Frequency counter with CTCSS?

[LowBat]

Is there is such a thing as a frequency counter that will also show the subaudible tone being used by the radio transmitter? I understand some high end scanners have this feature. Perhaps there is a cheap frequency counter that does this too.

 

[fineshot1]

Is there is such a thing as a frequency counter that will also show the subaudible tone being used by the radio transmitter? I understand some high end scanners have this feature. Perhaps there is a cheap frequency counter that does this too.

There are but they are not cheap - your probably only gonna find this feature in some
of the mostly high end freq counters. The two that I know of are below.

Optoelectronics, Inc.

Optoelectronics, Inc.

 

[LowBat]

Thanks for the info fineshot1. I see what you mean about not being cheap. Looks like the best way to go is to buy a nice scanner with the ability to detect CTCSS.

 

[W2NJS]

There is another way to do this. If you use a ham HT, such as the Vertex VX-5R, the radio can be set to a specific frequency then made to scan all of the common CTCSS (or DCS/DPL) settings and when the channel goes active the radio will stop on and display the tone or code being used.

 

[WA1ATA]

You can download WINCTCSS at antistatic.org - winctcss

Feed audio from your radio or scanner into the sound card of a PC and the program will display the CTCSS freq.

Can't get much cheaper.

 

[LowBat]

W2NJS, I do have a Kenwood transceiver that I can do something similar with only it doesn't automatically scan all the available tones. I have to PC program in 39 channels of the same frequency each with a different analog CTCSS. Then I scan all the channels to see where it stops.

WA1ATA, that's interesting I've never thought of using a PC with tone detecting software. By connecting to the sound card does that mean I need to connect a microphone to the audio line input port of the computer?

 

[WA1ATA]

WA1ATA, that's interesting I've never thought of using a PC with tone detecting software. By connecting to the sound card does that mean I need to connect a microphone to the audio line input port of the computer?

For most radios and most PCs all you need is a cable with 3.5mm plugs on both ends. One end goes into the earphone jack, the other end of the cable goes into either the microphone input or line input of your computer. Then go to the record section of the volume control mixer and unmute whichever one you are using, and adjust levels as needed. You might have to play with scanner volume and PC volume controls a bit to get good decoding.

Some radios may have audio on only 1 side of the stereo plug, with the other side being used for sending data to the scanner, but most of the time the common stereo cable works fine.

You may have this sort of cable around already if you have ever plugged an mp3 player into a stereo.

 

[LowBat]

I need a direct wire connection. Got it. I guess I could attach my external speaker/mic to my Kenwood TK-280, then connect to the 3.5mm port on the bottom of the speaker/mic, and then into the line input of my computer.

 

[LowBat]

Okay I got the cable (stereo). I hooked it up through my shoulder mic and I can see the left channel is carrying audio, but I can't get it to play through my computer speakers for some reason. If I record through the Dell Webcam Center it plays back just fine. None of the settings I find on Windows Vista seem to allow me to play the in-line audio through the speakers. This also might be why when I run the WinCTCSS11 program I get an exception window that reads "Cannot open device, Error 0". When I close this exception window I get the WinCTCSS on the top left of the screen, but it doesn't read any values.

Any suggestions?

 

[BonziBuddy]

Okay I got the cable (stereo). I hooked it up through my shoulder mic and I can see the left channel is carrying audio, but I can't get it to play through my computer speakers for some reason. If I record through the Dell Webcam Center it plays back just fine. None of the settings I find on Windows Vista seem to allow me to play the in-line audio through the speakers. This also might be why when I run the WinCTCSS11 program I get an exception window that reads "Cannot open device, Error 0". When I close this exception window I get the WinCTCSS on the top left of the screen, but it doesn't read any values.

Any suggestions?

I also have the same problem on my Windows 7 machine.

Windows 7 is probably not supported.