Possibility of using gps and remote head with BCD396xt

[kd7cra]

I just upgraded from a BCD99T to the 396XT and so far could not be happier. I find the handheld form factor more suited to my needs. However the one feature I do miss was the two serial ports on the 996. When mobile, I had a GPS hooked up to the rear serial port, and a remote head (rh96) hooked up to the front port.

I'm curious about the possibility of running both a GPS and the remote head through the single serial port on the 396xt. The only reason I believe this may be possible is because on the 996 the only way you could use both serial ports at the same time was if one was hooked up to a gps. This leads me to wonder that the GPS data comes in on a seperate pin than the data to or from the remote head.

Best I can tell, the serial connector to the radio is 4 pins. It looks like the remote head requires 3 of them. I'm guessing a data send, data receive and a ground. Assuming the GPS uses a different pin (ie the one pin left) then the gps data could be sent along that line and a connection to the ground.

Anyone have any knowledge about the pinouts on these Uniden cables and if this seems like it would be possible to hack together such a cable. If it is, this would make this radio nearly perfect for me.

Thanks

 

[davidmc36]

The GPS uses the same TX/RX pins. Just the direction of data flow changes with the different devices as required.

Uniden BC246T/BR330T/BCD396T/BC346XT/BCD396XT/BCT15/BCD996T scanners interface cable pinout and wiring @ pinouts.ru

RS232 serial cable pinout information

I know it is no problem to share data from one GPS to multiple scanners with a common wiring harness but I doubt you would be able to have two different devices trying to send data down the same lines at the same time. Sorry I don't know enough about it to say whether there would be any way of doing it, but that's the wiring situation.

Edit: Just to add, the GPS would only send info into the RX pin of the scanner but the conntol head would need that same pin to send to the scanner.

 

[UPMan]

I don't know if it was ever executed, but someone suggested making a timed serial switch that would automatically switch between the RH and GPS periodically (like to GPS for 5 seconds every 2 minutes).

 

[memph33777]

gps on a scanner

what does gps on a scanner do?

 

[davidmc36]

what does gps on a scanner do?

Location based scanning. Program the locations of the sites you want to listen to and as you drive around with a GPS hooked up it will automatically lockout/unlock those sites in you scanner based on your proximity to the site and what ranges you have programmed in. So if you are travelling away from a site and the signal will get weak at some point, it saves you fiddling with the scanner while you are driving. You don't have to turn "banks" on and off, it does it automatically.

Plus you can do some basic POI stuff too.