Highpockets (Steve) gave me a good deal of help when I was [still] on the learning curve. He and garys are spot on. Don't send the scanner off and be held hostage to any desired or needed changes. I got the cable (and 106) at a local RS outlet. Some thoughts, FWIW.
1. Since your 106 is a year old, if you haven't done so, upgrade your scanner's firmware to take care of any rebanding issues in your area.
2. Unfortunately Win500 does not have a users manual, but between the Utah Radio site and the Q&A in forums I've found the answers to almost all questions I had. Remember to use the Wiki as well. I bypassed trunking scanner technology, jumping from the conventional -2041 to the -106. For me, I have to admit that it took double-digit hours (30?) while comparing Win500 with other software offerings and getting reasonably comfortable with Win500. I still can't wrap my head around object oriented programming <grin>.
3. I make backups using a date and (if the same day) incremental version numbers. The files are always in order. Before making adds/edits/changes I use the "File Save As" to bump the name of the current file. Examples:
2011-11-03_w2xq_v1
2011-11-03_w2xq_v2
2011-11-03_w2xq_v3 ... three edits on Nov 3
2011-11-04_w2xq_v1 ... one edit on Nov 4
As I do a "File Save As" before making adds/edits/changes I also change the text on Line 4 of the "Welcome Text" (General Settings tab). The current line 4 reads "2011-11-04 v1"; it reminds me of what file has been last uploaded to the scanner.
If making a special occasional-use file I'll adjust the file name. The file for the Denver, CO, area was last worked on:
2011-09-09_CO_v1
4. The Utah Radio pages have some suggestions for tweaking general scanning and searching values. I opted to make an empty master file with the Utah suggestions already applied (in case the scanner required a total reset). I named it "w2xq_master_rssi_zeromatic_wx_2011-10-16_v1".
5. I opted not to attempt to program everything I wanted at the first few sessions. I played around with one or two groups (i.e., NJSP, Burlington County, learned how to reorder and renumber objects, and copy/paste between files. The experimentation also helped me to decide how I wanted to set up the Scan Lists (General tab).
6. Figuring out the copy/paste between files helps me make up new files or update current ones. For example, I have one just with railroad frequencies (w2xq_rr_2011-09-10_v1), another with just remote broadcast frequencies (w2xq_remote_bc_2011-10-11_v1). Each single file being just one type of frequencies, it's easy to update from the RR databases.
Hope these may give you some ideas. What works for me won't necessarily work for you, but maybe...
