436/536 Scanner Monitor App for both Mac and Windows

[deskins]

I was able to connect my BCD436HP over the serial port to a Chrome browser-based application I created and was able to display the scanner information to the screen. Since this is a Chrome App, it "should" work on either Mac or Windows. The only requirement seems to be that you have Google Chrome browser installed and a Google account in order to download from the Chrome Web Store.

I have been running this app several times over the last couple weeks on my Mac with no issues. Have also tested some on Windows with VMWare and everything seems to be working.

This app polls the scanner over the serial port and displays the information returned. It has a hit counter to easily see which sites are the most active. Text-to-speech is also available and it will speak the channel text when there is a hit. The font-size increases as you take the window fullscreen if you need to see it from a distance.

Since I have only tested this on my 436, I am holding off making this app searchable on the web store for the general public. However, for anyone in this forum that wants to test it, here is a direct link to the application in the store. For now, it's called Scanner Monitor.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scanner-monitor/akdhehcennfolejaoepmldgcgpfkehhj

This app currently only has a limited set of features, but I would like to get some feedback and curious if it also works with the BCD536HP.

Jeff

 

[bama9999]

Trying it on my 536, and so far so good. Everything seems to be working great. Good job.

 

[bama9999]

The only thing I've noticed not working exactly right so far, is that longer department names will carry over onto the channel name, making it hard to read.

 

[deskins]

OK, thanks. I will take a look at the max character length allowed for those fields.

Jeff

 

[Anvil]

Works fine with BCD536 on my i7 "Hackintosh", OS X 10.7.5. And, surprisingly, it works on my HP Chromebook 11. I'm connecting from rear serial/GPS with StarTech adapter (Null modem, FTDI). I had to resize the window on OS X to get fields to not overlap.

 

[deskins]

I uploaded an updated version to the Chrome store to hide the overlapping text on long names until I have a better solution in place.

One good thing is that everyone should automatically get the update once it is available (generally in about an hour). The app would need to be restarted if it was already running.

The Chrome browser should have an Apps icon in order to see all your apps. You can also go to: chrome://apps/ in your browser.

Glad to see it also runs on the Chromebook.

EDIT: It updated for me the next time I restarted my Chrome browser.

 

[bama9999]

Also notice that it's showing the site name instead of the system name in the "System" field.

 

[Houdini7]

Working great on my BCD586 and OSX 10.9.2

 

[mrkelso]

Works right out of the box Nice!!!!

 

[deskins]

Glad to hear it works in several different environments - Mac, Windows, as well as Chromebooks.

Now, I just need to find a way to get more time in the day so I can add some control capabilities to the app.

One nice feature is every time you startup Chrome you will have the latest version automagically without having to deal with extra downloads or installs.

 

[Vonskie]

Glad to hear it works in several different environments - Mac, Windows, as well as Chromebooks.

Now, I just need to find a way to get more time in the day so I can add some control capabilities to the app.

One nice feature is every time you startup Chrome you will have the latest version automagically without having to deal with extra downloads or installs.

Very cool idea to build it for chrome, what language did you use to write it for chrome?

I wrote a somewhat similar program for the 536 and 436 in free pascal and compiled it for the mac and PC.

I like the way you designed the forms and the hit counter is cool also.

You should add support for the HP-1 also. I will check it out tonight.

 

[deskins]

This was built as a Chrome packaged app using HTML5 and JavaScript. The code calls some of Chrome's APIs to connect and send commands to the serial device.

It took some time to figure out the commands for 436/536 models. May try to add support for other models if it's not too different.

 

[Vonskie]

for the 436 and 536 I used the GLG command
for the HP-1 I used the RMTtabStatustabchecksum command

Both return the results in a comma delimited format so it is easy to parse and grab elements.

I am hoping in the next firmware of the 436 and the 536 they will fully implement the RMT commands that way I can cleanly grab the UID.

Here is the code for HP-1

Construct command to send

if comboboxscanner.Text = 'HP-1' then
begin
cmd := 'RMT' + #9 + 'STATUS' + #9;
cmd := cmd + IntToStr(checksum(cmd)) + #13#10;
end
else
cmd := 'GLG' + #13#10;


Parse different elements based on return sting from command

if comboboxscanner.Text = 'HP-1' then
begin
freq := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[2]);
modulation := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[3]);
systemname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[8]);
departmentname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[9]);
Channelname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[10]);

end
else
begin
freq := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[1]);
modulation := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[2]);
systemname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[5]);
departmentname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[6]);
Channelname := trim(glgs.ValueFromIndex[7]);
end;

How to calculate checksum


function tform1.checksum(s: string): integer;
var
i: integer;
sum: integer;
begin
sum := 0;
for i := 1 to length(s) do

begin
sum := sum + Ord(s);
end;

checksum := sum;

end;

 

[deskins]

Thanks - that's a big help.

I will see if I get some time later this weekend to add HP-1 functionality.

 

[deskins]

The Scanner Monitor app has been updated to also include HP-1 models. After clicking the Connect button, it first checks to see if the connected device is a BCDx36HP model. If not, then it attempts to communicate using the HP-1 commands.

Since I don't have an HP-1, I wasn't able to verify that functionality yet.

For those who may want to try it that don't have it installed - here is the link.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scanner-monitor/akdhehcennfolejaoepmldgcgpfkehhj

If you already have it installed, the update went through this morning. May have to restart Chrome browser if it hasn't been restarted since then. Not sure how often Chrome checks in the background to get the latest version of an app.

 

[Jay911]

I may be able to give it a shot later on this afternoon when I get home from work. If I don't answer within 24 hours, reply to remind me.

 

[Jay911]

No joy. Can't find my radio, despite this in the debug:

Connection opened with id: 5, Bitrate: 115200, paused: false, persistent: false, name: , bufferSize: 4096, receiveTimeout: 0
Sending command MDL\r to connection 5
Received ERR	242
No response finding BCDx36HP model.  Now trying HP-1 model.
Sending command RMT\tMODEL\t630\r to connection 5
Received RMT	MODEL	HomePatrol-1	1752
No response finding BCDx36HP or HP-1 model.

 

[Vonskie]

This command will work with both the 436, 536 and HP-1

cmd:= 'RMT'+#9+'MODEL'+#9;

cmd:=cmd+inttostr(checksum(cmd))+ #13#10;

It will not work with the 996 or 396 the MDL command is for that.

The 436 and the 536 has a partial RMT command set as of now with current firmware.

 

[ddanz]

Not recognizing response from HP-1

You find the HP-1 okay ... you just don't recognize that you found it:
Connection opened with id: 7, Bitrate: 115200, paused: false, persistent: false, name: , bufferSize: 4096, receiveTimeout: 0
Sending command MDL\r to connection 7
Received ERR 242
No response finding BCDx36HP model. Now trying HP-1 model.
Sending command RMT\tMODEL\t630\r to connection 7
Received RMT MODEL HomePatrol-1 1752
No response finding BCDx36HP or HP-1 model.

 

[deskins]

OK - Thanks. This is all good feedback. I also noticed it looks like HP-1 return data is tab delimited instead of comma delimited.

I will take the info provided from the debug output and make a few changes.