Unitrunker and BCT-15 software

[manross]

OK I know I'm going to feel like an idiot after I get my answer, but sometimes you just have to let it all hang out... I'm gathering all of the equipment and software needed to do: Unitracker, radio control on the BCT-15, Pro-43 for the discriminator tap and at least a couple of good outdoor antenna's. Here's my question. How do you do both the Unitrunker and the BCT-15 control software at the same time to listen to what you decode? Can it be done on one computer at the same time?? I do have one older laptop that I'm dedicating to the Unitrunker. I also have a new laptop for web browsing, letters etc. Do I have to use 2 computers to do both functions??? God why do I feel like I'm going to regret asking this Let the snideness begin :lol: :lol:

Marty

 

[Liverdog]

No, stupid questions here. If you're playing around with UniTrunker (UT) then you're the cream-of-the-crop in the scanning world. There, I just offended everyone else... ;-)

Now, Rick will correct me if I'm wrong, but you can accomplish the goal with just one scanner. However, for the best performance you'll use two; The first one will be the control channel monitor/decoder. This radio will also be the one with the descriminator tap which is feed into the mic input of your sound card on your PC and will tell UT what is happening on the radio system that you're trying to monitor.

The second radio should be one which is capable of being controlled by the same PC serially. In other words, the second radio/scanner should have a data cable that is attached to a COM port or USB port on your computer. UT supports most modern, PC controlled scanners, but get a copy of the software to confirm. I see you're looking to use the BCT15. UT shows it in its list of voice scanners, but I don't have the unit so it's a guess on my part.

In UT you assign the "voice scanner" (the second one in this discussion) to the COM port to which it is attached as well as assigning it the specific data rate, parity, stop bit, etc.

I would start by downloading the latest version of UT and getting the control channel radio working in UT first. This is usually the hardest part for most new users. Sound card settings can be very tricky. Some sound cards will not work well for UT because they load-down the audio from the descriminator tap. Your sound card needs to have a high impedance input. I've gone through a couple sound cards looking for one that works well. Expensive ones are not necessarily the best ones either.

I would highly suggest launching the included "UniScope" program and selecting QPSK (in the case of a Motorola system) and 4800 baud. You'll be looking for an eye-pattern that fills the window, is well defined (looks like a cat's eye), but doesn't squash the pattern (top and bottom). Use the Windows "volume control" of the sound card under Options>Properties and check "recording". Then move the slider up and down on the mic input to get the desired eye-pattern.

Next, I would launch the included "Packets" program and make sure that the software can decode what you are inputing through the sound card. If you don't see anything but 0% decode rate try pressing the "i" key (invert data) once and wait a bit. If you begin to see data flying across the screen, grab the scroll bar with your mouse to freeze the data and see what your decode rate is. I've found that UT has a hard time initially getting started if the decode rate shown in "Packets" is low (my opinion).

If you have a decode rate greater than say 50% or 60% then you're ready to start configuring UT.

This post is getting long, so if you still need help after this point, post again and we'll give you a hand...

 

[SCPD]

Unitrunker, radio control on the BCT-15, Pro-43 for the discriminator tap and at least a couple of good outdoor antenna's. Here's my question. How do you do both the Unitrunker and the BCT-15 control software at the same time to listen to what you decode?

What you've described is a fairly generous hardware setup. You've got lots of options. Pick what works for you.

1. Run UniTrunker with the PRO43 as a logging and visual monitoring-only solution. Run the BCT15 in trunked mode ... applying new discoveries logged by Unitrunker as needed. You'll have some grunt work to transfer data from Unitrunker to whatever software you use to program the BCT15. The nice thing about this setup is you can grab the BCT15 and run out the door as a fully programmed up-to-date radio. You don't need to drag along the PRO43 and laptop if you don't want to.

2. Run UniTrunker with tapped PRO43 for control channel and BCT15 connected as the voice radio (two radios on one computer). Now you've got logging and voice following - at the same time. In this configuration, you've lobotomized the BCT15's built in trunking capabilities. You can still upload your logged trunking data into the radio ... unplug the radio and run out the door ... if you so desire.

3. Since you've got two laptops ... add a tap to the BCT15 and run two copies of Unitrunker! The one connected to the PRO43 would be for logging only while the one connected to the BCT15 could do both voice following (at the expense of leaving the control channel during each voice call) and control channel logging. This would allow you to keep tabs on two area systems. Actually, if you have two sound inputs ... you could run both Unitrunker sessions on the same laptop.

4. One thing Unitrunker does not do is record audio. Take a look at IDTracker. Using one of your laptops with a serial port and audio input (for recording) you can log voice calls from your BCT15 as audio WAVE files - while you're away at work.

EDIT: I should add ... by all means do as Liverdog suggests. Run UniScope to test out your discriminator tap -- adjust signal levels, etc. Run the Tuner application to validate proper control of your BCT15. Then run Unitrunker ... with voice following turned OFF ... get basic control channel monitoring up and running ... then expand from there.

-rick

 

[manross]

Holy crap !!!!! Two great posts. I've got to print those out to be able to take it all in and to preserve them. I'm wondering if I misinterpreted this whole Unitrunker-discriminator thing. I understand the reason for the discriminator tap on a radio that operates on the frequencies you desire to monitor. I thought/hoped that I would be able to decode/track the federal trunking system in the Milair band and the 700 mhz trunking channels. As I understand my newly aquired BCT-15 is a analog scanner, not digital. BUT again that is what I thought the Unitrunker was for. Take the audio from the tap, feed it into the computer, decode it while displaying the information and also have the capability to feed the second scanner (analog) through scanner control software to the right frequencies to scan and listen to the voice signal. As I'm typing this I'm getting the scary feeling that this is not possible. I hope I'm wrong. I have a Pro-96 and Pro-2096 to listen to APCO 25 digital signals, but these radios can't trunktrack the 700 mhz or the Fed Milair trunking systems. Am I misguided in my desired task?? By the way guys thanks for spending the time for the great posts. They are appreciated.

Marty

 

[SCPD]

I see where you're going (or hope to go). Unitrunker is a control channel decoder. It is not an IMBE (or ProVoice or AEGIS or DES-XL or whatever) vocoder. For the Fed stuff (I'm guessing 380 Mhz?) you'll need a radio that (1) decodes P25 voice channels and (2) accepts computer control.

Sadly, the PRO96 and '2096 don't support direct tune control - only load / save of the radio's memory. Check the PRO-96 Yahoo! forum. There may be a few tricks to getting the radio to work on 380 and 700 Mhz.

 

[manross]

Dang it, I just knew that was going to be the answer. I'm still going to use everything if not only to play around with the scanner control software. Thanks for the help in getting my tired old brain squared away.

Marty

 

[kellykeeton]

ok so i have a Icom R20 and a BCT15 each are controllable and each have a tap. I have 100% decode on the control channel, i just cant figure out how to make my bct15 voice work. I dont get the instructions. they say to turn on the listen switch but i dont see where to set that option - so any help to where to make the voice stuff work?

UniTracker can see my uniden, when i save the settings my uniden will go into remote mode. So everything looks like working 100% just software setting to track a voice group or radio etc.

 

[kellykeeton]

i figured it out you must find the group/channel/radio then edit it there