785d Disc Tap

[homerjay]

Hello. I was reading in the Wiki on how to tap my BC785D. I said i needed a .01 mF ceramic disc type capacitor for the tap.

Now i did some research today on how to install a discriminator tap on my BCT-8 and it said all i needed to do was connect a wire from the tap point to the output point. No capacitor requred.

I was wondering if I could do without the capacitor on my 785D as well or not? Thanks.

[JohnnyGalaga]

I've tapped several scanners without a capacitor and they all work good. You might try doing what I call "The Poke-Around Method."

Before actually doing any soldering, get everything setup and ready to go. Install the software, plug in your data slicer, etc. Then, with the software running, the scanner tuned to a control channel, and everything else hooked up, poke the bare wire leads to the ground & tap points on your scanner and see how the software works.

You might be able to attach the ground wire lead to a ground screw on the circuit board to make it easy. That way you only have to poke around with 1 wire instead of 2, still without soldering. Once you see that the software is working good, then you know you've got the right tap point and you're ready to solder.

Just be careful not to accidentally short anything.

[homerjay]

Thank you very much! I will be certain not to short anything for sure. This data slicer you spoke of, where would I obtain one? I herd of them but I haven't been able to find one.

[JohnnyGalaga]

Here are the data slicers I use and work excellent:

http://www.dataslicers.com/

There is also: http://www.discriminator.nl/order/index-en.html although I haven't tried them.

Many people prefer to build their own data slicers. You can find schematics on several websites if you search and that's what you wanna do.

Depending on what software you're using though, you might not need a data slicer at all. Programs that use the sound card don't require a data slicer.