc. (where I reside, work as a firefighter/paramedic, and have assisted with other departments on brush fires). With the preferred, or upper, membership package on this site, would the information be downloaded to my unit and separated into Fire and Law Enforcement automatically? Would I need to do anything else?

[ka3jjz]

You would need to get some software - and the choice of software is dependent on what scanner you have. It sounds like you have either the BCD396T, BCD396XT, BCD996T or BCD996XT - if that's right, FreeScan - (which as the name implies, is freeware) and a USB-serial cable (since PCs these days don't have serial ports) would be needed. In the download process, you would choose to get only fire and law enforcement stuff. (By the way, anything in blue both here and in our wiki is a link)

Uniden sells their USB-1 cable, and other manufacturers would likely also work.

Before you jump into anything, I'd highly recommend reading up on the scanner, and the technology (known as Dynamic Memory Allocation or DMA) so you can fully understand how to program it, as this is completely different from the older 'bank' style of programming. We have an extensive wiki section on this site that has a number of useful articles. To start, go to the blue toolbar under the Scanner Master logo, float your mouse over Wiki and select FAQs. From there, go to the bottom and select the Uniden DMA FAQ. At the bottom of this, there are links for the 'Easier to Read' online manuals which are a better read than the Uniden offering. Even if you have the XT models, if you understand the older T model scanners, it's a short logical jump to the XTs.

The FreeScan user guide is also hosted in our wiki. Select Software from the wiki pulldown, then FreeScan User Guide.

Time for a little light reading, hi 73 Mike

73 Mike

[orcomedic]

Thank you, 73 Mike. Yes, I have the BCD396XT. I will read the DMA, Wiki, and FAQ info you have recommended. If after reading, I do choose the "Freescan", is it safe? Is there a danger of a virus, since it would be downloaded directly from the net, rather from a software cd?

[rvictor]

Originally Posted by orcomedic

Thank you, 73 Mike. Yes, I have the BCD396XT. I will read the DMA, Wiki, and FAQ info you have recommended. If after reading, I do choose the "Freescan", is it safe? Is there a danger of a virus, since it would be downloaded directly from the net, rather from a software cd?

There is always the possibility that software contains malicious code. That said, if you go directly to the FreeScan website and download it from there, you minimize any problems. I, and probably thousands of other people, do that each time a new update of FreeScan becomes available and I haven't heard of a single instance of that type of problem.

Dick

[kc2rgw]

The Freescan author certainly wouldn't put a virus in the software. The only risk would be if his site were compromised.

For that matter, there have been many incidents of virus infected software on CDs being distributed, even from manufacturers themselves...developers who package software can have a virus on their machine like anyone else.

Freescan is great and the database here at least for NJ is quite sanely laid out so I only had to do minimal reconfiguration once I sucked down the db to set it up for my own preferences. Well worth subscribing. I had the scanner running county wide in just minutes after unpacking it. Took a week or so of fiddling to understand all the settings and get my own configuration sorted out but it was very much worth it.