BCD996XT Software Rs232 control protocols

[Kennrth]

Cannot find rs232 protocols anywhere on web or Uniden site for BCD996XT. Contacted customer service and they said it wasn’t released maybe in the future. Doesn’t make sense to sell remote control device without protocols. How am I supposed to develop an interface for this radio radio. How did Freescan and Butel get them. If anybody knows where I can get them please let me know.

[ac7xc]

Originally Posted by Kennrth

Cannot find rs232 protocols anywhere on web or Uniden site for BCD996XT. Contacted customer service and they said it wasn’t released maybe in the future. Doesn’t make sense to sell remote control device without protocols. How am I supposed to develop an interface for this radio radio. How did Freescan and Butel get them. If anybody knows where I can get them please let me know.

You can obtain some of the codes from the bc346XT protocols in the manual BC346XT_Complete_Reference.pdf
then use the commands in the bcd396t protocol that was released with the 396T. Uniden seems to just not gotten around to publishing the complete protocol yet, but with the release of the 346 it seems Uniden will be releasing the protocol. If you need to you can use serial port monitor in WinXP to reverse engineer the protocol to check for errors in programming.

[KE4ZNR]

Originally Posted by ac7xc

You can obtain some of the codes from the bc346XT protocols in the manual BC346XT_Complete_Reference.pdf
then use the commands in the bcd396t protocol that was released with the 396T. Uniden seems to just not gotten around to publishing the complete protocol yet, but with the release of the 346 it seems Uniden will be releasing the protocol. If you need to you can use serial port monitor in WinXP to reverse engineer the protocol to check for errors in programming.

How about forgetting about the 346xt complete reference and use the 396xt complete reference instead? The 396xt is basically the same radio as the 996xt so the commands are the same (minus the record output that the 996xt has).
Marshall KE4ZNR

[ac7xc]

Originally Posted by KE4ZNR

How about forgetting about the 346xt complete reference and use the 396xt complete reference instead? The 396xt is basically the same radio as the 996xt so the commands are the same (minus the record output that the 996xt has).
Marshall KE4ZNR

I wasn't aware that a reference for 396XT was released. Thanks for the info. The BCD996XT has one unique command the upside down LCD command:
PRG
DUD,0 or 1
EPG

[Kennrth]

Aok for now - downloadeded 396xt complete reference instead will do for now
Thank you very much.

[PeterGV]

I believe the 396xt and the 996xt are identical.

OTOH, there are small differences between the 396t and the 996t, and both of these and the 396xt.

It would help the community a great deal (and save all us developers a ton of R&D time) if somebody from Uniden would take an hour or two and document the differences in communications protocols among at least these very similar scanner models.

Peter
K1PGV

[rvictor]

Originally Posted by PeterGV

I believe the 396xt and the 996xt are identical.

I can think of at least three differences which, although minimal, keep them from being identical. Each has menu choices associated with it.

-The possibility of the upside-down display on the 996XT
-The record out function on the 996XT
-The second port on the 996XT

There could be others, of course.

Dick

[Kennrth]

I've been programming the BCD996XT using the BCD396XT Protocol over the RS232 port using Visual Basic 6.0 (MSComm). The button syntax is the same. Most everthing seems to work in scan,Settings and search mode. Ran into problems in PRG program mode. I can tell you that the memory is organized similarly but not the same. . The SIN Command returns several more strings in the return array than the protocol accounts for. Going to need BCS996XT Protocol or do alot of screwing around. The same is true when dumping memory in the Groups. Probably can decipher this from built in Menus.
I have been able to get the first System using SIH and all the rest using (next index returned by SIN. System index for every concurring Sin Command until -1 is returned(no more systems). So now I can dump all the system with data to memory and hard drive.
I programmed the the hell out of bandscope and beg to differ with a remark made somewhere in these threads that this is just a toy. It's actually a mini spectrum IF anayzer. I found it very useful. While watching the radios band scope sweep. I found a hit. Then pressed Hold Quickly. Then Pressed Function and moved the marker over the hit. The squelched opened up and could hear what was going on. The Marker frequency showed what frequency I was on. Pretty good. You can't hear audio while the bandscope is sweeping.
I have Butels ARC XT Pro. Found the BandScope Frustrating. On the BCD996xt when I run the virtual bandscope the radios bandscope display doesn't show up. I have to run virtual control first and bring up the bandscope on the radio display. Then run the vitual bandscope. In Butels Band Scope I can not move the cursor over the hit- no controls for that. Also can not set bandwith CF or step on the fly. I find this not to be very useful at all. And shows they didn't really understand how to use it.
I'll keeps pounding away at it.
Kennrth N2MAC