Help Setting up my Radio with FreeScan

[DJJIGGLER]

I got the Uniden BCD 396XT and i have been playing with and now i want to use software with it, i have a Keyspan Serial adapter and i can not get my radio to work with the software to save my life...

If it comes down to it, ill pay someone to remote control my computer and set it up and get it all working for me!

 

[ka3jjz]

You need to do a few things, if you haven't already...

a. You must set up the radio port for the speed you want to use - in the FreeScan User guide, see the 'Making the Connection' entry. It summarizes all the steps you need to do for all the DMA radios. You can get to it in FS using Help/Online Help from the toolbar

b. You must load drivers for your USB cable and get it to assign a serial port. We have an article in our wiki called 'Connecting scanners via USB' which goes through Windoze Device Manager and some of the things to look for

Both that article and the FS User guide are linked here - the USB article is in the preamble, the user guide at the bottom...

Programming Your Uniden Scanner - The RadioReference Wiki

best regards..Mike

 

[DJJIGGLER]

BUMP CANT GET ANYTHING TO WORK!!

Do i need to do anything to the radio for it to connect other than matching the speeds?

 

[ka3jjz]

Setting up the speed should be the only thing you do on the radio. The rest is on the PC side. What software are you using - I had assumed FreeScan since lots of folks use it, but the devil is in the details...

Did you load the USB drivers and check the COM port using Device Manager, as described in the article below

Connecting scanners via USB - The RadioReference Wiki

It's very common to have something like a Bluetooth or USB camera software (among many others) hog a port that the driver thinks it has. You have to clear such conflicts, and make sure the software is talking to the same port that the driver has allocated. Once you get that far, you should be pretty much there...

best regards..Mike

 

[DJJIGGLER]

Im using free scan and i have all my drivers installed for my usb to serial adepter, what are some open com ports? or should i see if there is a program that can search for open com ports?

 

[ka3jjz]

You use Device Manager - which is described, along with how to access it, in the USB article I gave earlier. This will tell you (among lots of other things) what port(s) you have and what is using them

The COM ports will be what the driver(s) have created to simulate a port that the scanner and software will recognize as a 'serial' port.

Mike

 

[DJJIGGLER]

Got it working thanks, just had to install that uniden drivers

 

[DJJIGGLER]

Oh forgot to add thanks! ( have to wait for mod to approve post so i cant edit)