Scanning Software - What's It Do?

[FreqMgr]

Newbie with a PRO-2051 and having quite a few problems with the poorly written manual. With the help of some input to this forum by experienced scanner users, and with some, but little, help from Radio Shack people, I've managed to accomplish some trunking programming. Still many questions about and things to do to program this or that function that the manual simply doesn't clearly and simply address. My question is: What does the programming software now available for many scanners, and eventually to be available for the 2051, do that you can't do manually? I would assume that, with the software, you have to punch in all the pertinent data such as freqs, ID groups, etc. After that's done, what does the software do? Maybe a dumb question to some, but not to a new kid on the block. Any clarification of the subject would indeed be most appreciated.

 

[ka3jjz]

That's a question that's worthy of a full blown MT article, for sure. Let me throw out some ideas and let's bounce them around a bit...

a. It makes a convienient way to back up the contents of your scanner so it can be restored in the event something goes awry;

b. With the better packages, there's a way to export the records to another format that is importable to yet another package, providing a reasonable file interchange ability. More and more programs are exporting to comma delimited files (.cdf) or comma seperated value files(.csv) - really the same thing.

c. In some cases, it can expand the nominal number of memory channels. For example, Radiomax is a package that works with many older scanners; and due to its file structure, you could have quite literally thousands of records available to scan at any time (whether you'd want to do that or not is a point for another discussion)

d. Some packages add computer driven features for which the scanner is not otherwise equipped. For example, the 895 has no way to display alpha lookups - a short phrase identifying the frequency - on its screen, but there are numerous programs that would do this right on the PC

e. It can simplify programming, dependent of course on the model and what is being interfaced. Classic example of this is Win96 for the PRO96/2096.

OK folks jump in here. Any other general categories I didn't mention here?

73s Mike

 

[FreqMgr]

Thanks, Mike, for your reply. I'm still a tad confused by all of this scanner software, but with time---and authoritative input such as yours---I hope to be able to become proficient, or at least relatively so, in its application. -jtw-

 

[Al42]

OK folks jump in here. Any other general categories I didn't mention here?

In line with backups, if you travel you can have a few (or many) different scanner setups, and reprogram in a couple of minutes.

Some scanners can even be controlled by the computer. Others can tell the computer which channel they've stopped on - allowing you to "see" the scanner on the computer screen, or on another computer if you run some other (cheap or free) software.