Rethinking Scanner and Trsnsceiver Programming

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w2xq

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For decades we have been struggling with COM ports and OS variants. In the 1980s I wrote DOS dBase programs, compiling with an assembly language program, to send information via COM1/2 to JRC NRD, Kenwood, and Lowe HF receivers. It seen so simple then. Since the1990s Iterations of Windows (and Mac to a lesser degree) have confounded the PC end user who is missing a driver or connector or the latest software upgrade which invariably fails to load on the older and slower box. Ovrr the yesrs I admit to hammering on a few PCs sending them to the metal scrap yards happy hunting grounds. It just felt good to do.

What about a new tact to program scanners and, say, amateur radio handheld units? Let"s be free as birds.

Background: I rarely turn on an old Wintel laptop anymore (maybe 2-4 times a year just to define Gmail filters). I haven't regretted it for 5-8 years now. An Android tablet, light, portable, 10+ hour battery life, WiFi and 4G support, is relatively inexpensive.

Challenge: Let's jump to the future and do programming of consumer scanners and amateur radio transceivers and handi-talkies with 4G/WiFi/Bluetooth technology using our commodity-level tablets and phones. Dump the PCs, detach the cables, and throw over the work table.

What say you all?
 

robertmac

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I have no problem the way it is now. I am not into the latest smartphone technology. What works with iPhone doesn't work with anything else. We have gotten ourselves into a revolving door of having to upgrade something everyday. Thus one's expense increases. Things become more complex. If there was a guarantee that the new technology would save me hours a day, then fine. But all this technology consumes a great deal of time. I will keep my old ham radios and old XP to program them. But that is my OM mentality. KISS is my motto.
 

majoco

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robertmac said:
I will keep my old ham radios and old XP to program them. But that is my OM mentality. KISS is my motto.
+1
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Change to wIndoze 10 just 'cos it's the newest? Forget it, WinXP works well for me on computer and laptops with COM ports that I can understand.
 

jaspence

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Programming

My Stream 8 tablet with Win 10 works quite well for my newer radios. Of course it is useless for DOS software, but with a small external keyboard and USB hub it works quite well. The only down side is that you must use the 32 bit version of Win 10.
 

marksmith

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Until we make somebody king again, like DOS was for a while, making it the only game in town, windows iPhone will fight with apple iphones and android phones.

I am partial to android, but there is no standard. Thus confusion.

Having the win7 situation squared away with regard to scanners working 100%, even though I have one pc on win10, it won't get the scanner business, just digital photography. So one for radios, one for cameras.

Mark
WS1095/536/436/996P2/HP1e/HP2e/996XT/325P2/396XT/PRO668/PSR800/PRO652
 

gmclam

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robertmac said:

+1
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Change to wIndoze 10 just 'cos it's the newest? Forget it, WinXP works well for me on computer and laptops with COM ports that I can understand.
I agree. While I still use NT4.0 and that machine has a bootable DOS partition, I also have a couple of XP machines and a couple of Windows 7 machines. I like wires, COM ports, or even USB ports. I don't (yet) own a tablet or SmartPhone.

I would like to see more scanner companies provide the protocol for programming their scanners (especially GRE). That would allow others to create some better programming software. What we have now is ok, but could be a whole lot better.
 

w2xq

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I do understand the KISS principle. From my perspective, not having to maintain or store old PC hardware has its advantages (think wife). My idea stems from portabiliy and updating on the fly. No uninstalling radios from vehicles, no cables, no skinned knuckles rooting around a shelf or custom installation, just carry (only) a tablet or phone near the radio, push a button on the radio to wake it up, and update memories (think traveling). I would think the technologies inherent in WiFi, 4G and Bluetooth are sufficiently similar that Android and iOS functionality should be possible.

This is just an idea. Over the years I've been spoiled by the ease, simplicity and convenience of my tablets and phone.

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KMG54

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I do understand the KISS principle. From my perspective, not having to maintain or store old PC hardware has its advantages (think wife). My idea stems from portabiliy and updating on the fly. No uninstalling radios from vehicles, no cables, no skinned knuckles rooting around a shelf or custom installation, just carry (only) a tablet or phone near the radio, push a button on the radio to wake it up, and update memories (think traveling). I would think the technologies inherent in WiFi, 4G and Bluetooth are sufficiently similar that Android and iOS functionality should be possible.

This is just an idea. Over the years I've been spoiled by the ease, simplicity and convenience of my tablets and phone.

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

Your answer may lie in the Raspberry Pi, cheap, opensource and wireless and Bluetooth capable.
 

pinballwiz86

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I'd be happy with a mini-USB port. Serial port? lol..I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened my 396XT.
 

TLF82

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That kind of innovation would be amazing but so many hams accept the status quo that nothing ever gets pushed forward. Look how many hams scoff at the digital modes...
 

SK63

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I'm all for it but considering the age range of the majority of hams, it's not a demographic that likes anything new unless it's a whole lot like the old.
 

blackbelter

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I agree, programing/updating through OTA ( over the air) would be the wave of the future. Magic of the radios have been over shadowed by the Cell phones and streaming has tackled the scanner business.
I would say lets move ahead and embrace the technology.
 

gmclam

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I've got a couple of different ways that I program or update scanners without installing them. The easiest is to bring a laptop to them. Since I also have compatible scanners, I'll program a hand-held first, then clone that into others.

However I do now understand the intent of this thread. One way to make it happen is to enable wireless (Bluetooth, etc) in our radios. But that adds cost to the radios. Another is to have an adapter that converts from the scanner's jack to wireless; and the opposite on the end of our computers. This seems like a separate product from the radios, such as the FTDI chip solves the COM to USB dilemma.
 

w2xq

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I appreciate the discussion on my OP. While there would be some incremental design cost of chips I would think most of the engineering design already exists. A mating of Bluetooth and the 0's and 1's writing to memories would be required. I have to believe that the tech support burdens of software, drivers and connectors would be reduced, offsetting at least some of the engineering costs.

As one example of the simplicity of this stuff, I bought this inexpensive small Bluetooth adapter -- http://www.outdoortechnology.com/Shop/Adapt/ -- to use my non-Bluetooth Bose headphones with my tablet and phone. Works very well.

And the above-mention "streaming" suggests to me adding (to at least some radios) the capability of using standalone Bluetooth speakers. The external speaker make the tablet/phone audio sound great... and no wires!



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ShyFlyer

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I'd be happy if I could program my scanner without depending upon Windows to do it. I have a little Netbook that runs wonderfully on Ubuntu. I'd love to dedicate that to scanner programming but....
 

sparklehorse

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I rarely turn on an old Wintel laptop anymore (maybe 2-4 times a year just to define Gmail filters). I haven't regretted it for 5-8 years now. An Android tablet, light, portable, 10+ hour battery life, WiFi and 4G support, is relatively inexpensive.

Challenge: Let's jump to the future and do programming of consumer scanners and amateur radio transceivers and handi-talkies with 4G/WiFi/Bluetooth technology using our commodity-level tablets and phones. Dump the PCs, detach the cables, and throw over the work table.

I also rarely fire up a laptop. When I do it is only to program a radio. My iPad is all I ever use at home for Internet browsing, shopping, banking, email, note writing. I would really love it if I could program my radios easily from the tablet, but the key word there is easily. I think it would be difficult to manipulate radio program data on a touch screen. It's currently a frustrating interface for things like selecting text, cutting and pasting, moving things around, etc. There's some tasks that are just easier and more efficiently done using a good old-fashioned mouse. I suppose if you do minimal editing the tablet might work great, but I typically spend a lot of time customizing Alpha Tags, re-arranging the order of channels, and cutting & pasting data from various sources. That could get very frustrating on a tablet. I can just see myself chucking the iPad over the work table!
.
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
Some two way radios already allow some programming to be done via various wireless interfaces.

The issue with them is, of course, security. Being able to remotely reprogram a radio without authorization could be extremely bad.

Even transmitting programming information between your computer (any kind of device) and the radio being reprogrammed might be a violation of FIPS in some instances.

I think that eventually the time will come when radio programming via wireless will become more commonplace as the programming of the radio becomes increasingly more complex (imagine the eventual P25 Phase III, IV, V, then Project 35, 50, whatever, standards yet to come) but your're sure not going to see wireless programming retrofitted to any existing product by any means unless it's a module that slips into a provided upgrade slot, such as the mini SD option card slot in an APX portable.

I, too, would love to have the capacity to wirelessly alter the programming of a radio without having to deal with any programming cables or software that only runs on one specific platform. But transitioning to that kind of technology will be a fairly slow process.

In ten years we'll still be using some programming cables.
 

w2xq

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Sparklehorse, the solution to editing as you discuss might be a stylus if one is available for iPads. The stylus in my Samsung tablet works nicely. I use a full-featured tablet varient of Open Office for some complicated document writing and editing; the stylus is great.

Elroy, I was thinking of consumer radios like the scanners and the144/440 ht's and mobile radios. I recognize the commercial public service and industrial radios probably entail security and proprietary coding is best kept to mechanical connections.

It just seems so easy to update the OS and apps on a phone and tablet that, after almost a decade, it seems a shame the simplicity can't be extended to our radio toys. I can't tell you how many old connectors and cables are cluttering up my garage. The connector design is ever-changing; I think USB is moving to a third (?) Iteration, USB-C? It is a conspiracy to obsolete hardware and force us to buy anew. :)

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K3RBP

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It is a conspiracy to obsolete hardware and force us to buy anew. :)

Yes. And they are very good at that; designed obsolescense... so don't expect anything to change.

I am also one of the old-school, KISS mentality, but that doesn't mean I'm not in favor of new technology. Thinking about eliminating wires, keeping things simple, and easier, you just have to ask why, for example, a company like Uniden, fa 'leader' in scanner technology, would build their latest and greatest scanners with SERIAL PORTS, and use external serial gps pucks needing serial to usb converters. Are you kidding me, Uniden? Even cheap radar detectors, metal detectors, and pocket cameras have built-in GPS these days.

They have become small, cheap, and readily available. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9131 and pinhead gps chips GPS chips are now smaller than a match head - Boing Boing.

So it's not like the technology that OP speaks to, is not readily doable. It's more that they don't want that, as it just may extend a product's life, and reduce their future sales.
 

N4GIX

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I do understand the desire to make things "wireless" as I now have a (confusing) collection of programming cables for my various radios and scanners.

Worse, I just received a new TYT-7800 and they put the wrong cable in the box, so now I have to wait for them to send me the correct cable. They put a cable for the TYT HT's in the box (which is btw identical to the BaoFeng cable). The correct cable uses the same design as the 436/536 HP, but with a Prolific chip in the USB end.

Just today I received a Kenwood TK840(N) and don't you know it has its own unique (and hard to find!) cable and software. I now have no fewer than five different programming software for twelve pieces of equipment... <sigh>
 
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