Is it just me or is this program completelly useless?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get it to select banks or
the virtual scanner to update (the scanner in the program window)..

Other aspects of it work, so the "problem" isn't a matter of cabling
or baud rate or whatever..

No alpha tagging (although it seems to have it in the program),
channels won't stay loaded... instead, it wants to load each bank
individually, every time you select it... and the loading is SLOW.

Yes I know.. get a real scanner and real software, you might say..
well, its not that big a deal.. just thought I'd see what's available
for the BC895XLT and this junk was $29.90 via Paypal.

I guess getting money back is out of the question. I emailed the sales
department at black bag software about it and, predictably, no reply.

I know thery're alive though -- they responded to my request to buy
the software within a few hours.

Oh well, live and learn.

Heck, anyone that read my review on Strong Signals would've known
better, hi. What a piece of xxxx.
There are many other packages that support the 895; are you
interested in using the 895 on trunking, conventional, what? I've
written numerous reviews on just this topic.
You can read the various reviews on the Strong Signals software page;
there's links to each review.
73s Mike

Tempest wrote:
Is it just me or is this program completelly useless?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get it to select banks or
the virtual scanner to update (the scanner in the program window)..

Other aspects of it work, so the "problem" isn't a matter of cabling
or baud rate or whatever..

No alpha tagging (although it seems to have it in the program),
channels won't stay loaded... instead, it wants to load each bank
individually, every time you select it... and the loading is SLOW.

Yes I know.. get a real scanner and real software, you might say..
well, its not that big a deal.. just thought I'd see what's available
for the BC895XLT and this junk was $29.90 via Paypal.

I guess getting money back is out of the question. I emailed the sales
department at black bag software about it and, predictably, no reply.

I know thery're alive though -- they responded to my request to buy
the software within a few hours.

Oh well, live and learn.

Oh well, I figured as much. It was only about 30 bucks, so I'll just
chalk it up to "lesson learned" and move on.

I'm interested in all of it! Trunking, conventional, etc. That
Winscan895 looks pretty neat but you have to use Scan Master's
unsecure website and a credit card to order -- NO THANKS!

I just want a program that will do the following:

1. Load all channels from the radio

2. Quickly add/edit/delete channel info, like in Winscan895.

3. Allows use of alpha tags

4. Logs channel activity with timestamp.

5. Logs actual audio to hard drive via soundcard.

6. Tracks channel statistics over time (histograms, etc.)

7. Upload channels to radio

8. Use a virtual radio in the program window that is updated in
real-time

9. Support trunking iwth alpha tags for talk groups, etc.

Pretty much, everything that Winscan program does. I looked at Scancat
and it looks horrible... the interface is so frickin ugly I just can't
get past that.

What else is there that's worth while?

Glad to know that the ScanPro software really is garbage and my own
stupidity wasn't overly encroaching on my brain again. =)


On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:25:22 -0400, michael agner
wrote:

Heck, anyone that read my review on Strong Signals would've known
better, hi. What a piece of xxxx.
There are many other packages that support the 895; are you
interested in using the 895 on trunking, conventional, what? I've
written numerous reviews on just this topic.
You can read the various reviews on the Strong Signals software page;
there's links to each review.
73s Mike

Tempest wrote:
Is it just me or is this program completelly useless?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get it to select banks or
the virtual scanner to update (the scanner in the program window)..

Other aspects of it work, so the "problem" isn't a matter of cabling
or baud rate or whatever..

No alpha tagging (although it seems to have it in the program),
channels won't stay loaded... instead, it wants to load each bank
individually, every time you select it... and the loading is SLOW.

Yes I know.. get a real scanner and real software, you might say..
well, its not that big a deal.. just thought I'd see what's available
for the BC895XLT and this junk was $29.90 via Paypal.

I guess getting money back is out of the question. I emailed the sales
department at black bag software about it and, predictably, no reply.

I know thery're alive though -- they responded to my request to buy
the software within a few hours.

Oh well, live and learn.

I'm not sure about Scanner Master not having a secure site; they
carry a THAWTE document, so I do believe that's a non issue.
Winscan 2.1 (Winscan895 morphed into this with the addition of
support for the 245) is about the best, and would do most of what you've
stated here. Radio Manager 2002 can also do much of this, but requires
buying RecAll Pro as a seperate add in for recording with date/time
stamp. I've never had much luck running this software; it constantly
misses lookups, no matter how much I tweak the timing options, and Trunk
Manager (which is required for some of the functions), is in my opinion,
highly overblown.
I agree with you re Scancat; the version I tried worked very well for
trunking, but didn't work at all when scanning conventionally.
Personally I don't like that software at all; the version I tried didn't
support Multi Tracking for the other Uniden scanners, and to me, that's
a serious problem.
By the way, don't even think of contacting Pozilla for tech support
on Winscan 2.1; they very rarely - if ever - respond to questions.
However, there are 2 895 related Yahoo groups on which you can post
questions, and you're likely to get answers:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895XLT/

73s and sri to be the bearer of such crapy news...Mike
===========================
Tempest wrote:
Oh well, I figured as much. It was only about 30 bucks, so I'll just
chalk it up to "lesson learned" and move on.

I'm interested in all of it! Trunking, conventional, etc. That
Winscan895 looks pretty neat but you have to use Scan Master's
unsecure website and a credit card to order -- NO THANKS!

I just want a program that will do the following:

1. Load all channels from the radio

2. Quickly add/edit/delete channel info, like in Winscan895.

3. Allows use of alpha tags

4. Logs channel activity with timestamp.

5. Logs actual audio to hard drive via soundcard.

6. Tracks channel statistics over time (histograms, etc.)

7. Upload channels to radio

8. Use a virtual radio in the program window that is updated in
real-time

9. Support trunking iwth alpha tags for talk groups, etc.

Pretty much, everything that Winscan program does. I looked at Scancat
and it looks horrible... the interface is so frickin ugly I just can't
get past that.

What else is there that's worth while?

Glad to know that the ScanPro software really is garbage and my own
stupidity wasn't overly encroaching on my brain again. =)


On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:25:22 -0400, michael agner
wrote:


Heck, anyone that read my review on Strong Signals would've known
better, hi. What a piece of xxxx.
There are many other packages that support the 895; are you
interested in using the 895 on trunking, conventional, what? I've
written numerous reviews on just this topic.
You can read the various reviews on the Strong Signals software page;
there's links to each review.
73s Mike

Tempest wrote:

Is it just me or is this program completelly useless?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get it to select banks or
the virtual scanner to update (the scanner in the program window)..

Other aspects of it work, so the "problem" isn't a matter of cabling
or baud rate or whatever..

No alpha tagging (although it seems to have it in the program),
channels won't stay loaded... instead, it wants to load each bank
individually, every time you select it... and the loading is SLOW.

Yes I know.. get a real scanner and real software, you might say..
well, its not that big a deal.. just thought I'd see what's available
for the BC895XLT and this junk was $29.90 via Paypal.

I guess getting money back is out of the question. I emailed the sales
department at black bag software about it and, predictably, no reply.

I know thery're alive though -- they responded to my request to buy
the software within a few hours.

Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks for the info. I'll probably snag that Winscan somehow. The site
doesn't seem secure at all, but oh well.

As an aside -- I sent an email to that ScanPro site asking for a
refund and I didn't hear anything at all for a few days.

Low and behold, I checked my Paypal balance today and they refunded my
money without even asking a single question!

I didn't like the software but I'm sure impressed with those guys.

Kevin


On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:40:36 -0400, michael agner
wrote:

I'm not sure about Scanner Master not having a secure site; they
carry a THAWTE document, so I do believe that's a non issue.
Winscan 2.1 (Winscan895 morphed into this with the addition of
support for the 245) is about the best, and would do most of what you've
stated here. Radio Manager 2002 can also do much of this, but requires
buying RecAll Pro as a seperate add in for recording with date/time
stamp. I've never had much luck running this software; it constantly
misses lookups, no matter how much I tweak the timing options, and Trunk
Manager (which is required for some of the functions), is in my opinion,
highly overblown.
I agree with you re Scancat; the version I tried worked very well for
trunking, but didn't work at all when scanning conventionally.
Personally I don't like that software at all; the version I tried didn't
support Multi Tracking for the other Uniden scanners, and to me, that's
a serious problem.
By the way, don't even think of contacting Pozilla for tech support
on Winscan 2.1; they very rarely - if ever - respond to questions.
However, there are 2 895 related Yahoo groups on which you can post
questions, and you're likely to get answers:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BC895XLT/

73s and sri to be the bearer of such crapy news...Mike
===========================