Pro-2006: OS456

[Napalm]

Alright. Who outbid me while I was sleeping on the "broken" Pro 2006 and OS456 on eBay today?

LOL.

David.

 

[trentbob]

You snooze, you lose.

 

[ind224]

How odd..I have one of those and not the unit that was on ebay ; are you interested? I tried to use it as a regular scanner when I could not get working OS456 files. Seems the receive is low, like deaf.

 

[N8YX]

Was that the one with the S Meter and Discriminator taps done with white test probe clips?

If so...guilty as charged. Poor thing has been smoked in and smoked on. It's going to be disassembled and cleaned before I go any further.

 

[N8YX]

Addendum:

I recently got another one w/ Optoscan installed. Both of these are the Full version. In Ye Olde Project Pile I have two N-I-B OS456 Lites and another Pro-2006. I'm going to find one more 2006, install the Lites in them then use Spectrum Commander IX to run two pairs as master/slave for air band scanning. One pair for civilian and the other for Mil. Probably use the Lite as the master and the Full as the handoff/monitor.

 

[Napalm]

I finally bought one. Way over paid for it now I'm looking for software. I may go with probe but its hit and miss using Dosbox.

I have three other 2006's all without any computer control. LOL.

Is Spectrum Commander worth the money?

 

[trimmerj]

Probe works pretty well with dosbox here.

 

[N8YX]

I run Probe1k and Probev7 from FreeDOS 1.2, and have used both with DOSBox (often concurrently with FreeDOS).

Is Spectrum Commander worth it? To me it was. The original SC setup at my old shack had 3 Optocoms paired with 3 R-7000s; a PCR-1000 or other gear I was experimenting with was occasionally connected to the 4th of 5 COM ports on the system. I'd let the Optocom/Icom pairs search or scan while I manually controlled the other attached receiver. Sometimes I'd have that one set to scan too.

Hiccups were very few over the course of years of operation. Most were hypervisor or host OS related (as SC was run in a WinXP-Pro VM).

I described a bit of the setup in the PCR-1000 thread, but: 6 PCs (four "signage" types; two more fully featured) control 1ea Optocom, R-7000 and PCR-1000. Each combo is set to scan or search a couple discrete services and each PCR-1000 gets its own ham band to monitor for signs of life. That model was chosen because it's all-mode and is supported by SC; all the watering holes in each band (regardless of mode) can be entered in a scan list then the PCR-1000 set to look for band openings or interesting activity.

None of this would be possible without Spectrum Commander. ScanCAT Gold also supports the Optocom/Optoscan, Icoms (both CI-V and RS-232 such as the PCR) and a number of others. Caveat: It doesn't support multiple receivers concurrently, and it isn't supported on Win7 and later Microsoft OSes. Nevertheless, my WinXP VMs have a licensed copy of it installed. There's also a terminal provision whereas the program can talk to a TNC or multimode decoder. I have one instance of SCG interfaced to a Universal M-7000 for times I want to remotely monitor data comms and cannot get to the decoder itself (like when I have to work...).

Any of these programs will work nicely for an Optoscan-equipped Pro-2006. All depends on what you want to do with it.

 

[Napalm]

I am just waiting on Perry to send me a link to the drop box for Probe v7. I may end up spending the money on spectrum commander and then at least I could control the 8500, 7000, PCR1000 and OS456. With a USB hub LOL.

 

[N8YX]

How many physical COM ports does your PC have?

 

[Napalm]

How many physical COM ports does your PC have?

Absolutely none lol.

I got it running through the CIV port on the OS456 but probe isn't seeing the squelch open or the dwell time is too high. It's not stopping on an active signal

I tried using the rs-232 port on the 456 but something isn't quite right with it because it doesn't want to connect to the radio.

I haven't slept yet so I'll fiddle with it more tomorrow.

Edit. I have a Dell PC that's got a serial port. I might have to see if that will work tomorrow.

 

[N8YX]

Check to see if the Optoscan's Squelch Detect function is working properly. Do you have the utility disk which came with the OS456?

 

[Ubbe]

I got it running through the CIV port on the OS456 but probe isn't seeing the squelch open or the dwell time is too high. It's not stopping on an active signal

Isn't Probe using the hardware pins in the RS-232 connector for both pipeline tuning and squelch detect?

Probe sends the frequency to the OS board using the serial protocol and are stored in a buffer on the OS board. Then when it's time to switch to a new frequency it signals that with a pin, CTS DTR DTS or whatever it was and it will instantly switch frequency. While looking for squelch detect it sends a new frequency to the buffer. If it detects squelch it use one of pins to signal that, as sending serial info are slower and could be occupied by the frequency info being sent.

If using a USB-RS232 converter it has to be quick enough to emulate the connector pins in a timely fashion.

/Ubbe

 

[N8YX]

Isn't Probe using the hardware pins in the RS-232 connector for both pipeline tuning and squelch detect?

Yes, and not all RS232-USB devices support full hardware flow control (as is required for this setup).

Two I know that do are the Tripp-Lite U209-000R (also available as a Belkin product) and a Startech/Prolific adapter that's based on a 2303 device. I've tested both in native and pass-through (VM) mode with Optoscans, Optocoms, CT-17s (w/ Squelch Detect cables) and several other rigs that the various scanner control programs support. No issues.

 

[Napalm]

Yeah I just think probe isnt meant to use the CI-V port. I'll have to find my USB to serial cable.

 

[trimmerj]

I've never had any luck with USB to serial adaptors with Probe. Let us know if you are able to get it to fly.

 

[N8YX]

I've never had any luck with USB to serial adaptors with Probe. Let us know if you are able to get it to fly.

What was your setup - OS, drivers, running from a VM...?

 

[Napalm]

What was your setup - OS, drivers, running from a VM...?

Win 11, FTDI CI-V adaptor, DOSBox native.

It controls the radio but I get nothing opens the squelch unless I go into the frequency list and manually page through the frequencies. So "Manual": tuning through probe works but I'm guessing it's something with the pipeline tuning that isn't going over the CI-V interface.

 

[trimmerj]

Running dosbox on win 7 64 bit dell latitude e6410 w docking station that has a 232 port. Have also run a win98 vm on the same box, which worked. Seems to run faster with dos.

 

[bagmouse7]

Here is an update that makes running Probe even better.
Give dosbox-x a try instead of the regular dosbox.

DOSBox-X - Accurate DOS emulation for Windows, Linux, macOS, and DOS​

DOSBox-X: Free, cross-platform and complete DOS, Windows 3.x and 9x emulation package

dosbox-x.com

First, the configuration GUI is very nice.
Second, the true type font is incredible and scales to any size perfectly.

I have been able to run 2 Optocoms and 2 PCR-1000 at the same time and it’s using less than 5 percent CPU. The Optocoms are doing 70 channels/second and the PCR 1000 are doing around 30 channels/second. These are back up to old school, bare metal Dos machine scanning speeds.
If you use the true type fonts you can hit F11 and then up/down arrow to resize the Dosbox+ screen to any size.

Give it a try, it’s a great solution for Airband or MilAir monitoring!