WinRadio upgrade not going well

[johnelle]

The old machine that hosted my Winradio 1000i board finally wouldn't boot so I decided to upgrade to a 305e. I am trying to get it to scan 15 local UCF public safety channels. Running it alongside my BC898t and I am having a lot of trouble getting it to stop on channels even though I have a high quality signal and I know the settings are valid because I'm using them on the other machines (including the old Winradio). Both machines are running off the same discone with multitap. If I hit on a signal it looks fine on the Winradio. Its just getting the memory scan to pause on an active channel that is driving me nuts.

The CTCSS doesn't work at all. The only thing that is working at all is not storing any squelch info in the memory and using the signal level (-117db) to pause the scan. That still doesn't get me all the channels that I have in the memory. Strong signals from the next town over (PD) don't trigger the Winradio to pause.

This is really irritating since the old old 1000i worked fine (although you had to use a plugin for scanning)

 

[johnelle]

Still no Joy

I stopped using the g305 for a year or two since I could never get "memory scanning" to work correctly. Tech supported promised software fixes but I never heard back. Finally I noticed an update in Nov. 2011 so I decided to revisit trying this.

First I live in the suburbs of Boston which are fairly small towns with older radios. Trinking, Digital not really big around here. In other words scanning the local PDs is pretty simple. My test case was to just scan the PD, FD and EMS for my little town. My bearcats and the cheap RS receivers can do this with little effort.

The Winradio not so much. First, even on the fast setting it scans so slowly that you feel like you should be turning a crank somewhere. If you try to use CTCSS to stop the scans (like on my bearcats) you get nothing. It just sits there and spins a way. If you use signal level it will stop but its so slow that you miss the first and last parts of any exchange. I cannot come up with settings to make this thing behave anything like the BC898 that is scanning 50+ frequencies instead of 3. The only thing I have been able to use it for is to park it on the main dispatch frequency for my town and even then it makes this loud hiss between the end of the call and the squelch engaging.

Has anybody found a way to make this thing functional? Near as I can tell I have a very expensive paperweight (but it is nice and shiny).

 

[majoco]

I have a G303e which I have not even thought about trying to 'scan' the memory channels but here's my humble opinion! As the 'radio' part is controlled down the USB cable from your computer, the time taken to 1- change the frequency, 2- get a response back that the radio is on the right frequency, 3- check for a signal etc etc takes quite a time compared to a scanner where the microprocessor talks directly to the synthesizer. I don't think any WinRadio will be a scanner substitute - you'll just have to use it as it was designed. It's still an excellent receiver when you learn to use all the good things about it - especially in the HF bands.