Pro-2006: OS456

[N8YX]

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 us some details of your hardware and configuration parms. Also...4 discrete instances of Probe1k/Probev7, or some other program?

FWIW there's a ton of analog stuff left in my area. The PC I'm typing this on (one of my DS61-1 test systems) has an Optocom and a PCR-1000 attached. Between railroads (PCR-1000) and FRS/MURS/GMRS/VHF Business (Optocom), they won't shut up.

 

[bagmouse7]

Here are some details, I actually have 2 set ups, one with 2 x Optocom and 2 x PCR1000 and then a second setup with 2 x Optocom, 2 PRO2042/OS535s.

I use these 4 port Gearmo 4 Port USB to Serial RS232 Adapter FTDI Chipset (they also have 2 port versions that work as well):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ETDC8K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I’m using windows 10 on both boxes, they run 24x7 and are only interrupted by forced Windows updates.
I disable all the extra things in dosbox like the sound support and joystick support and I set the CPU to 8000 cycles.
Then I have 4 configuration files for dosbox with the only difference being the one line that sets the serial port com number and the commands to start each probe instance.
I have 4 copies of the Probe directories, one for each instance.
Each dosbox instance mounts d: drive where I have the 4 copies of the full probe directory.
I launch dosbox-x 4 times with a deticated config file, each config file has a specific COM port and start probe in a specific probe directory instance.
You can scale each dosbox window to whatever size you need and dosbox will support the standard and the 43 and 50 line screens.
It all works flawlessly and runs continuously for weeks.

I will attach one of my Dosbox-x config files.

 

[bagmouse7]

Here is one of the displays in its full glory!

 

[N8YX]

My setups are similar.

OSes are Linux Mint 21.3. Scanner control S/W is usually run in a VB VM, but I'm going to play with Dosbox-X and see what I can get it to do natively.

COM hardware on the DS61-1s I use is two physical serial ports and two Tripp-Lite U209-000-R USB/Serial adapters. The higher-horsepower systems (Shuttle XPC models) have 5 physical COM ports and a bunch of USB connectors if I need more.

There's currently one Pro-2035/OS-535 scanner in the lineup and I'd like to find a Pro-2042 version of same to complete the collection. If I want to play RadShack/Optoscan/Probe I'm set up with a couple Pro-2006/OS456 (Full) scanners and one Pro-2006 with the Lite version. Plus one more Lite in the box. Need to find another 2006 as a host.

The one thing I'll miss WRT flexibility if I run these in Dosbox is R-7000 support and handoff scanning. That is, let the Opto stuff find the frequencies of interest and Spectrum Commander hands it off to the paired R-7000 for listening/analysis. All of mine have been modified with better filtering, digital noise reduction and other IF improvements. Very sensitive and selective...but slow to scan.

 

[bagmouse7]

Fantastic!
I originally had these set up with some tiny Liberatto laptops running DOS (I only had 2 of these).
Once these died it was more difficult to run Probe under dos (I had to use VMWare workstation at first).
Stronger hardware and better COM port support under Windows seems to have helped and now with Dosbox and any modern machine you can run multiple copies with no problem.
Having good USB to serial port adapters is critical to the speed and stability of Probe,

I saw your other post about Spectrum Commander and I also used that for many years. I am actually big fan of the program and I used to linked received (Optocom + R8500) which worked great,

But, multiple copied of Probe running at full speed in Dosbox is hard to beat for Airband and MilAir monitoring.

 

[N8YX]

... multiple copies of Probe running at full speed in Dosbox is hard to beat for Airband and MilAir monitoring.

I'm thinking about chunking up the search/scan ranges. Especially for the 225-400MHz allocation. Give each scanner a 25MHz slice to monitor and let them run concurrently. Several hundred channels per second aggregate would be possible.

Spread this across two systems and two 32" monitors, tile vertically like you've done and let Probe do its thing. I really do need to find an OS-535-equipped 2042 now.

 

[Ubbe]

I'm thinking about chunking up the search/scan ranges. Especially for the 225-400MHz allocation.

I would think it would work better using a SDR dongle and SDR# and the frequency scanner plugin. Then use the OmniRig plugin to control a much better receiver. When the search stops it tunes the external receiver to the frequency and if the signal can be heard it is a real signal hit and not a false positive. If the recorder function are enabled, like in a Uniden 536, it will only record when there's an actual signal and can let it search day and night and then collect the result and program a scanner or Probe to only scan those active frequencies, while the SDR# search still does its thing.

Where I live there's never any new frequencies in use in mil-air and they always reuse the ones that have been in use for decades. But now when we are a member of Nato and have exercises here including several Nato countries it might change.

/Ubbe

 

[bagmouse7]

I was actually going to follow up my post with this same advice. Ubbe beat me to it...
The "next gen" Airband/MilAir monitor setup I use (I have 2x of these) is using an Airspy R2 SDR, SDR#, the frequency scanner plugin and the frequency manager plugin (labels the received frequencies).
The Airspy R2 captures around 10MHz of simultaneous bandwidth and so you can monitor the full 118MHz - 138MHz Airband almost simultaneously, it is SUPER fast. The full MilAir band can be monitored in a few seconds.
This is an impressive setup and it gives almost instantaneous tuning across the full Airband.
As Ubbe mentioned you can also used the OmniRig plugin to tune a second receiver similar to the dual receiver Spectrum Commander setup. Commander did have one additional trick which was that after it tuned the second receiver, the first scanning receiver would immediately return to scanning and look for the next active frequency. This added a little bit more speed to the setup.
If you are looking for new frequencies in the Airband (or in any search range) this Airspy setup is fantastic because it will log any hits it has across the frequency range.
I am still using the Probe setups because I like all the information the display presents, but for raw frequency acquisition speed the Airspy setup can not be beaten.

 

[N8YX]

Is there Linux support for the Airspy utility software, or is it Windows only?

 

[bagmouse7]

It is Windows only, but I have heard of people running it under WINE.

Running SDR# under Linux/wine

Running SDR# under Linux/wine. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

 

[Napalm]

Just an update. The serial cable came in from Amazon. Everything works perfectly now. I do love the older RadioShack scanners.

 

[Napalm]

Baud rate 38400 Dosbox .074.

I can leave the radio running all day listening to AM Air, but if I try and search 155-156 with CTCSS decode enabled, I lose comms with the radio and the computer.

Baud rate issue? OS456 issue?

 

[Ubbe]

It needs to send the CTCSS info as serial data back to the computer but RF frequency data are sent in the other direction. So perhaps the Dosbox program can't handle to receive that high baudrate. Check the buffer FIFO handling, if any, and other serial settings in Dosbox. Go down to 19200 as there's no point in going higher, and even 9600 might be ok with a pro-2006 that only can do 25ch/s 100% reliable due to its hardware limitations.

/Ubbe

 

[Napalm]

It needs to send the CTCSS info as serial data back to the computer but RF frequency data are sent in the other direction. So perhaps the Dosbox program can't handle to receive that high baudrate. Check the buffer FIFO handling, if any, and other serial settings in Dosbox. Go down to 19200 as there's no point in going higher, and even 9600 might be ok with a pro-2006 that only can do 25ch/s 100% reliable due to its hardware limitations.

/Ubbe

Thanks Ubbe. I'm getting a reliable 50ch/s out of the Probe/OS456 right now but I think I had the same at 9600. I'll mess around with it.

I really really love the RF performance of the 2006.

 

[Ubbe]

I can't go over 55ch/s in my Pro2042 or the Optocom. Their squelch circuits aren't design to be any quicker than that. If I go higher it always skips a couple of channels that I can hear from another scanner and when I manually go to that channel I can clearly hear that frequency that where skipped. It works better with a high signal strength but with a lower signal the more the noise will be and the squelch detect gets a lesser difference to work with between signal and no signal and will operate more unreliable.

/Ubbe