Software – ScannerFreakDB By VK7AAL

[K7MFC]

Thanks. I don't have anything except Windows 11 to test it with. I might see if it all works with Python 3.8.

I am also working on getting this working on Android.

As a fellow developer, my advice is: do not consider supporting Windows 7 for a greenfield project in 2025. All the security issues aside, the juice is never worth the squeeze trying to support something that the original author, Microsoft in this case, has themselves abandoned. You will have a small number of very high maintenance users (Windows 7 has a 0.5% market share in 2025), and you will end up dedicating a much larger percentage than 0.5% of your time to this. You will likely need to make design and architecture decisions that adversely affect the UX for everyone else, for the sake of a few.

 

[pb_lonny]

That all makes sense. My focus is on the Android version and getting that working first.

 

[Scan125]

Open Source / Android etc.

First of all thank you for sharing your great software/project. Well done and congratulations.

Now this my upset some Open Source people but have you considered going down the Careware/Charity route like I have done with my Scan125 program. The software remains FREE and unrestricted but users are asked, if they like the software, to donate to a charity of your or even their choice.

My software has generated 1000s of £/$ for the DEBRA charity. What I find really gratifying and keeps me developing is that a worthy charitable organisation benefits from not only my hard work but also those suggestions and big reports that just further improve my software and accordingly charitable income. All in all a win/win.

If/when I'm unable to support my software then I will then consider open souring it so that those who have donated to charity will not be left unsupported. Again a win/win.

 

[pb_lonny]

That is really good idea and as a user of Scan125 for a number of years, that sounds awesome. I will look in to this.

 

[K7MFC]

Now this my upset some Open Source people but have you considered going down the Careware/Charity route

Doubtful that this would upset any open source folks - it is extremely common to get monetary support from software users in the form of donations. In the FOSS/open source world “free” doesn’t necessarily mean free as in beer, gratis, a $0 price tag. It means “free” as in liberty, freedom. You are free to inspect the inner workings of the software you run on your system, free to use it any way you see fit, free to modify it to your liking, and free to pass it on to others.

 

[Scan125]

Doubtful that this would upset any open source folks - it is extremely common to get monetary support from software users in the form of donations. In the FOSS/open source world “free” doesn’t necessarily mean free as in beer, gratis, a $0 price tag. It means “free” as in liberty, freedom. You are free to inspect the inner workings of the software you run on your system, free to use it any way you see fit, free to modify it to your liking, and free to pass it on to others.

Yes I understand the Open Source model and donations. However in Charity/Careware the donations go to another worthy party as oppoed back to the developer / Open Source community.

Anyway I too don't think it will upset the Open Source Community. In fact I suspect there as projects out their that share some of their donations with worthy causes.

I'm also grateful to commercial concerns like BASS and BASS.Net who have given me their normal paid for licenses for free. Also for UK company Moonraker who donated a UBC75XLT scanner to me.

 

[pb_lonny]

Software – ScannerFreakDB

Version 1.4 Changes​

Update to database code, to improve speed.​

Update to new development enviroment version, to improve debugging and security.​

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Edit Screen now resizes on Windows​

Top 50 Users Chart

 

[skywarrior]

Hello,
I just downloaded the software and I receive this error code
File "ScannerFreakDB_Current.py", line 1301, in <module>
NameError: name 'group_options' is not defined

How do I correct this?
Thanks

 

[pb_lonny]

Hi.
You need to move the text file from the new install folder and put it in the same folder as the exe file.

I am working on automating this process, as some users already have custom versions of this file.

 

[pb_lonny]

I have added the below to the page for ScannerFreqDB

"Please Note: If this is a new install, you need to copy the "group_options.txt" from the "New Install" folder and place this in the same folder as the ScannerFreak.exe file."

 

[skywarrior]

OK, thanks it is working now!

 

[pb_lonny]

OK, thanks it is working now!

Thanks for letting me know

 

[pb_lonny]

Hi all.


Thank you for all the support on this project, it means a lot to me to see other people using this and finding it useful.

To ensure I am able to balance both the development of ScannerFreakDB and my own monitoring time, interests, plus work and my family life, I have developed a schedule for updates for the rest of 2025 and in to 2026.


Version 1.5:
I am currently working on the final update for 2025, this will be version 1.5 and I am planning on having this ready by early December. This version will have a few small bug fixes and a new feature, which I have been testing the past few days and really helps with my monitoring experiance.


2026:
From 2026, I will be planning on releasing a new version each month, sometimes this will be new features and other times it might be just bug fixes. The version numbers will be 2.x, where x is the month, so 2.1 will be the January 2026 release.

Paul