Police Scanners: Anyone do Updating/Programming?

[Bailey Guns]

I have a couple of really nice Bearcat scanners: a BC898T and a BCD996T. I acquired both of them several years ago and I've never done much with either. I'm not savvy enough to program them so I'm wondering if any of you guys have the capability of updating and/or programming these things for the Park Co/Jefferson Co areas along with CSP, etc?

With fire season coming on I'd like to get these things up and running with reliable programming.

[asmo]

I have the 996 and have mine programmed with all the stuff for Colorado (APCO-25). I also have a subscription to radio reference. What I don't have anymore (or cant find) is my programming cable.

If you have the cable we can make something work I am sure.

[Bailey Guns]

I don't have the cable but I can probably get one. I'll check on that.

[DSB OUTDOORS]

I just have the hand held model from Radio Shack works good, but would like to get a desk top / home mounted one for up here.

[spqrzilla]

Radio Reference is really the go to place for getting good freq updates for scanners. Small membership fee used to get you access to their database and for most radios, programming S/W was around.

http://www.radioreference.com/

[Batteriesnare]

I have the BCT15x and have been fighting with it to get it programmed. If there's someone on here who can help me out, I'd be happy to pay you/buy beer!

[Ah Pook]

My old man had a scanner when I was a kid. How is a present day model different from the online feeds?

http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/ctid/247/web/?rl=rr

[asmo]

The real question is if someone has a REALLY good channel layout for the I70/I25 corridor.. Mine works for the APCO stuff but the shear volume of sites for every TG is unstorable in the 996 (or any other scanner). I know hooking up the GPS and allowing it to auto-select is the right answer but its a pain in the butt.

[Batteriesnare]

My old man had a scanner when I was a kid. How is a present day model different from the online feeds?

http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/ctid/247/web/?rl=rr

I have an app on my phone which works pretty well. As I understand it, the differences are:

1. You can't see the freq that is being broadcast on with the streamed version.
2. You can only listen to one "channel" at a time with the streamed version, where as with the dedicated unit you can scan fire/air/police/mil at the same time. This way you would be able to hear LE and Fire response to an incident for example, instead of just the FD/EMS side or just the LE side.


The online feeds are cool though because you can listen to broadcasts across the country instead of just your local area, and the reception is usually clearer for the online feed if you have a crappy antenna on your scanner.

Different tools, I use both.

[Ah Pook]

^^Sheriff/fire is the only channel that covers us. I was wondering if scanners cover he "minor/secondary" channels.

[asmo]

^^Sheriff/fire is the only channel that covers us. I was wondering if scanners cover he "minor/secondary" channels.

Right now there are ~2653 channels in Colorado that I can monitor - and that is just the APCO 25 network (the State's main network). There are probably a few hundred to a thousand other channels untrunked that are active in Colorado.

[JM Ver. 2.0]

Shameless plug....... I just posted a scanner for sale in the tp.

Sent from my teepee using smoke signals.

[Ah Pook]

Forgot about this thread.

Thanks Asmo! [Beer]

[BlasterBob]

I bought a Radio Shack Pro-197 desk model scanner about two or three years ago. Certainly not a cheapie - between $400 and $500. The guy at the store programmed in a bunch of freqs that I wanted at that time. Now, I have absolutely NO idea how to program in some of the additional freqs that I am interested in. I have two or three other scanners and they were SO easy to enter the various freqs but this one is mind boggling for this old fart. Anyone familiar with this particular one and knows something about programming it? I have the instruction book and I believe it'd be damn complicated for anyone to decipher........ [blaster]

[Ah Pook]

^ Got get your grandkid to do it. [Coffee]

[asmo]

Found my cable for the 996T.. Now to update my stuff.

[BlasterBob]

^ Got get your grandkid to do it. [Coffee]

[ROFL3]

[XJ]

Any hope for a Radio Shack PRO-96 handheld? It still works, but the programming is way out of date. I tried getting into the details at RR many moons ago but it was just too much for a me to get into as a secondary hobby, once I had it receiving some things that was good enough. I'm just looking to get updated for local channels, and really don't bother listening other than during bad weather and emergencies.