The last scanner I owned was probably close to 15 years ago. I recently purchased a Uniden SC230 NASCAR scanner and have to say that it is an impressive piece of technically. Needless to say, I have a lot of learning to do. Anyway, my question has been ask before, (sorry) but it hasn’t been ask for awhile. And I thought there my be some new information out there. Question: Is there a Macintosh compatible piece of software I can use to program the SC230?
Programing software for Mac's?
- Thread starter TRDnAZ
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ka3jjz
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Nothing native that I know of. I have heard that some BuTel products can run using Panther or Parallels (I think I got that right, Mac folks jump in here) to sim a Windoze environment.
73 Mike
73 Mike
I have Macs, and while I don't have your model of scanner, I was able to download and successfully use the Win96 software on my computer, running Parallels, which has Windows XP on it.
Someday the world will catch up to the superiority of the Mac...........
Someday the world will catch up to the superiority of the Mac...........
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
We have a wiki article that details some software that's non-Windows OS based. But this isn't the first time I've seen a question about Macs and software - so let's get to it - what software is being run by the membership on Macs? Be specific about the environment, machine and the version of the software you are running. The article can be found here;
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Scanner/Receiver_Software_for_Non_Windows_OS
For example, I understand ARC246 runs - albeit rather slowly - on a OS/9 machine using, I think it was Panther. Surely there are others running such software on a mac...
73 Mike
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Scanner/Receiver_Software_for_Non_Windows_OS
For example, I understand ARC246 runs - albeit rather slowly - on a OS/9 machine using, I think it was Panther. Surely there are others running such software on a mac...
73 Mike
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I have run several versions of ARC (396, 15, 996 and 330) on my MacBook Pro using Parallels and VMWare, both running Windows XP. I have also run a couple versions of Motorola CPS and Win96 in the same environment. I haven't played with BootCamp but I have heard anecdotally that it works even better since it is running Windows natively instead of in emulation.
A couple things to remember:
BootCamp, Parallels and VMWare only work on Intel based Macs. (There are emulators for PPC Macs that will work but I haven't used them so I can's comment much on them.) I prefer VMWare, I have had less issues with it versus Parallels.
Using any emulation software will be somewhat slower than the guest OS would run natively. You may not notice much of a speed hit in radio programming but you would in gaming or other resource hogs.
You will need a USB-RS232 adaptor. Uniden sells on that has the radio programming cable built-in, called the USB-1 cable, get it at ScannerMaster or other Uniden dealers for about $20.
You can also use any of dozens of different USB-RS232 adapters bought at Radio Shack, Best Buy or a local computer store.
Make sure you properly install the drivers using the most current ones from the manufacturers web site, not the included CD.
Make sure you know how to adjust the programming software and serial adapters port speeds, often emulation programs cause serial port operations not to work well at higher speeds. 9600 seems to always work well.
A couple things to remember:
BootCamp, Parallels and VMWare only work on Intel based Macs. (There are emulators for PPC Macs that will work but I haven't used them so I can's comment much on them.) I prefer VMWare, I have had less issues with it versus Parallels.
Using any emulation software will be somewhat slower than the guest OS would run natively. You may not notice much of a speed hit in radio programming but you would in gaming or other resource hogs.
You will need a USB-RS232 adaptor. Uniden sells on that has the radio programming cable built-in, called the USB-1 cable, get it at ScannerMaster or other Uniden dealers for about $20.
You can also use any of dozens of different USB-RS232 adapters bought at Radio Shack, Best Buy or a local computer store.
Make sure you properly install the drivers using the most current ones from the manufacturers web site, not the included CD.
Make sure you know how to adjust the programming software and serial adapters port speeds, often emulation programs cause serial port operations not to work well at higher speeds. 9600 seems to always work well.
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Kind of a follow-up to this thread:
I decided to copy my desktop PowerMac to my MacBook Pro so that I had a near duplicate of the desktop in my laptop. Since my MacBook Pro is Intel based of course I can run Windows products. After using Apple Migration Manager to copy the contents of the desktop to the Mac I installed VMWare Fusion and Windows XP-Pro. From a fresh install to actually running Windows XP took about 15 minutes, a fraction of the time it takes on a regular PC. VMWare handles all the installation details after you enter your software key for Fusion and the one for Windows.
After I downloaded the USB-1 drivers from the ScannerMaster website I downloaded the latest version of ARC396Pro (2.1.002) from Butel and installed it, re-entering my Butel key from my older 1.x version I bought when I got my 396 a couple years ago. I downloaded the 40 or so Systems from my scanner and then uploaded a couple Arizona systems in preparation for a business trip in a couple weeks. Worked as smooth as silk!
Using VMWare on the MacBook Pro was every bit as fast as it is on my "straight" PC. ARC396 auto-detected the radio on Com 3 at 115200 baud rate with no problems and read/wrote the radio perfectly.
I had had some issues in the past that caused me to have to reduce the baud rate, but I don't know if that was due to the Aten USB-RS232 adaptor, the emulator software or the earlier version of ARC396 I was using, it may well have been a combination of all three. For now though the combination of ARC396 2.1, the USB-1 cable and VMWare 1.1.1 works as good as or better on my Mac than it does in Windows.
I am going to play around and see how well the Aten cable works with VMWare and other packages, like ARC780 and 250 that require a different cable that the USB-1, as well as software for some other radios like my DR635, GRE's and Motos.
I decided to copy my desktop PowerMac to my MacBook Pro so that I had a near duplicate of the desktop in my laptop. Since my MacBook Pro is Intel based of course I can run Windows products. After using Apple Migration Manager to copy the contents of the desktop to the Mac I installed VMWare Fusion and Windows XP-Pro. From a fresh install to actually running Windows XP took about 15 minutes, a fraction of the time it takes on a regular PC. VMWare handles all the installation details after you enter your software key for Fusion and the one for Windows.
After I downloaded the USB-1 drivers from the ScannerMaster website I downloaded the latest version of ARC396Pro (2.1.002) from Butel and installed it, re-entering my Butel key from my older 1.x version I bought when I got my 396 a couple years ago. I downloaded the 40 or so Systems from my scanner and then uploaded a couple Arizona systems in preparation for a business trip in a couple weeks. Worked as smooth as silk!
Using VMWare on the MacBook Pro was every bit as fast as it is on my "straight" PC. ARC396 auto-detected the radio on Com 3 at 115200 baud rate with no problems and read/wrote the radio perfectly.
I had had some issues in the past that caused me to have to reduce the baud rate, but I don't know if that was due to the Aten USB-RS232 adaptor, the emulator software or the earlier version of ARC396 I was using, it may well have been a combination of all three. For now though the combination of ARC396 2.1, the USB-1 cable and VMWare 1.1.1 works as good as or better on my Mac than it does in Windows.
I am going to play around and see how well the Aten cable works with VMWare and other packages, like ARC780 and 250 that require a different cable that the USB-1, as well as software for some other radios like my DR635, GRE's and Motos.
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