What are some scanners that can be "hacked"?

[Dog]

Back in the old days there were things you could do to get more functionality out of certain scanners. Are there any modern scanners that have hacks?

Not looking for anything in particular more just a conversation starter than anything. I saw a post this evening about I believe a firmware hack to get DMR functionality or some similar situation is what got me thinking about it.

 

[belvdr]

I am not aware of any alternative firmware for today's scanners. Instead, I would just grab some SDR devices. You get the functionality of the scanner without the headache.

 

[pb_lonny]

Not as far as I know, anything "brand name" is pretty much locked down.

 

[Dog]

I am not aware of any alternative firmware for today's scanners. Instead, I would just grab some SDR devices. You get the functionality of the scanner without the headache.

As I mentioned this was more out of curiosity and conversation than "need".

 

[Dog]

Pro-18 with non official FW works great with DMR.

This is the post that got me thinking about it.

 

[trentbob]

Back in the old days there were things you could do to get more functionality out of certain scanners.

Unfortunately the old days with scanners like the GRE made Radio Shack Pro 2004 where you could take the case off and snip here and a snip there are over.

 

[CanesFan95]

Wasn't there a member on here named Eric Cottrell who hacked one of the GRE scanners to make it do DMR?

 

[Ubbe]

Scanner manufacturers doesn't want their old scanners to be modified and improved. They want you to buy a new scanner. Whistler made sure by legal actions and software operations to stop Eric. The eventually offered a DMR upgrade to be bought, they already had the firmware code from the TRX scanners so it was at almost no cost to them, but did not include the other improvements Eric did to the scanner.

Uniden have not really any interest in providing bug fixes and feature upgrades to their current scanner line. They want to sell a new scanner to you if they can manage to find a new feature to put into it. Both Uniden and Whistler encrypt and protect their code and Whistler even encrypt their programming files so that no one can legally offer a competing programming software to EZ-Scan.

/Ubbe

 

[mikewazowski]

Scanner manufacturers doesn't want their old scanners to be modified and improved. They want you to buy a new scanner. Whistler made sure by legal actions and software operations to stop Eric. The eventually offered a DMR upgrade to be bought, they already had the firmware code from the TRX scanners so it was at almost no cost to them, but did not include the other improvements Eric did to the scanner.

No cost to them other than the per scanner licencing fees that the royalty holders lost out on when Eric added DMR for free. This is straight from Whistler.

 

[Ubbe]

No cost to them other than the per scanner licencing fees that the royalty holders lost out on when Eric added DMR for free. This is straight from Whistler.

Whistler didn't loose anything themselves but only the DMR organisation from the income of a couple of hundred scanners at a few dollars each. But do Whistler actually pay any DMR licence fee themselves and are member of the DMR organisation? They are not included in the document from the DMR organisation that states who pay them. It includes other scanner companies like Uniden and AOR who do not produce any 2-way radios. So Whistler isn't in a position to talk about unpaid license fees as they themselves do not support the development of DMR as they are no paying members.

/Ubbe

 

[mikewazowski]

Glad to know you're such an expert in Whistler's licencing deals. I stand corrected.

I guess what Whistler Wendy and Mike told me in person at Dayton was just a sham.

 

[Ubbe]

Glad to know you're such an expert in Whistler's licencing deals. I stand corrected. I guess what Whistler Wendy and Mike told me in person at Dayton was just a sham.

They where correct in their statement that the royalty holders where cheated out of a couple of hundred dollars.

/Ubbe

 

[gmclam]

Back in the old days there were things you could do to get more functionality out of certain scanners. Are there any modern scanners that have hacks?

Not looking for anything in particular more just a conversation starter than anything. I saw a post this evening about I believe a firmware hack to get DMR functionality or some similar situation is what got me thinking about it.

It depends on your skill level. I could build a unit entirely from scratch, therefore I feel there's little/nothing off-limits to me. Some are only comfortable with h/w hacks and some with code. I took some older models that didn't have CPUs and added one, just to add some features.

The radio dongles seem like one way to go. Write your own software to drive it.