The ScanPro245 Software

by Mike Agner, KA3JJZ

Introduction
Earlier this year, I decided to splurge a little and bought a Uniden BC245XLT TrunkTracker. What made this radio useful was the fact that it could cover both a Motorola and a conventional system at the same time.

I had yet another issue. It had to be computer programmable at a minimum. You see, I travel to NJ from time to time (where my family still lives), and I wanted an easy way to program it for both NJ and Maryland, where I live.

Enter ScanPro. I had seen their BC895 software (see my earlier review) and found that these folks had 245 compatible software as well. An especially attractive bonus was that files for either radio could be shared with the other. There were other features too, such as a built in backup/restore facility.

Once again, I don't have the name of the individual(s) involved with developing this software, so like my earlier review, I will refer to the author as Mr. A. Like my earlier review, I have been in touch with Mr. A throughout this evaluation, and his comments, plus my experiences with the software, form the basis of this review.

Installation
The installation was almost identical to the procedure for their 895 software. Simply place the CD ROM into your drive, and let it install. It will warn you if it finds a file that's newer on your machine (it did on my 500 MHz Celeron), and if that's the case, you should use your own file for the process. Fortunately, it seems that Mr. A has decided to standardize the directory to which the software installs - it hasn't changed from version to version. I am using version 1.1.1 in this review.

Main Screen
The basic layout of this screen is very similar in concept to the 895's main screen (see Figure 1). There are a couple of differences though. Down at the bottom you see a box containing a note as to which COM port is being used. Looking to the top left, there's a bank number and a box for the bank name. Unfortunately, it seems that the bank name cannot be changed; it's an unnecessary distraction, though it would be useful documentation if one could use it. Mr. A says that it was put in there for additional functions that have not yet been developed, so it's possible that it might be used in the future.

The picture of the 245 (we'll refer to this as the 'virtual radio') is not very clear on my machine, even when I set the resolution for 1024x768. Specifically, the print above the keys is not readable, and one will end up looking at the real radio ('physical radio') when trying various functions. Of course, when talking about video and resolution issues, your mileage may, and probably will, vary. Hovering your cursor above the key will show the label for the key.

Speaking about functions, it seems that most of the conventional mode functions work just fine if you use your mouse to press the keys on the virtual radio. You should know, however, that this software does not support either the trunking or multi-track functions of this radio, so you are limited to using this radio in a conventional scanning mode.

Immediately after using the 'Load' button, the software will attempt to show your firmware version. It would be handy if this were accurate, but it's not, at least not in my case (it always showed my firmware version to be 2.0). Like its 895 cousin, loading and most other functions can be improved by increasing the Master Comm Speed to something other than zero. How much to increase it will depend largely on when you start to see weird values in the frequency list box; something like 'error' will show up in the description, for example. This is something that will take some experimentation to resolve.

Most of the foibles and quirks in this screen mimic the 895 software; the text box for each frequency is unkeyable, the 'scan' button on the software works very slightly different than that on the virtual radio, and most importantly, if you try to 'restore to scanner' a file that you previously saved, it will overwrite all your banks, trunked or not, as conventional.

The attenuator, active bank list and priority boxes will not take effect until you make the change on the screen and use the 'save to scanner' button. Of course, these functions can be made to take immediate effect by using the appropriate keys on the virtual radio.

One significant improvement is the way the frequency readout works on the virtual radio. You still have to increase the Master Comm Speed, but once you do, it's generally more reliable that the one used by the 895 software, though it has a habit of changing to all zeros occasionally if the traffic isn't long enough to sample, or sometimes if you decide to go to manual mode and have lots of traffic on that frequency. It doesn't lag quite as bad as the 895 did, but there is some lag still evident.

I mentioned earlier that this software does not support the trunking or multi-track features of the 245, but I did find one interesting quirk - some might call it an 'undocumented feature'. I typically use my 245 in trunk scan mode, as I have several scan lists for talkgroups I like to monitor. I found out, quite by accident, that if you are in this mode, the virtual radio will show the frequency as the physical radio shows the talkgroup.

Search Screen
The setup for this screen (see Figure 2) is almost identical to that found on the 895 software. You simply type in the ranges for which you want to search, then press 'Begin Search '. Unfortunately, this function consistently crashed with a run time error on my machine, so I was not able to test it.

There are a couple of interesting points that can still be made. Unlike the 895 software, there's no button to clear the list box where the frequencies that had traffic are reported, so using this function for multiple searches is a bit clumsy. Too, the initial frequency (which correctly reads all zeros) is only shown to go to 3 decimal places. This is a bit misleading; if it's set up the same way as the 895 software, then once it starts finding hits, the frequency display will go to 4 decimals.

The software does attempt to measure the deviation of the signal being received. Like its 895 cousin, I can't verify whether this measurement is accurate. The only true way to measure deviation is at the discriminator, and I doubt that there's a connection via the PC port.

Service Search
This function is very slightly different from the 895 software (see Figure 3). You have a choice of either going through the pre-programmed ranges the 245 normally supports or you can use the extended service listings.

Going through the standard ranges is very simple; you simply press the 'Move Through Bands' button, and you begin scanning. Note that if you hit a birdie or other frequency you wish to avoid, simply press the 'lockout' button on the virtual radio. And remember, you can only lock out 100 frequencies.

The extended service listings are set up just like the 895 software. One should note that, like the 895 software, the range of frequencies searched in the 10, 6 and 450 mhz amateur bands are not always appropriate for FM mode scanning. Like the search screen, there's no key to clear the list box of hits, so doing multiple searches using this function becomes a bit complex, particularly if both the standard ranges and an extended range are searched in the same session.

Extended Search Screen
[Figure 4] Once again, the setup is almost identical to that found on the 895 software, except that PL programming is not available (see Figure 4). This is not a fault of the software, as the 245 does not support this mode. One very nice feature is that if you built extended lists for the 895 software, you may import them into the 245 software without much fuss.

You are better off not changing the delay slide bar at all. Mr. A thinks, and I agree, that the 245 runs these searches a bit slower than the 895 does, and increasing the delay simply slows things down even more.

The tricks that I mentioned about linking banks in the 895 review also work here; so as long as you have all 30 entries filled for each file, you may link them without editing and removing entries with zeros in them. However, on the other side of the coin, this software also writes each file as a 12000 entry file, so if you do have to edit a file, you must use something other than Notepad, and insure that the file is saved back as a text only type, or your file will be corrupted.

Record Screen
This function basically mimics the one found in the 895 software (see Figure 5). You can either record an entire file, or record individual hits with a time, frequency and date stamp. Most of the foibles exist here, too. The frequency part of the tag can be lost if the display on the virtual radio shows zeros, or you are in manual mode. If you are scanning, because of the lag between polling the physical radio and posting it in the virtual radio, the frequency may not always be accurate.

This is another function that I was unable to test completely. I was never able to actually record any audio; something is interfering with my soundcard routines. If you see the playback bar in the middle of the screen is greyed out, then you will have the same issues. The reason for this is unknown; I use RecAll without any problems at all.

Smart Scan Screen
This is a new function that Uniden tried to implement with the 245. In theory, you were supposed to be able to dial into a server that would allow you to download frequencies for your area. This screen was supposed to automate this process somewhat.

This screen simply didn't work on my machine (see Figure 6). It gave me yet another run-time error and caused my machine to lock up. In looking at the application, this screen is rather useless anyway. Many people have reported that this function tended to run several dollars in charges, the frequencies were old or not what they wanted, or this function wouldn't work at all. In point of fact, this is one function that Uniden tried that looked better on paper than it is in actual practice. You're better off going to the bc245xlt group at Yahoo or other mailing lists (sometimes referred to as reflectors) and asking if anyone has a file built for your area that they would share with you.

Backup/Restore Screen
This is the only function that requires you to do some things a little differently. First, do not increase the Master Comm Speed bar on the main screen if you use this function. If you have already increased it, reduce it back down to zero. Memory transfers become erratic at the higher settings.

This is the only screen that asks you whether you have an American or International version of this radio. Press the radio button for the correct selection.

Next, you must put your 245 into Clone mode. The screen has decent instructions on how to do this or look on page 72 of your user's manual.

You will then see a prompt asking you where to put the file. It seems that no default was programmed into the software, so it defaults to c:\mydocuments; it really should put the file in the same directory as the ScanPro software was installed. Fortunately it can be overridden.

Once you are done with this, press 'E' on the physical radio. The radio should say 'first', and it must be flashing. You must hit the 'OK' box within about 4 or 5 seconds, or the transfer will time out. If you did it in time, you will see hex data being written like that in (see Figure 7). The scanner will say 'done' when complete. You should note that the radio will be in regular scanning mode, and you must manually restore trunk scanning. You will also need to restore the remote mode, if you wish to restart using the radio and PC together.

If the backup times out, the program reports that it 'completed with errors'. You will notice a zero length file in your specified directory. This file can be safely deleted.

Now, to reload your radio, the first thing you really should do is wipe the physical radio's memory. Fortunately there's a button labeled ' Wipe Scanner Memory ' just for this purpose.

The restore function is fairly similar in operation. You must first have the physical radio show a flashing 'clone' message; you can look at pp.72 and 73 for information on this. Once you have this, follow the prompts on the screen. Remember, you must hit the OK button within about 5 seconds or so, or the restore won't work.

Press the 'Load Memory File' button . In my case, when I was done, the software returned a 'completed with errors' message. However, when I checked my radio, everything (including, thankfully, my scan lists) was properly restored. Once again the scanner reverts to conventional scanning, so you must restore trunk processing if you had been using it. This is not a bug in the ScanPro software; rather this is what the 245 firmware does upon exiting.

Sharing A File With The BC895?
Yes, you can load the same frequency files used in the 895 into the 245. However, recall that PL programming is not available, so any PL settings used in the 895 file will be ignored.

To use this function, press the 'Restore all banks' button. You will be warned about overwriting your memory, and to this, you can hit the 'OK' button. You will then be asked to find the file (in this case, a Scan Pro 895 file) with a file box. Double click on the file you want to load, and the data will be inserted into the physical radio.

There are a couple of interesting quirks, though. Like the 895 software does, when you are finished loading, you will be on Bank 10. To return to any previous bank, you must type the bank number in the bank box at the top left, then hit the 'Load Channels' button.

An interesting quirk is that the software does not reset the active banks using the 895's active banks. For example, in my 895, I have banks A thru C active, with I and J reserved for trunking. My 245 is set up with bank 1 reserved for trunking, and 2 thru 6 set up conventionally. When I reloaded my 895 data into my 245, my 245 banks remained active. While the way the banks are called is different between the 2 radios, I would have expected that the active banks would have been reset the way my 895 had them.

Impressions
Even if all the functions in this software were working, there just seems to be too many similarities with the foibles that were evidently carried over from the ScanPro 895 software. Although it's better, the delay in polling that causes the flaky frequency display really should be fixed. Other software, such as the Senss program, has no problems with this. Various settings could easily be placed in an .ini or configuration file of some kind. These include the Com port (which appears at the bottom of the virtual radio on every screen) and whether the radio is the American or International version (which is on the backup/restore screen).

This radio's major strengths lie in its trunking abilities, including the ability to track more than 1 system at one time in various combinations. Sadly, this software does not address these strengths. Rather it hints at them; you see examples of this in the backup/restore functions, and the little quirk identified on the main screen. Other packages, like the Senss software, has no problem with this. If Mr. A wants to really expand his appeal for his 245 software, he would do well to address this shortcoming.

Related to this is a quirk that the 895 software shares - reloading all frequencies, trunked or not, as conventional is a real pain, particularly if you have a large system with many lists that would otherwise have to be rebuilt by hand. The task is made a bit more difficult in the fact that the 245 supports many more Scan List entries (a total of 1000) than the 895 does.

Screen integration should be improved, too. One should be able to jump from one screen to another (say, the extended search screen to the record screen) without having to jump from yet another screen. It would greatly improve this software's flexibility.

The backup and restore functions, on the other hand, work well and are reasonably easy to use, so long as the directions are followed. If the frequency readout were a bit more reliable, using the record function to create files for each frequency you wish to scan is a great way to isolate dead or unused frequencies. Of course, the Frequency Logger program is available as an option, but it really should be integrated into the software. Being able to swap files between the 895 and 245 is a major plus for users who have both scanners.

The software would have many possibilities, particularly if the software supported trunking. If you are interested in using this radio for this purpose, I would recommend the Senss software (see Software page). However, I wonder if people who use this radio purely in the conventional mode would not find the various issues with this software a major annoyance. Hopefully Mr.A will continue to clean up this software and develop the trunking functions for which this radio is so rightly admired.

Mike Agner, KA3JJZ
ka3jjz@erols.com

Related link: ScanPro245 web page