Latest Update to BC296D/BC796D

[SCPD]

have you ever looked at a bc 80 xlt? that radio was a mechanical nightmare. i would think that the technolgy is now here for flashable roms that dont change the bandplan. the aor ar8200 up till recently, was not resettable unless you shipped it back to aor usa. the newest ar8200mk3 is now resettable. could be a eeprom change that doesnt change the bandplan which is where the rules come in. maybe the change in the bc296/796 is a new eeprom that could be upgraded? this is great news for the birdie and the ct state police. thanks for the link as i could not find it on the uniden site at all. bill simpson

 

[chikin]

The firmware binary could be encrypted

I've done some investigation on this and I do not believe the firmware binary is encrypted. However, I could be wrong.

There are Motorola S-records embedded within the upgrade executable (BCi96UPDT.exe and BC296UPDT.exe, I believe they're called) and many, many long ASCII strings of hexadecimal data that follow the S8 command. Each string is preceded by a three-byte address. If you take this data, write it to a binary file in the correct order according to the address, and then look at the binary file you just created, you will see a number of interesting ASCII strings, many of which seem to imply a hidden diagnostic mode is available. (I haven't figured out how or if it can be enabled.) At any rate, if this were part of the upgrade, then it must not be encrypted because it's possible to read and understand the data in it.

On the other hand, each of the updates has been shipped with a .DAT file, also consisting of hexadecimal data encoded as ASCII strings, that might be the update data itself. However, I have not taken a look at that in a while to see whether or not it might be encrypted.

I'm just hoping that these upgrades improve reception on Austin-Travis County's CQPSK system. Right now, the BC296D does a wretched job on the simulcast sites, but does very well on the weaker C4FM Intellirepeater sites.

 

[mikewazowski]

Upgrading the BCi96 card only?

Has anybody tried to take a card from the older digital scanners such as the 785, install it in a newer scanner such as the 796 and update it?

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I am not a lawyer either. I remember that Congress was upset about scanners that could be easily modified for cellular, the "magic wire" type stuff. One example of "by a computer" is the Win96 program where you check a box and you get extended frequencies. That could have easily included cellular frequencies as well. I feel the government wanted to eliminate any method of easily restoring cellular coverage.

Yeah someone can replace the firmware but I would not doubt that it could be done on a cellular phone as well. Even on a rom based version someone could replace the CPU with one with illegal code. It takes alot of time and some skills to do it. The small benefits and huge risks make it not worth doing.

I do embedded stuff all the time and there are a number of options to prevent code modification. The sensitive code is put in a certain section of flash memory that the flash loader in the device's firmware cannot write. The code checks if the flash memory has changed which also checks if the flash memory is still good.

Just because something has flash in it does not mean any guy off the street can modify it for cellular. I feel a more useful "hack" to scanner firmware would be Multi-Net, and Passport LTR. I have a Pro 2004 that will do Cellular but I do not use it to listen to cellular. It is much more interesting to listen to the snowplowers on the local LTR system early in the morning during a snowstorm. I do not want to get an unwanted group of people "visiting" me at 4 or 5 AM to take all my electronics stuff away.

73 Eric

 

[poltergeisty]

And how are they going to find you well I should say know that you are doing such a thing. I have done many things the goverment dose not know and never ever will in regards to radio coms. This message will self distruct in 30 seconds. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[kikito]

Today I received my BC296D back from repairs (after almost 3 weeks) and now it seems to track my VHF 9600 system properly. I don't know if it's something they did to it or if after fixing it they upgraded the radio to the latest (3.25) firmware (which I didn't get to do before it died) and that's what did the 'trick'. hmmmm...... oh well

 

[mhughes4]

This month I purchased the BC296D and joined this forum (this is my first post). I’ve never owned a scanner, but I did some research and decided the 296 would satisfy my scanner needs for some time to come.

I read about the update and called Uniden to see if I needed it. Service tech said no if I had just purchased (I had to wait a week for new stock, so I assume factory fresh). In closing I asked how to find out what firmware version I had. Depress the 2, 4 and 9 keys and turn on. So I did this and low and behold…firmware 3.21. The update is to version 3.25.

I’m curious. What firmware versions do you have? Is 3.21 the factory version of the 3.25 internet update? Or, did your scanner come with 3.21, or lower, and then you upgraded to 3.25?

I suppose I could just go ahead and update but I use a Mac and I'm running Virtual PC to program and control my scanner, it works, but it’s cumbersome.

 

[kikito]

I’m curious. What firmware versions do you have? Is 3.21 the factory version of the 3.25 internet update? Or, did your scanner come with 3.21, or lower, and then you upgraded to 3.25?

Came with Ver 3.21 from factory and after the upgrade is now Ver 3.25.