BC895XLT Remote?

[MtnBiker749]

I just bought a used 895XLT. There is no computer control remote jack on the back. There is an area marked off but has no connector--just tape over it. I thought the 895 was computer programmable. The manual does not appear to address it. Can a connector be installed here? I have not opened it up to check. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[kilowa22]

I just bought a used 895XLT. There is no computer control remote jack on the back. There is an area marked off but has no connector--just tape over it. I thought the 895 was computer programmable. The manual does not appear to address it. Can a connector be installed here? I have not opened it up to check. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.

You bought a radio that was modified by a previous owner. Who knows what they did to the radio.

 

[MtnBiker749]

I stand corrected. I removed the "cover" and there is a connector with pins--not the usual DB-9 I am used to seeing. Now I need to find out where I can get a programming cable to fit it. Does anyone know?

Thanks.

 

[guitarbrian30]

serial cable DIY!

I saw on another post a while back year or so ago.... join the yahoo group too...

They have pics on how to make your own cable you just need a serial port on your computer.

BC895XLT Uniden Bearcat Remote Control Software Cable Diagram tada!

I have the port, cable and scanner. The remote function is cool... Boy the wonders of the 90's!!


Here is the manual! just in case you may need that..

bc895xlt

If you need me to snap some pics let me know.... Or need help finding the cable

 

[eaf1956]

895xlt

I use to have one of those but never used the computer control. I didn't think UNIDEN even supported it really. But, those were simpler times, now I need computer control and programming for the 996 series...

 

[eaf1956]

Interesting

I saw on another post a while back year or so ago.... join the yahoo group too...

They have pics on how to make your own cable you just need a serial port on your computer.

BC895XLT Uniden Bearcat Remote Control Software Cable Diagram tada!

I have the port, cable and scanner. The remote function is cool... Boy the wonders of the 90's!!


Here is the manual! just in case you may need that..

bc895xlt

If you need me to snap some pics let me know.... Or need help finding the cable

I wonder if that site still sells that software? Wish I had it when I had my 895XLT. 12,000 channels in extended scan on a 300 channel scanner WOW

 

[KB8KOJ]

You don't even need to hack up the scanner if you don't want to. A good way to make a connector that slides over the pins is use a cd-rom audio cable. You may have one laying around if you collect PC carcasses. You have to reposition a pin on the cd-rom cable if I remember correctly. It mates fairly well with the pinouts on that port. Cut one end off and solder that to a db9 connector. Wish I could find it for pics.

 

[ka3jjz]

I wrote a review on that Scan Pro software for the 895 years ago - it had potential but the author never really wanted to develop the software so it worked correctly. A shame, really - at the time it was one of many options for working on the 895.

If you really want to expand the number of available channels on the 895, and are using an older computer, get a copy of Radiomax. I've never been able to make it work on the machine I have now (using XP SP3) but when I had an older 98SE machine it worked like clockwork. Essentially you set up files with up to 300 channels each - and you can have lots of these files linked together. Records, logs and even has a speech interface that actually announces the frequency.

The problem I had was getting the scanning to stop when a frequency is active. I could never get that to work on this machine, for some reason. However you can get a trial and see if it works for you. My review of the software can be found here . The Radiomax website is still up, surprisingly.

It doesn't trunk, though. If you need trunking, Scan Control is the way to go. At the time, Winscan was still floating around, and it had the unique - at the time - and controversial ability to let the 895 scan conventional and trunk in one pass. It was thought that this ability stressed the PROMs in the radio to breaking. Unfortunately, this software eventually died off.

None of the software out there will connect to the web service for programming; but Scan Control came close with their copy/paste utility. 73 Mike

 

[MtnBiker749]

Thanks to all for the info. That is really good stuff. I was wondering what the mating connector was for the radio pins. I surmised the CD rom connector might work so I will try that. Then put my serial connector for the computer on the other end. Although it is not too much work to put in 300 channels. I don't think I'll be changing the frequencies too much, though.

 

[ka3jjz]

That will work only if you have a real serial port - otherwise a USB converter is called for 73 Mike

 

[cg]

I use that radio for control channel decoding, LTRunk, and other programs. Since I have 6 of them, I picked up a punch, put DB9 jacks in place. and soldered jumpers to the appropriate points.
I run a bunch of newer radios but still use the 895s

chris

 

[KB8KOJ]

Love my ole 895. Great audio, good rf characteristics and tracks a Moto Smart Net system well. This replaced a Pro 2052 I pawned off to a buddy. And wow what a difference. I tried a couple of shareware programs many moons ago. Was never quite happy with the results. Expanded trunking control wasn't available. Conventional scanning was the only advantage from what I experienced. Lost interest in it. Already had the mother load setup for that. (Optotronics card in a Pro 2006.)

The 895 has been my kitchen trunker for many years. Great for monitoring 1 system and 1 city. When rebanding comes our way. (That is in progress according to sources on this site) It's going to an emotional moment retiring this bad boy. This thing never gets shut off. Literally.

 

[homeinva]

i made my cable using a 4 pin connector block form rs and a serial mouse cable with a 9 pin serial plug

and Scan control has software that works on the 895xlt

 

[eaf1956]

895 and 9000

I had a conventional 9000XLT then the city I lived in went TRUNKED so I got the 895XLT. The 9000 was a MUCH better receiver but it didn't TRUNK. What was nice was they were BOTH in the same case style. Now, I don't have either one.

 

[MtnBiker749]

I had a conventional 9000XLT then the city I lived in went TRUNKED so I got the 895XLT. The 9000 was a MUCH better receiver but it didn't TRUNK. What was nice was they were BOTH in the same case style. Now, I don't have either one.

Interesting. I remember the 9000 and saw that it covered more frequencies than other models, so I thought it was good one. I have an 898T and considering the new BCT-15X but not sure how all the receivers compare.

 

[TEH]

BC-895 remote connection

Hello from Florida,

I did the same thing CG did. I did not like the Mickey Mouse 5 pin connection that Uniden provided with this radio and the unusual cable. I got a junk DB-9 connector, and mounted it to the rear of the 895, then soldered the wires from the DB-9 jack to the circuit board. I tried to solder to the connections on the oddball connector that Uniden built into the radio, but that was not successful.

This easy modification allowed me to use the same DB-9 programming cable for all of my scanner programming.

I can email photos to anyone interested.

Also, the most of the Motorola public safety trunking systems have rebanded or soon will reband. I'm testing the radio with the new frequencies. I found that my BC-780 seems to miss little of the activity on Orange County so far, but more testing is needed.

 

[Phrostbyte]

Hello from Florida,



I can email photos to anyone interested.

Please email me - phrostbyte@adelphia.net ; I just bought one and would love to use my computer to program/monitor it.
Thank you very much in advance! I was really bumbed - I thought it had it from the factory like my 898T did..

 

[FMB]

DB-9 for 895xlt

Please email me - phrostbyte@adelphia.net ; I just bought one and would love to use my computer to program/monitor it.
Thank you very much in advance! I was really bumbed - I thought it had it from the factory like my 898T did..

Hello from Florida,

I did the same thing CG did. I did not like the Mickey Mouse 5 pin connection that Uniden provided with this radio and the unusual cable. I got a junk DB-9 connector, and mounted it to the rear of the 895, then soldered the wires from the DB-9 jack to the circuit board. I tried to solder to the connections on the oddball connector that Uniden built into the radio, but that was not successful.

This easy modification allowed me to use the same DB-9 programming cable for all of my scanner programming.

I can email photos to anyone interested.

Also, the most of the Motorola public safety trunking systems have rebanded or soon will reband. I'm testing the radio with the new frequencies. I found that my BC-780 seems to miss little of the activity on Orange County so far, but more testing is needed.

fmb7207@hotmail.com
I know this was quite a while ago, but I just got the 245, 895 and Scan Control software. The 245 works great but obviously I need something to hook up to the 895 properly. If anyone could forward me some pics/direction I would appreciate it greatly.
Cheers, Will

 

[Izod]

BC895XLT Computer Hookup

I realize this is an old thread but I got my BC895XLT working with the remote cable I made a long time ago and dug out of my parts bin. Using a serial to USB cable and the prolific driver and running window98 in a virtual machine under windows7 I was able to use EZProg 895 and freetracker to control the unit. Here is a picture of the cable (it's pretty simple to make actually). While performance is not up to my BCD996XT it still does the job on some old trunked stations in my vicinity. If you need anymore instructions please pm me.