While trunking in your desired bank, hit HOLD/UP ARROW or MAN. The screen should blank out, and a series of underscores (______) should be on the screen.
from the wiki... when i do this nothing happens. also there is a large "P" on the left of the lcd that i can find no explanation for. is "trunking" just scanning the frequenceys in the bank I have chosen?
Let's start at the beginning - what is trunking? UPMan's excellent intro article will get you started (note that there's a couple of PDFs in this listing - you'll need Adobe, Google Chrome or a reader such as Foxit to read these...)
http://wiki.radioreference.com/images/c/c7/Trunking_description.pdf
and in case you don't have the manual...
http://www.uniden.com/content/ebiz/uniden/resources/ownersmanuals/BC245XLTom.pdf
Now let's identify what system(s) you are trying to program - they're listed at the bottom of...
Halifax County, Nova Scotia (NS) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference
The Maritime system at the bottom of the page cannot be trunked by the 245. It's a type it simply doesn't support - but you could program these frequencies conventionally.
The TMRS system is partially trunkable - any talkgroup that has a mode of D or E cannot be monitored with a 245. A mode of M means that sometimes it's digital, sometimes analog - when it's analog, you can hear it. When it's digital, you can't. E means encrypted - nothing available to the consumer can hear that.
Having the 'P' in the bank, with a bank number showing and all zeros in the display is a sure sign that you are working with a conventional, not a trunked, bank. You need to select a bank and set it to trunk using E2-800 as described in the wiki (and the manual), if you're trying to work with the TMRS
I'm assuming you have an older PC that you can use the supplied cable to connect to the PC - otherwise you will need a USB-serial converter. This wiki article lists several off the shelf models that are known to work, and how to use Windows Device Manager to diagnose issues...
Connecting scanners via USB - The RadioReference Wiki
Finally, Scan Pro software is junk, pure and simple. I did a review of it many years ago. A much better choice is
Scan Control which has a copy/paste utility that will allow you to copy data directly from the database. Unfortunately no one has written a program that will use the web service with the 245...
That should give you more than enough to get started. I'm not familiar with Nova Scotia, so if you have specific questions about a system there, this is the place to go...
Atlantic and Maritime - The RadioReference.com Forums
However I had a 245 for many years, so fire away with your questions...Mike
