I recently bought an Uniden SC230 for the races; however, I would like to program frequencies to listen to my local area. I bought the scanner but I am worried about deleting it or somehow it just disappearing.
Frist, it is hard to accidently erase what is programmed. Here is an online manual that is a lot easier to understand; I have linked to the programming section here:
http://myweb.cableone.net/marksscanners/230/230.html#program system The key to understanding your new scanner is to think of folders on your PC. First, you need to create a main folder, called a system. Youi might call that Davidson County. In this folder, you might want to create 3 sub folders: Polcie, Fire, EMS. These subfolders are called groups. Then, youi can start to enter frequenciies in each of these sub folders. You then might want to create another main folder(system) for Municipalities, and groups under that for the various cities in the county. This would all be under the topiic in the manual
Create a new Conventional system and
Creating Groups.
This is soooo much easier with software. This will not only make your programming much easier, but it will help you understand all of the features of the 230. Here is a list of software:
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/SC230#Supporting_Software Three that provide the most value are ARC246 by
BuTel, and free programs,
FreeSCAN and
BCtool. They allow a automatic download of any or all frequencies in
Davidson county and state from this site . They have a neat virtual control panel that works your scanner from the keyboard., but the best part is that it logs all the information(freq & PL) and lets you see your scanner window in a much larger scale that you can actually see clearly. The logging is great when searching, but it is also handy for normal scanning. Often, I do not look up in time to see what agency was just talking, so I just look at the log.
Neither BCtool or FreeSCAN work well with the 230 logging, so if that is something you would like, then I can strongly recommend ACR246
(ARC246 works much better with the SC230 than ARC Sport). If logging is not needed, then I lean towards BCtool, because the display can be easily minimized and made to "stay on top". However, you can download all three and see which one you like(ARC free demo has some limitations, but it is robust). If you DO decide to use software, be sure to upload the contents of your SC230 into the program FIRST, so that you will have that saved on your PC as well as your scanner.
Also, if you have a new PC or lap top, you will need a serial to USB converter from Uniden
http://tinyurl.com/2cqyu4 or Radio Shack:
http://tinyurl.com/2gpbsp . Another source is
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10311&cs_id=1031104&p_id=2276&seq=1&format=2, for quite a bit less. It is reported to work.
Note: You would need to become a
paid subscriber to this site to get the automatic down loads, but this is also very reasonable($7.5 for 3 months). This can save you countless hours of programming and frustration.
