Uniden BCT15X

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JeffHunter

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Santa Fe, TX
Have had this scanner for over a year and tried programming with no luck. Have the premium subscription and still cannot use freescan successfully. Can anyone give me step by step easy to read instructions for the Santa Fe, Tx area. About ready to sell this thing and just walk away. Tried searching also.
 

Highpockets

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Toms River, New Jersey
Have had this scanner for over a year and tried programming with no luck. Have the premium subscription and still cannot use freescan successfully. Can anyone give me step by step easy to read instructions for the Santa Fe, Tx area. About ready to sell this thing and just walk away. Tried searching also.

Look around here and see if you can get anything out of it:

FreeScan User Guide - The RadioReference Wiki
 

hiegtx

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Have had this scanner for over a year and tried programming with no luck. Have the premium subscription and still cannot use freescan successfully. Can anyone give me step by step easy to read instructions for the Santa Fe, Tx area. About ready to sell this thing and just walk away. Tried searching also.
Jeff,
Be sure that you're trying to import from the correct TxWARN system.
For now, Santa Fe is on the analog system, which the 15X can handle. If or when they move to the digital, TxWarn P25 system, then you'd need to upgrade to a digital scanner.

Also, drop down to the Texas forum & check in. I know there are a number of members from the Houston area. Somebody may be able to shoot you a file to get you going. You can use a FreeScan file for any of the Uniden DMA scanners and load it into your BCT15X (BC246T, BR330T, BCT15, etc). You might also find a file though the Houston area Yahoo group.

Highpockets said:
Look around here and see if you can get anything out of it:

FreeScan User Guide - The RadioReference Wiki

JeffHunter said:
Tried this many times already. One screen shot I printed Has more options than my freescan program has.
Be sure that you have the latest version of FreeScan, although I'm not sure that the user guide's screenshots are all from the current version.
 

captclint

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Have had this scanner for over a year and tried programming with no luck. Have the premium subscription and still cannot use freescan successfully.
Yes, Galveston County, Texas (TX) has a lot going on. I think the 1st thing you need to do is look at this page. It appears as if most of the public safety is on Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Motorola
So the steps are:
1. Log onto RR using Freescan using menu: File, Import, Radio Ref Trunked. Enter your username and PW, connect
2. Select Texas under state, and Galveston under county
3. Under available systems, select Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Motorola (note what hiegtx said about the right one..not the APCO P25)
4. A bunch of sites and talk groups will show. Select "none", and then select the city nearest to you...probably galveston. On the right are Talk groups for that system. Select none, and then select all of the Galveston County items
5. Click on the Import button, and all the things selected will download to your FreeScan. Close this box
6. Under Scanner menu, select Upload. Then, on the list to the left, select
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Motorola (this is probably the only thing in the list right now) and then click "Start upload". This will send the system to your scanner, and it should start scanning it.

This should get you started, but I am not from your area, so there may be things that you should also get, or more sites. I will leave any additions to someone from your area, but I think this will get you started.
 
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JeffHunter

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Santa Fe, TX
Followed captclint's directions and got somewhere. When I uploaded to my scanner I get Unable to set WX. What does this mean? Scanner screen shows Galveston and ID SEARCH scrolling under that but is not picking anything up.
 

hiegtx

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Followed captclint's directions and got somewhere. When I uploaded to my scanner I get Unable to set WX. What does this mean?
If I recall correctly, it's simply telling you that you don't have the S.A.M.E. codes entered for weather alerts.
Scanner screen shows Galveston and ID SEARCH scrolling under that but is not picking anything up.
Which Galveston County site did you import? There are four listed,
What control channel frequencies (the actual #s) are you showing.

Also, press hold while the scanner is on the Galveston system.
Then manually step through the system frequencies. Are you hearing the control channel? (One of the ones entered should be active.) The control channel sound will be somewhat of a rumbling noise, sometimes described as an idling diesel engine.

If you're not hearing that, then it's one of two things-
Either you're not getting a good signal (what antenna are you using, the telescoping one that came with the scanner?), or, just maybe, that site has rebanded. There's been several posts down in the Texas forum about various sites on TxWARN (both the analog one you' should be dealing with, and the P25 system) going through the rebanding process. The database does not show that yet for either of the Galveston sites, but if it hasn't happened yet, it will shortly.
 

hiegtx

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Here's a quick FreeScan file I imported for Galveston County & it's sites (actually, there's five, not 4).

The Alvin/Dickinson site is already showing the rebanded frequencies in the database, but FreeScan did not import it as 'rebanded' with the custom tables. Since the rest of the sites are likely to be done fairly soon, I updated them with what should be the 'new' control frequencies once that occurs (the current 866->868MHz frequencies minus 15MHz), and set the band plan for all five sites.

Save this file to your pc, but before opening it with FreeScan, unzip it. Later versions of Windows will open it to extract the FreeScan file inside (Galveston.996), or you can get a free utility here to do that.

I went ahead & imported all five sites, since I don't know which you are closest to. Also imported all of the talkgroups associated with Galveston County (you'll probably want to weed out some of them). I left this one on "ID Search". That will get all active talkgroups on the system (that are not locked out). "ID Scan" will get only those talkgroups that you have programmed, and that are not locked out.
 
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JeffHunter

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Santa Fe, TX
I appriciate the file. I must be doing something wrong. Downloaded and unzipped the file. Uploaded it to the scanner with freescan and have the screen saying nothing to scan.
 

hiegtx

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I appriciate the file. I must be doing something wrong. Downloaded and unzipped the file. Uploaded it to the scanner with freescan and have the screen saying nothing to scan.
Sounds like, somehow, it got locked out. It's not locked in the copy on my pc (that I 'zipped').

Open the file in FreeScan.
With that file open, select the Tools menu at the top
From the drop-down menu, select "Quick key manager". (shortcut to that is <CTRL>+<K>)
That will show you all the quick keys. You should see # 25 slightly boldfaced, and it should have a checkmark in the box by it. If it does not, put one there. Or, just use the "all on" button", then hit "OK".
I assigned all the sites in the file to 25 (just picked a number).

Now, back at the main screen, select Tools again, and from the drop down menu, select "unlock system/sites"
Now, reload that file. Use the option to either erase the scanner first, or the middle option, "replace all systems with same name......"

I just loaded that file in one of my scanners, and it came up running (though obviously, I'm out of range!).

The "nothing to scan" error means either no systems are loaded, or all systems loaded are locked out.
 

Junior08

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I appriciate the file. I must be doing something wrong. Downloaded and unzipped the file. Uploaded it to the scanner with freescan and have the screen saying nothing to scan.


Nothing to scan is a common issue with the BCT15X. There have been numerous queries into why the scanner does this. Mine does it every time I upload a file to my 15X. When it shows this, simply turn off the scanner for 2 seconds, turn it back on, and whatever was uploaded should work fine. I'm not sure if it is a Freescan issue.
 

hiegtx

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Uploaded the file again and turned the scanner off and back on and it is working. Thanks for the help.
Good deal, Jeff.
Glad it worked.

Edit to add: I'm sure you'll want to tweak the talkgroups I added. I was just trying to get a file set up for you to try.
 
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