Has GRE Closed??

[DonS]

I put the odds at the company coming back in any form at about 30:1 or less.

You're more optimistic than I.

I'd say that the odds are greater that someone buys GRE's IP and continues and/or modifies the product line. But I'm not all that optimistic about that, either.

 

[UPMan]

Well, I didn't want to dash all hope for the hapless hopeful, but I have to admit that it is rather more honestly hopeless.

 

[LIScanner101]

I tend to agree on the pessimism here as well, but it seems that as soon as you do that, the "wishful thinkers" attack you for thinking realistically. It's better to just live in fantasyland for some of them, I suppose. The only reason I wrote that I "hope" things work out is because I was just going along with the flow. However, I'm not doing that moving forward, because this is how I really feel:

Maybe I'll eat my words at some point, but for now I think we have to accept that GRE is dead and not coming back.

 

[LIScanner101]

I have to give thanks to all the ones who searched around and dug around for confirmation of GRE and whoever is left that is trying to get it back up and running.

Too many people are crying about how they lost a great company and crying about GRE's intellectual property instead of trying to help GRE make a comeback.

I give credit where credit is due and I did not ultimately plan to insult anybody here and if i did, I apologize for it.

I'm not sure I follow what you said that I bolded above. Did you mean to imply that people should buy the company to "help GRE make a comeback"? If not, can you please tell us exactly what "we" should do to "help GRE make a comeback"?

 

[DonS]

I do not believe for one second that Don does everything he told Emmett he does because if GRE was really closed, none of you would be able to update your GRE scanners. And that leads me to the next question I have, Why is it that Scannermaster told me that radio reference is the main database site and not GRE?????

If you'd read the recent posts on the PSR-800 Yahoo group, as well as some in this forum over the last several years, you'd know that:
1. Don wrote the firmware for the PSR-500, PSR-700, and PSR-800 families of scanners
2. Don wrote (and currently runs) the database update software for the "EZ-Scan" scanners
3. Don was paid by GRE to perform those database updates for a finite period of time into the future.
4. The weekly database process is:
a. retrieve USA and Canada database info from RR
b. convert database to GRE scanner format
c. upload converted database to server
The "server" in (4c) is an FTP server originally created and paid for by GRE America. It is the server contacted by the PSR-700 and PSR-800 families' PC software for CPU, DSP, and database updates. Hopefully, that server will remain available for the <finite period of time into the future> referenced in (3) above.

Lindsay (and probably UPMan) can certainly confirm that #2 and #4 are correct. Lindsay because he was [necessarily] involved in the initial discussions. UPMan because Uniden does the same thing for the HP-1.

 

[UPMan]

Except for who wrote the software, our general method is the same as the one used for the PSR-800. We first retrieve the entire RadioReference database, we process the database into the form used by the HomePatrol-1, then we publish that version as a weekly update.

In a very generic sense, what ScannerMaster told Alex, is true...RadioReference is the main database site. However, the extrapolation that the user gets the PSR-800 database directly from RadioReference was a bad inferential jump.

 

[DonS]

Except for who wrote the software, our general method is the same as the one used for the PSR-800. We first retrieve the entire RadioReference database, we process the database into the form used by the HomePatrol-1, then we publish that version as a weekly update.

In a very generic sense, what ScannerMaster told Alex, is true...RadioReference is the main database site. However, the extrapolation that the user gets the PSR-800 database directly from RadioReference was a bad inferential jump.

Exactly. It's true that RR is the primary source for the database. However, that doesn't mean the GRE or Uniden PC software supplied with the scanners retrieves the database directly from RR. There's obviously a middleman involved: for GRE, it's software running on my home PC and an FTP server originally set up by GRE America; for Uniden, it's a Uniden conversion app and a Uniden server.

 

[KevinC]

Except for who wrote the software, our general method is the same as the one used for the PSR-800. We first retrieve the entire RadioReference database, we process the database into the form used by the HomePatrol-1, then we publish that version as a weekly update.

In a very generic sense, what ScannerMaster told Alex, is true...RadioReference is the main database site. However, the extrapolation that the user gets the PSR-800 database directly from RadioReference was a bad inferential jump.

Seems rather odd that ScannerMaster only told this to 2 people, Alex and Emmett (I guess possibly a 3rd, Steve Wilson)...hmmm.

 

[DonS]

Too many people are crying about how they lost a great company and crying about GRE's intellectual property instead of trying to help GRE make a comeback.

Regarding the intellectual property (IP)...

To my knowledge, the people referencing GRE's IP are doing so in the context of "we can't infringe on that IP". That is, GRE (the owner of the IP) still exists as a legal entity. It likely will exist as such for quite some time. That legal entity, whether it's manufacturing and supporting scanners or merely exists on paper, still owns all rights to the intellectual property (patents, copyrights, etc.).

To be sure, there are a few of us in the USA who were never "GRE employees" (we did contract work for GRE for several years) who do have copies of the scanners' schematics, PCB layouts, firmware source code, etc. It is certainly within our power to disclose otherwise make use of that information. We will not. To do so would violate a) the agreements we signed with GRE several years ago and/or b) USA (and maybe international) copyright laws.

As far as I've read, that's how people are "crying about GRE's intellectual property".

 

[SquierStrat]

Seems rather odd that ScannerMaster only told this to 2 people, Alex and Emmett (I guess possibly a 3rd, Steve Wilson)...hmmm.

LOL i was waiting for someone else to make that connection!

 

[DonS]

LOL i was waiting for someone else to make that connection!

I'm still waiting for people to make a similar connection to another thread.

Like a bunch of posts starting with this one.

 

[alexmahoney]

Except for who wrote the software, our general method is the same as the one used for the PSR-800. We first retrieve the entire RadioReference database, we process the database into the form used by the HomePatrol-1, then we publish that version as a weekly update.

In a very generic sense, what ScannerMaster told Alex, is true...RadioReference is the main database site. However, the extrapolation that the user gets the PSR-800 database directly from RadioReference was a bad inferential jump.

OK, Listen, they confirmed that not even the PSR-800 goes through anybody's private server anymore. It's all handled from Radio Reference.

What I was told makes perfect sense because no individual has any rights to update any scanner privately from what I was told. And this carries over into what I said about IP rights. No individual has any rights to do anything with the software, scanners or anything privately PERIOD.

I don't know If I am right or not but someone is trying to defend himself in here and it's not working with me.

 

[alexmahoney]

I'm still waiting for people to make a similar connection to another thread.

Like a bunch of posts starting with this one.

Don't make connections that you can't prove to be 100% correct. I was already warned about that twice.

 

[alexmahoney]

Regarding the intellectual property (IP)...

To my knowledge, the people referencing GRE's IP are doing so in the context of "we can't infringe on that IP". That is, GRE (the owner of the IP) still exists as a legal entity. It likely will exist as such for quite some time. That legal entity, whether it's manufacturing and supporting scanners or merely exists on paper, still owns all rights to the intellectual property (patents, copyrights, etc.).

To be sure, there are a few of us in the USA who were never "GRE employees" (we did contract work for GRE for several years) who do have copies of the scanners' schematics, PCB layouts, firmware source code, etc. It is certainly within our power to disclose otherwise make use of that information. We will not. To do so would violate a) the agreements we signed with GRE several years ago and/or b) USA (and maybe international) copyright laws.

As far as I've read, that's how people are "crying about GRE's intellectual property".

Craig is obviously not in a position to be speaking about IP period is what I was referring to as crying Mr Starr.

 

[DonS]

Craig is obviously not in a position to be speaking about IP period is what I was referring to as crying Mr Starr.

Of anybody in the GRE scanner development team (who wasn't a GRE employee), Craig is in the best position to be speaking about GRE's intellectual property. He created much of it. He negotiated much of it. He hired several of the people who created it.

There is nobody on the planet whose first language is English who is more qualified to speak about GRE's IP. The only people more qualified than Craig are a few native-born Japanese who used to work for a [now defunct] company which was known to us as "General Research of Electronics".

 

[alexmahoney]

Of anybody in the GRE scanner development team (who wasn't a GRE employee), Craig is in the best position to be speaking about GRE's intellectual property. He created much of it. He negotiated much of it. He hired several of the people who created it.

There is nobody on the planet whose first language is English who is more qualified to speak about GRE's IP. The only people more qualified than Craig are a few native-born Japanese who used to work for a [now defunct] company which was known to us as "General Research of Electronics".

If you want people to buy it, then you don't need to broadcast it it in a public forum such as Craig was doing.

*SIGH* I just can't believe how this hobby has changed for the worst. Same with Amateur Radio.

 

[TES]

. . . I was already warned about that twice.

Would both of those warnings have been directed to the same name or two of the different names I see being tossed around?

 

[DonS]

OK, Listen, they confirmed that not even the PSR-800 goes through anybody's private server anymore. It's all handled from Radio Reference.

What I was told makes perfect sense because no individual has any rights to update any scanner privately from what I was told. And this carries over into what I said about IP rights. No individual has any rights to do anything with the software, scanners or anything privately PERIOD.

Based on your join date and post count, you seem to be relatively new to Radio Reference, so I suppose it's possible that you are not aware of how the GRE scanners were developed and how their (PSR-700 and PSR-800 families ("the scanners")) database updates work. At the risk of repeating myself, I'll describe the process...

The scanners use a set of files on their SD (or, in the case of the PSR-800, micro-SD) cards as an importable library. That library can be updated via the scanners' "EZ-Scan" PC software. The SD cards come with a default version of the library data, but that's probably pretty old unless your retailer updates it for you at purchase time.

Once per week (generally starting on Friday and finishing on Saturday), a program runs on my PC (yes, my personal PC - the one on which I'm typing this message and which is located RIGHT HERE). That program uses the Radio Reference "Web Service" to retrieve all conventional channel and trunked system data for the United States and Canada. The data is converted to the format needed by the GRE scanners - that is, the various RRDB_vvv.nnn files in the "DB" directories you see on the scanners' SD cards.

The conversion program (still running on my home PC) then uploads a ZIP file containing those RRDB_vvv.nnn files to an FTP server. That server (more specifically, its domain name) was originally purchased by GRE America; the domain name and the server are "paid up" for some finite time into the future.

When a user runs, for example, the PSR-800's "EZ-Scan Digital" program and selects "Check for library update" from the "Updates" menu, the EZ-Scan program connects to the GRE-created server and discovers the currently-released library version. The version number and date info is the presented to the user.

If there is an updated version of the library data available, the user can choose to download it. If he does so, the program will retrieve the above ZIP file from the GRE-created server and extract it to the user's hard drive.

This process will be valid until at least December 2014. That's as far as I've been paid to run the weekly update process on my home PC. After that, the process will only work if one of two things happen: a) someone buys the GRE IP and continues the update process or b) I, out of the goodness of my heart, choose to continue the update process without compensation. Note that (b) likely requires that I buy the necessary domain name (used by the EZ-Scan PC software) and maintain a dedicated server. I'm not sure I want to do this.

Based on your previous posts, I don't suppose it's likely that you'll believe the above (or, if you do, that you'll acknowledge as much). That's fine. The people who matter will believe it, and likely already know it's true. After all, my relationship with GRE has been public knowledge since Dayton 2008 - when I was in their booth answering PSR-500 technical questions and giving away Win500 demo CDs.

 

[LIScanner101]

alexmahoney, what EXACTLY is your beef?

For cripe's sake, we're talking about SCANNING AS A HOBBY!!

SHEESH!!

Is that the only thing you have in your life? Is that why you are so up in arms about this whole thing?

What is your point?

 

[AC2OY]

Thank you Don for explaining that I read it and many other posts. I hope that something GOOD happens to this company. I'm kicking myself for NOT buying a PSR-800 or doing better reasearch.