Using a computer to hear digital transmissions

[ksphotoguy]

With the big jump to digital in the police/fire world it sucks having to replace my Uniden BR 330T scanner. I was wondering if it was possible to get a computer program that would take the audio signal from the headphone jack of the scanner to the audio input of the computer and be able decode it to make the signal understandable? Does anyone know of anything available or perhaps in the works??

 

[AZScanner]

Closest I've heard of being working on is a solution by Eric Cottrell using a $200 dongle from DVSI, but that was some time ago. DVSI also sells software versions of their vocoder, but they are notoriously unhelpful and the software would probably cost more than a digital scanner and wouldn't work as well anyway. Best bet for the scannerist on a budget is to get on ebay and find a used Pro-96 or BC296D - those can usually be had for $300 or less these days. Another $150 would get you a brand new GRE PSR-500 or PRO-106 if you wanted to go that route. I seriously doubt we'll ever see a homebrew pure-software digital scanner solution, especially with digital scanners readily available. It's just not worth the legal hassles you'd incur by doing it.

-AZ

 

[ksphotoguy]

Ok. Thnks for the reply. I do have a Pro 96 but would like to be have a digital at my work and at home. The local Law group is very slowly setting up to digital but from my understanding they have been encountering problems getting it to work the way it's supposed to. So as of yet, my BR 330 still does the trick for me. I have not been able to get any info on when and if they will ever get the full digital system up and running tho, so I figure I best be ready for it if I can.

 

[poltergeisty]

This is old, but what are you trying to do? Check out Unitrunker, learn how to make a buffer and voila!

You can run a scanner control program with RS232 over TCP... So be at work and see your scanner on the comp. Better yet, the scanning program can be made portable to run from a USB drive! VMware's Thinapp will do this.

Just trying to give food for thought.

 

[poltergeisty]

:lol: On the other hand, I think everything I said might have went swoosh over your head.

 

[bigbud42010]

here ya go!!

Digital Speech Decoder (software package) - The RadioReference Wiki

 

[Gezelle007]

Digital Speech Decoder (software package) - The RadioReference Wiki

I dont understand... the wiki says in the Q and A section that its not supported by Windows or Mac, so what does it run on? Linux?

 

[N8IAA]

I dont understand... the wiki says in the Q and A section that its not supported by Windows or Mac, so what does it run on? Linux?

Yes.
Larry

 

[Bucephalus]

Unitrunker and discriminator Taps.

Check out Unitrunker,

Check out the links below. If you have an old scanner laying around you can easily modify it yourself or just modify your BR330T. Any analog scanner can be "TAPPED" and received any and all data broadcasting from your repeater tower in your area. This tap can receive everything (I.G. EDACS, Motorola, Digital, APCO25). By downloading the free Unitrunker software the Tap will go from the modified output on the old scanner into your soundcard in your computer via the Mic input jack. With a subsccribption to RR you can down load all data into Unitrunker so you can see exactly on whats going on. This works really well if your scanner doesn't have the capabilty to trunk but in the long run you will have to get a digital scanner anyway. The best scanner I have ever owned is the Pro-106 and the Pro-96. There are other digital scanners out there but these are the best!



UniTrunker - The RadioReference Wiki

Discriminator Output

BC898T Discriminator Tap - The RadioReference Wiki