BCD325P2/BCD996P2: DMR upgrade for my BCD996P2

[bobruzzo]

I am hovering over the My Uniden site trying to decide if I want to spend the $60 on the DMR upgrade for my 996P2 scanner. There is a lot of DMR activity (mostly businesses) around here. And there are 2 amateur radio DMR repeaters locally. I went to one of the local radio club meetings last week at the W1OP DMR repeater site. So I chatted with some of the member about getting a DMR radio, but right now it's too complicated and the choices of radios are not appealing to me. Personally I would go with ICOM. Anyway I am interested in the DMR upgrade so I can listen to the repeaters. I have a list (from using DSD+) of many DMR business talkgroups.....tons of them that use a large 900 mhz system up on big tower on hill. So I am guessing if I get the upgrade I will need to program scanner manually with each individual freq, including the 2 ham radio DMR repeaters. Or better, I could use Sentinel and make a conventional list and copy to scanner. I just dont understand how to enter data like slot number and color codes in both the radio and Sentinel. Can someone walk me through this before I order the upgrade? I just want to see whats involved.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Firstly Sentinel isn't compatible with the 996P2. If the DMR info you're looking for is listed in the RR database you can use software like Freescan or my preference, Proscan to import the data directly from the RR database into your scanner

 

[KevinC]

I am hovering over the My Uniden site trying to decide if I want to spend the $60 on the DMR upgrade for my 996P2 scanner. There is a lot of DMR activity (mostly businesses) around here. And there are 2 amateur radio DMR repeaters locally. I went to one of the local radio club meetings last week at the W1OP DMR repeater site. So I chatted with some of the member about getting a DMR radio, but right now it's too complicated and the choices of radios are not appealing to me. Personally I would go with ICOM. Anyway I am interested in the DMR upgrade so I can listen to the repeaters. I have a list (from using DSD+) of many DMR business talkgroups.....tons of them that use a large 900 mhz system up on big tower on hill. So I am guessing if I get the upgrade I will need to program scanner manually with each individual freq, including the 2 ham radio DMR repeaters. Or better, I could use Sentinel and make a conventional list and copy to scanner. I just dont understand how to enter data like slot number and color codes in both the radio and Sentinel. Can someone walk me through this before I order the upgrade? I just want to see whats involved.

No help, but I don’t believe Icom has any DMR capable radios.

 

[bobruzzo]

No help, but I don’t believe Icom has any DMR capable radios.

OK, I thought I saw an Icom mobile dmr radio online somewhere.....I may be wrong. I am not impressed with those chinese ones at all. A friend let us borrow a TYT HT and the software is buggy and more trouble than its worth.

 

[KevinC]

OK, I thought I saw an Icom mobile dmr radio online somewhere.....I may be wrong. I am not impressed with those chinese ones at all. A friend let us borrow a TYT HT and the software is buggy and more trouble than its worth.

News Release - Icom America

www.icomamerica.com

 

[ka3jjz]

Please, everyone, FreeScan doesn't support DMR programming, and has been abandoned for quite a while now. For the P2 scanners and DMR, you have 2 choices - ProScan or ARC-XT. Mentioning FreeScan in this list is misleading, particularly for newcomers

Mike

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Mentioning FreeScan in this list is misleading, particularly for newcomers

My bad, typically I don't mention it but the one time I do...

 

[bobruzzo]

Firstly Sentinel isn't compatible with the 996P2. If the DMR info you're looking for is listed in the RR database you can use software like Freescan or my preference, Proscan to import the data directly from the RR database into your scanner

OK, sorry I meant Pro Scan....some of the data is on the RR database but most of the other stuff I am not sure about. but I have a list of all the talk groups. Here is the system I want to monitor: DMR The system uses a few frequencies on 900 mhz so I am not sure how to program this system. And there are talk groups I have found that are not in the RR database so I can manually add them. I use the site 008 (Johnston/Providence).

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

And there are talk groups I have found that are not in the RR database so I can manually add them.

You can enable ID search on the system and the unknown talkgroups come up all you need to do is quickly store the ID

 

[bobruzzo]

You can enable ID search on the system and the unknown talkgroups come up all you need to do is quickly store the ID

OK thanks, but how do I program this since the system uses more than 1 frequency? I tried to do a "dummy" program in Pro Scan but it said (since radio doesnt have the dmr upgrade yet) it will only program as a Motorola system....In Pro Scan it only shows the frequencies.....where are the talk groups?

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

You

In Pro Scan it only shows the frequencies.....where are the talk groups?

You need to scroll down past all the sites of frequencies to locate the talkgroups (TGIDs). If you want to program them all into memory simply click "Check All Talkgroups" otherwise you can check the boxes off choosing which ones you want to program

 

[bobruzzo]

Thank you very much!

 

[n1chu]

Check out Anytone. They have a few variations that work, and programming software. You can receive ham, commercial and public safety but only on the VHF High band and UHF. One variant, the PRO version is FCC certified for both ham and commercial (part 90 & 95) which allows for transmitting for both the ham and commercial needs.

 

[hiegtx]

OK thanks, but how do I program this since the system uses more than 1 frequency? I tried to do a "dummy" program in Pro Scan but it said (since radio doesnt have the dmr upgrade yet) it will only program as a Motorola system....In Pro Scan it only shows the frequencies.....where are the talk groups?

You can use ProScan to import the sites and talkgroups of interest if and when you acquire the DMR Upgrade.

Not sure where you you got the message that 'since your scanner does not have the DMR Upgrade, it will only import a system as Motorola'. I've never seen that sort of message, and since you can create a system without the scanner connected, I doubt the software checks that, unless, perhaps, it's an error message when trying to write a programming file to the scanner.

 

[ProScan]

OK thanks, but how do I program this since the system uses more than 1 frequency? I tried to do a "dummy" program in Pro Scan but it said (since radio doesnt have the dmr upgrade yet) it will only program as a Motorola system....In Pro Scan it only shows the frequencies.....where are the talk groups?

Is the Scanner Type in ProScan set to BCD996P2 and not BCD996T or another model that doesn't support DMR?
The TGID's imported for me. Before clicking the Import button, insure that the TGID's are not unchecked.

 

[bobruzzo]

Is the Scanner Type in ProScan set to BCD996P2 and not BCD996T or another model that doesn't support DMR?
The TGID's imported for me. Before clicking the Import button, insure that the TGID's are not unchecked.


View attachment 135300

OK Thanks, I will check these things...