Analog scanning

[HWG]

Which does address your want that it does NFM...that it won’t! Or at least it would be very low volume...

I agree. Won't be much of any volume if it can't scan it! That's why I went to the chart and added it in here for informational sake. Forums are good with accurate information; not so much with the opposite.

 

[CanesFan95]

Ham radios usually have much better receive than scanners.

 

[HWG]

Ham radios usually have much better receive than scanners.

While that may be true, I don't see a need to tie up a TX capable device that will be sitting on a shelf monitoring frequencies that I am not allowed to TX on.

 

[CanesFan95]

You'd be surprised how deaf a lot of scanners are when you put a ham dual-bander on the same antenna.

 

[HWG]

You'd be surprised how deaf a lot of scanners are when you put a ham dual-bander on the same antenna.

Still seems like a waste of a device.

 

[CanesFan95]

ok

 

[jonwienke]

You'd be surprised how deaf a lot of scanners are when you put a ham dual-bander on the same antenna.

Any scanner will be deaf after doing that, if you bump the transmitter key even momentarily. You'll instantly fry the front end.

 

[N8YX]

Weighing in:

I have a pair of BCT-15Xs in addition to a lot of other analog and digital-capable stuff. RF-wise, the 15X works well - but it isn't my first choice for a weak-signal analog analysis unit. That nod would go to one of several R-7000s in the lineup. My main gripe is that only the BCT-15 and not the "X" model are supported under TrunkStar Elite - which is a package I'm considering buying. My 996XTs (as well as the 996P2) are supported, however. Go figure.

One of my 15Xs has a discriminator tap and I'm going to mod the other the next time I have that side of the monitoring post powered off. Thoughts are to use them with FreeScan to search air-band frequencies, or run the pair of them with trunking decode and DSDecode, PDW and similar utilities. Would I buy them again if I had to? Yes.

Another pair of analog scanners I own are Pro-2006. OS-456 Lite boards were obtained many years ago and I just got around to getting the second of two 2006s to receive these. They compare favorably to the OptoCom (two in use here) and the Pro-2035 (one currently), all of which compare favorably to the -15X. I still go back to the Icoms for digging the very weak stuff out of the noise, but the rest of the GRE and later Uniden gear definitely merit their spots on the shelves.

Something to consider about amateur rigs used for scanning: In my experience, many of their BPF responses tend to favor the amateur bands +/- a couple megahertz for MARS usage. A couple I own which receive from 136-174 (for example) go practically deaf at 160MHz. The type of front end has a lot to do with this - if the rig in question employs a helical resonator setup, it's going to have a very narrow response. Wider front ends invite intermod, though.

...Fred...

 

[CanesFan95]

Any scanner will be deaf after doing that, if you bump the transmitter key even momentarily. You'll instantly fry the front end.

I think you missed the point. I didn't say to transmit. Don't be silly.

 

[jonwienke]

I think you missed the point. I didn't say to transmit. Don't be silly.

I'm not. It's easy to bump the button accidentally, and it only takes once to let the magic smoke out.

Also, many ham radios have very narrow front ends, and go pretty much deaf once you get a few MHz away from the ham bands. So that's a consideration, in addition to their glacial scan rate and other issues.

 

[iMONITOR]

Weighing in:

I have a pair of BCT-15Xs in addition to a lot of other analog and digital-capable stuff. RF-wise, the 15X works well - but it isn't my first choice for a weak-signal analog analysis unit. That nod would go to one of several R-7000s in the lineup. My main gripe is that only the BCT-15 and not the "X" model are supported under TrunkStar Elite - which is a package I'm considering buying. My 996XTs (as well as the 996P2) are supported, however. Go figure.

...Fred...

TrunkStar Elite??? No disrespect, but that's so 1980's.

Seriously Fred, before you buy that check out ProScan! You can buy it for less and it does so much more! Plus it will work with all your Uniden scanners. You have to buy a separate version of TrunkStar Elite for each scanner.

ProScan Software, LLC

Computer Aided Scanning Software for the Uniden BC125AT BC250D BC296D BC346XT BC346XTC BC780XLT BC785D BC796D BCD160DN BCD260DN BCD325P2 BCD396T BCD396XT BCD436HP BCD536HP BCD996P2 BCD996T BCD996XT BCT15 BCT15X BR330T SDS100 SDS100E SDS150 SDS200 SDS200E UBC125XLT UBC126AT UBCD160DN UBCD260DN...

www.proscan.org

 

[N8YX]

Just had a look at ProScan. Thanks for the heads-up! Going to download their eval version and try it over the weekend; should it do what I want I can see a 4-license purchase real soon.

 

[iMONITOR]

Just had a look at ProScan. Thanks for the heads-up! Going to download their eval version and try it over the weekend; should it do what I want I can see a 4-license purchase real soon.

Per the license you can run numerous sessions of ProScan on one computer (in different folders), and "I think" you can install it on two of your own computers! Support from Bob is super!

 

[CanesFan95]

I'm not. It's easy to bump the button accidentally, and it only takes once to let the magic smoke out.

Also, many ham radios have very narrow front ends, and go pretty much deaf once you get a few MHz away from the ham bands. So that's a consideration, in addition to their glacial scan rate and other issues.

So then just remove the mic or whatever. My Icom ID-880H is fast, but not as fast as a scanner and is harder to use. But the receive? Forget it. On the same antenna, it picks up stuff the scanners don't even know about.

 

[vagrant]

I use my ham radios daily to scan amateur and non amateur freqs and they work well. They are not deaf, even when using antennas tuned for the amateur bands. Perhaps the radio or antenna you tested had an issue, or was not made for a wide RX coverage. Which models did you test? Were any of them made in the last 20 years?

Also, many ham radios have very narrow front ends, and go pretty much deaf once you get a few MHz away from the ham bands. So that's a consideration, in addition to their glacial scan rate and other issues.

 

[N8YX]

Per the license you can run numerous sessions of ProScan on one computer (in different folders), and "I think" you can install it on two of your own computers! Support from Bob is super!

Currently have it set up running 1ea 996 and 15X. Yes, you can install it on two of your own computers (per license). I'm going to buy two licenses as I have a total of four I use for various monitoring-control functions.

I know the 996 and successors output control-channel data natively. Is there a way to make a -15X do this and have ProScan recognize it?

 

[N7OLQ]

On the 780XLT, if you set the step to 7.5KHz first, you can program 155.7525 and it will store it that way.

 

[chief21]

On the 780XLT, if you set the step to 7.5KHz first, you can program 155.7525 and it will store it that way.

I can confirm that the 780 will accept a step setting different from the default if the step setting is changed before entering the frequency. Step choices are 5 / 7.5 / 10 / 12.5 / 25 / 50 / and 100 kHz.

 

[iMONITOR]

Anyone know what happens when you import data into the BC780-XLT from the R.R. database using ProScan?

 

[HWG]

On the 780XLT, if you set the step to 7.5KHz first, you can program 155.7525 and it will store it that way.

I can confirm that the 780 will accept a step setting different from the default if the step setting is changed before entering the frequency. Step choices are 5 / 7.5 / 10 / 12.5 / 25 / 50 / and 100 kHz.

@mass-man Have you tried this?