Where do I start learning to program?

[MEGA14]

I want to be able to program my own radios instead of paying a radio shop $40-$50 / radio.
I own 1 250D , 1 296D , 1 796D , 1 780XLT , 1 BCT-8 , and the rest are Motorolas and an Erickson .

I want to learn to program , from scratch , all my Uniden radios.

Just today , I loaded data from my 796 to the Uniden software on my computer and transfered it to my 296. Worked out great with some help from the good people here , ofcourse.

What I really want to do is program frequencies from this site or other sources onto my Unidens in an organized manner.

Where do I start?

Thanks.

 

[ka3jjz]

You've got a nice mix of radios there. A couple of observations might suggest a course of action;
a. The 796, 296 and 250 all use the same protocol, so since you've learned one, you've learned 3

b. Sitting down with the manual, and using our Wiki (which has, for example, programming shortcuts for some of these scanners) will educate you with any tidbits, tricks, and perhaps as important, Yahoo groups where these scanners are discussed - quite apart from these forums, of course

c. If you're going to want to transfer the contents of one radio to another from time to time, and do it somewhat easily, then software is the way to go. Interestingly, some folks have found the Uniden software worked OK, others couldn't get it to work at all. There are many alternatives, however, as shown on our Wiki.
BuTel sells seperate software packages for your Unidens (actually 3 - ARC250 will support the 250, 296 and 796, ARC8 for the BCT8 and ARC780 for the 780); Scan Control supports all your Unidens in a single package, and I'm sure there are others. Our Wiki has a comprehensive list of such packages. Look for import abilities from the RR database - or- CSV import abilities. Paid members can get CSV data dumps from the database as well.

73s Mike