Uniden bcd396xt programming question

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ChiefHawkeye

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Hi I'll admit I'm no where near understanding fully how to program this thing, first of all i cant get my pc to recognize the serial cable supplied with the scanner. Should I get an adapter? In the meantime i was wondering if someone could explain to me how to manually program Ankeny, Iowa in polk county police frequencies. There is some more info on what I might need here. http://forums.radioreference.com/iowa-radio-discussion-forum/266943-ankeny-pd-freqs-2.html

appreciate any help or suggestions i really dont want to have to take this thing back because i cant figure out how to program it.
 

W9CD

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The XT series are a bear to program manually, in my opinion. Computer programming is the way to go...
 

ChiefHawkeye

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what do you recommend for that? being my serial cable isnt working and what software?
 

frazpo

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Serial or USB? Your computer wouldnt "recognize" a serial cable. The only way of knowing is to attempt a connection with software.

The software is Freescan. FreeSCAN - Sixspot Software

Do you have a RR account?? You will need this to load systems and groups from the website into Freescan. It is simple. Get the program loaded and we will confirm your connnected and go from there.

Make sure your scanner port is set to highest number 115000 or something close.
 

ChiefHawkeye

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ok ill get on that, and the scanner came with a serial cable but nothing pops up when its plugged in.

Do you mean a paid RR account?
 

frazpo

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Just know that if this is your first DMA scanner then be ready for some trial and error and getting the hang of what is going on. Patience.
 

frazpo

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OK got freescan and a premium membership

This video is a good reference for using Freescan for first time. This shows you how to load a trunked system. You will want the Racom system. It looks like Ankeny uses Polk County for dispatch. So Polk county is what you want to navigate to in Freescan once you connect with RadioRef.

Freescan Video 1 - YouTube

On choosing which sites and groups to load you may want to utilize your post for the Iowa region. Guys in there will know. Looks to me you need to load 3 sites. Ankeny, Des Moines, and Polk City.
 
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ChiefHawkeye

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I was able to upload my city to the scanner. Right now its scanning Ankeny 851.4375 but I havnt heard any chatter yet and i feel like there should be based on when I used to listen. Any thoughts on that?
 

frazpo

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Is your scanner scrolling "id search" or "id scan" as it scans that system. Did you load the Ankeny site (first column) and then the talkgroups (second column) in Freescan?
 

ChiefHawkeye

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its scrolling ID SCAN, I only loaded ankeny on there and not the talkgroups, should i retry that?
 

frazpo

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Yes. First press the "func" button on the side. A small "F" will appear on the screen, then hit your "scan" button. This will toggle you to "id search" Do this while scanning.

You will want talkgroups loaded but lets get some audio first.
 

frazpo

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Ok have audio now ill start on the talkgroups, any suggestions?

Yes. Stick with the Ankeny site. I use the option at the bottom of each list to choose all or none. I choose none and then pick my site. Do the same with the talk groups. Choose none and then check what you want. I would load all of the polk County TG's (talkgroups).

On the "send to scanner" popup box make sure you check the option to "replace any system with same name". This will avoid creating 2 systems. What you can do is close freescan and open it - do not open your previous file to load into - create a new one and load you sites and TG"s - load to scanner and it should overwrite that other system that does not have the TG's.
 

ChiefHawkeye

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Think I'm starting to get the hang of it a little bit, I really appreciate your help
 
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