Anyone using BCTool?

[country2]

I've been messing with it and I like it almost as good as my ScanControl.

 

[Dubbin]

Many people here are playing around with it. Once he gets the trunking support working on it, it will be one hell of a program.

 

[country2]

Yea, I saw Dubbin2 so figured thats you.

 

[Dubbin]

Yea, I saw Dubbin2 so figured thats you.

I'm just Dubbin

 

[country2]

I'm just Dubbin

Ok maybe that wasn't you...

 

[ka3jjz]

There are numerous folks on BCTool's Yahoo group. I agree, if it keeps going like it is, and gets trunking and RRDB import, it's going to be a serious challenger to Scan Control and BuTel. Fortunately SC also works with many of the older Uniden scanners, something BCTool is not set up for - it's set up just for the Uniden DMA scanners.

But competition is a good thing. :.>> 73s Mike

 

[slicerwizard]

It still doesn't handle trunking? From what I saw a few months ago, the author doesn't have much interest in trunking (no systems near him). The Brits on that Yahoo group also had zero interest in RR downloads. The format of the saved system files also looked strange to me.

 

[Dubbin]

It still doesn't handle trunking? From what I saw a few months ago, the author doesn't have much interest in trunking (no systems near him). The Brits on that Yahoo group also had zero interest in RR downloads. The format of the saved system files also looked strange to me.

He has set aside time here in the next couple weeks to work on the trunking portion of the program.

 

[gregma]

It still doesn't handle trunking? From what I saw a few months ago, the author doesn't have much interest in trunking (no systems near him). The Brits on that Yahoo group also had zero interest in RR downloads. The format of the saved system files also looked strange to me.

He has quite a bit of interest in implementing trunking. It's just that he lives in an area that doesn't afford him the opportunity to do a lot of it. Thus he relies on those of use in heavy trunking areas to assist him in implementing and testing it.

It's a slower process, but it's coming along nicely!

 

[hodet]

It seems to be reading trunking pretty good now and he is now focusing on write capability. I joined the Yahoo group for bcTool and he is kicking butt pretty good to get this thing going. I agree that it will be one hell of a package when completed. It is already very useful for pulling in your stuff to see the programming of your scanner at a glance (beta53 as of now I think). I like it already for recording/monitoring, quite impressive. It's not even finished yet and I would already miss it if it disappeared. I only wished he wasn't using Yahoo groups for his forum (but hey, that's just me and is not a biggie), but he seems really committed to his project and is very open to feedback and suggestions for improvement.

 

[morfis]

Testing trunking isn't too easy in the UK as there isn't much in the way of Motorola (Staffordshire Fire & Rescue, Old MET Plod system still has some activity, USAF Mildenhall/Lakenheath still with some activity) or EDACS (SPTA support) to test with.

RRDB interface is also therefore of less interest to the UK/European users.

The best way to speed up that side of things is if more of you folks in the USA get involved and thus skew the development requests in your favour

The database here isn't really set up well for storage of MPT1327 system info and this is the biggest type of trunked system (ignoring fully encrypted things like emergency services usage of Airwave TETRA) within Europe. Uniden show no interest in building MPT1327 trunking support into their radios even though the protocol is an open spec.

 

[wjf]

It seems to be reading trunking pretty good now and he is now focusing on write capability. I joined the Yahoo group for bcTool and he is kicking butt pretty good to get this thing going. I agree that it will be one hell of a package when completed. It is already very useful for pulling in your stuff to see the programming of your scanner at a glance (beta53 as of now I think). I like it already for recording/monitoring, quite impressive. It's not even finished yet and I would already miss it if it disappeared. I only wished he wasn't using Yahoo groups for his forum (but hey, that's just me and is not a biggie), but he seems really committed to his project and is very open to feedback and suggestions for improvement.

It's a nice program, but asks far too many questions. "Shutdown" should mean shut down - not a series of questions.

And IMHO, Yahoo groups are annoying.

 

[reconrider8]

ok i just got bctool can someone slide me a tutorial or just help me get started using it?

 

[ka3jjz]

There's tons of help on the associated Yahoo group, reconrider - and the author watches it very carefully. 73s Mike

 

[reconrider8]

when i hooked the cable up i didnt pick up anything

 

[ka3jjz]

If you mean you can't connect to the PC, sometimes that's a different error than just having issues with BCTool. Are you using a USB connection? Have you assigned a COM port that isn't being used (check with Device Manager)? Have you got and installed the latest drivers?

73s Mike

 

[reconrider8]

it connects and all but with the cable in the comp and in the scanner it doesnt pick up like the nothing comes over the scanner so i unplugged the cable from the scanner and it started picking up again

 

[Pain]

Why not just use FreeSCAN if you have one of the following scanners? I can say for sure it works with trunking a complex system on both my 246T and 330T, and it should also work for BCD396T, the BC15T, and BCD996T .
http://scannow.org/download.htm

 

[reconrider8]

im just learning about and testing the programs right now to see how they work and all i might try that in a lil thx man but i wanna try to get this working first