Step 3: If you’re not using Audio Only (no tags) mode, select the serial port that you’ve connected to your scanner’s control connection, in the “Control” box on this tab. If you don’t understand all this stuff, just choose “16K bits/second” and you’ll be happy. Higher rates require more computer processing power and more network bandwidth. If you’re sending to Radio Reference, you almost always will want to set this to “16K bits/second” - If you’re only sending your scanner’s audio across a LAN in your home/office, you can try higher rates. Also, select the bit rate that you’ll be using to transmit your scanner audio in the “MP3 Bit Rate” box. This must match the input (sound card, LINE, or MIC) that you connected your scanner’s audio to. Step 2: Select the audio input to which you connected your scanner, using the “Sound Input” box on this tab. In other words, for scanner models other than those specifically listed, ScannerCast will only forward audio and will not retrieve, generate, or send tags. ScannerCast also supports other scanners in “Audio Only” mode. ScannerCast only officially supports, and will automatically generate channel tags for, the Uniden 396/996 (and BCT-15), GRE PSR-500/PSR-600, and Radio Shack Pro-197/Pro-106 scanners. Step 1: Before doing anything else, select the type of scanner with which you’re using ScannerCast. The steps required to configure ScannerCast for basic use are: Don’t set the volume on your scanner too high! Typically, you’ll want to set your scanner’s volume about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way to max.īasic configuration is done on ScannerCast’s main, Config, tab show below:
You may want to use a utility such as Windows Sound Recorder to verify that the audio from your scanner is getting to your computer. The connection to your sound card might be on the front or the back of yoru computer. If you’ve never connected your computer to your scanner’s audio before, and you have a choice, use the “Line In” (or just LINE) input to your sound card. Connect the audio output of your scanner (where you’d plug in a pair of headphones) to your computer’s sound card input.That “COMx” is the COM port you want to select in the Control box, below. Find the port named “USB Serial Port (COMx)” (where “x” is a number). You can do this by going to Windows Device Manager (Control Panel… Device Manager) and looking at the entry labeled “Ports (COM & LPT)”. If you’re using a GRE scanner, even though your scanner is connected to your computer via USB, you’ll need to know which virtual COM port your computer is using to talk to your scanner.
Connect your scanner exactly the same way you do when you’re using scanner programming software (such as FreeSCAN, Win-500, Arc396, etc).