SDS200/BCD536HP Pi4 Remote Head Project

If a remote with a 7" touchscreen was available for the 536HP and SDS200:

  • I wouldn't be interested.

    Votes: 23 25.3%
  • I would pay up to $150.

    Votes: 30 33.0%
  • I would pay up to $175.

    Votes: 14 15.4%
  • I would pay up to $200.

    Votes: 24 26.4%

  • Total voters
    91
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jonwienke

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Are you open-sourcing this? If not, how do you plan on distributing upgrades and bug fixes to what essentially will be an embedded device?
My plan is to have a "check for update" button or menu to do updates, similar to many other software products. How that works under the hood is still being worked out, but one of the design goals is to make everything plug and play, and not require Linux nerdity to make it work.
 

wowologist

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A $39 tablet won't have the CPU power of the Pi 4, and a phone is going to have a smaller screen. Any phone or tablet with similar hardware specs is going to be comparable in price. The other issue with an app is device fragmentation--different versions of the OS, different hardware, etc. An app might work great on one phone and crash constantly on another. Siren is a great example. It works on some devices and doesn't on others, and unless you're willing to collect dozens of phones\tablets for testing, debugging device-specific compatibility issues is shooting in the dark.

With a dedicated device, I have control of the hardware, and only have to test and debug functionality on that hardware. The case I'm using has a cooling fan and the 75mm vesa mount hole patternon the back, so it can be securely mounted in a vehicle with a simple RAM mount, and stay cool enough to function even in a hot vehicle.

So your attempting to do sortof a remoteham type product...but for scanners? This still seems to me to be a Pinterest project if it works for you great..share...but to try to make it into a retail product, na.....the best thing for Uniden to do for thier overpriced scanners would actually be to make the app and release it FREE ....might actually get a few more sales in. However if they try to charge for it like their DMR/NXDN/ProVoice decoding scam/fee it would just put it back into the overpriced ripoff zone. IMHO.
 

wowologist

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If you do not own a SDS200 then you have no idea how great of a scanner we own. There is more happy owners than there are unhappy owners. Sorry you are missing the use of a great scanner.

...and BTW, I didnt state an opinion on "owners", I stated an opinion on possible purchasers.
 

MA-radio-guy

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All,

It turns out that I have been working on a project like this for several months now. It is based on a raspberry pi3 with a 3.5" touchscreen directly mounted to the pi (as I wanted it to be as compact as possible). Currently, it is designed to work with a BCD996P2 (via a USB cable) but could easily be adapted to work with the SDS200 (via wired or wireless network connection).

I was waiting to get further along with the project to before revealing anything but this thread has encouraged me due to the strong interest

I will start another thread shortly about my project including lots of details/photos/etc

Jon -- you can reach out to me directly and I can give you as much detail as you like

thanks,
ma-radio-guy
 

garys

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Something like this or Jon's project would be good for the SDS100 and 436HP. When I'm traveling, I occasionally use my 436HP in the rental vehicle. Having an easy to use remote head would make that easier and safer.

All,

It turns out that I have been working on a project like this for several months now. It is based on a raspberry pi3 with a 3.5" touchscreen directly mounted to the pi (as I wanted it to be as compact as possible). Currently, it is designed to work with a BCD996P2 (via a USB cable) but could easily be adapted to work with the SDS200 (via wired or wireless network connection).

I was waiting to get further along with the project to before revealing anything but this thread has encouraged me due to the strong interest

I will start another thread shortly about my project including lots of details/photos/etc

Jon -- you can reach out to me directly and I can give you as much detail as you like

thanks,
ma-radio-guy
 

jonwienke

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I plan on going with the larger screen for several reasons:
  1. I want to be able to remote control multiple scanners simultaneously, which is going to require more UI real estate than controlling a single scanner, and extra CPU power. So I'm using the Pi 4 board instead of the 3.
  2. The extra heat of the Pi 4 also means a cooling fan is needed, especially if the remote is going to run in a hot vehicle.
  3. The case I'm using has a built-in cooling fan and 75mm VESA mount, so a RAM mount can attach directly to the back. It also has enough room to mount a GPS module with the antenna facing the front, for better reception.
 

mattmac553

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if there is a way it would be great to see touchscreen buttons/shortcuts to turn off certain sites, talkgroups, and favorite group.
 

jonwienke

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Tapping on a system, site, department, or channel will toggle the hold on that object, and I'm going to have AVOID buttons by each so you can easily toggle avoids as well.
 

jonwienke

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OK, I'm running into a stupid problem. I created new Visual Studio 2019 project using a sample app that builds a simple LED blinker on the Pi.

I made the mistake of creating the initial SSH connection before I changed the default Pi password. So of course after I changed the password, the connection errored. I deleted it and created a new one with the updated, but now I always get this:

error.jpg
 

ProScan

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OK, I'm running into a stupid problem. I created new Visual Studio 2019 project using a sample app that builds a simple LED blinker on the Pi.

I made the mistake of creating the initial SSH connection before I changed the default Pi password. So of course after I changed the password, the connection errored. I deleted it and created a new one with the updated, but now I always get this:

I haven't seen that message but I bet if you google the message word for word, something will come up on stackoverflow.com with the fix/s.
 

jonwienke

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No dice on Google, but I figured it out. I entered the password in a spot where the authentication type was supposed to go, and it didn't trigger an error. So now I can step through the program and debug it from my Windows laptop, as it runs on the Pi.

I knew the error had to be because of something dumb...
 

jonwienke

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I'm getting a new error now:
DEP6957: Failed to connect to device '127.0.0.1' using Universal Authentication. Please verify the correct remote authentication mode is specified in the project debug settings.

For some reason, VS is using the loopback address instead of the IP address of the Pi.
 

garys

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I've been following this thread with some interest, even though I don't need a remote head for my SDS200. However, I fell into a pretty good deal on a SDS100 and wonder if this control head could work with that? I notice that there are both a Mini and Micro USB port on the side. On a guess, the Micro is for the GPS, but I haven't read that far into the manual yet.
 

jonwienke

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GPS feeds into the mini USB port. The functionality of the micro-USB hasn't been officially announced yet, but it has access to the SDR subsystem.
 

mancow

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....I'm still trying to figure out what your trying do here. Wouldn't an 39$ 8" Android tablet and an APP accomplish all this? Or even more to the point...the Android phone(s) I already carry with me 24/7?

Please do tell us about said app.
 
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