Welcome. You will really enjoy the 197 (?) but to get the most out of it IMO the software is a must. Any of the three mentioned above will work great and allow you to import freqs to your scanner if you have the correct cable. Do yourself a favor and just buy the RS cable, rather than trying to kludge or homebrew one. All three of the programs have 30 day trials, so you can see which one suits you best. They're all great and do mostly the same things, but the look and feel, and the workflow, is a little different.