Monitor, program, and control your scanner from any PC.

[Guest Photounit]

I have been using a new program called ProScan with my scanners lately. It allows you remotely program and monitor certain Bearcat scanners with your PC...... Perhaps the neatest thing is that you can do this from any PC that has Internet access which means you could conceivably monitor and control your scanner at home (or where ever) from anywhere in the world as long as you have the proper software installed.... I have used other software to do this (BuTel) - http://www.butel.nl/ and another is - StarSoft - http://www.scanstar.com/products/servlite.htm (Which I didn't try) but I like ProScans features and price. The ProScan software has a lot of great features and is the best I have seen so far and @ $50.00 for two licenses is a bargain too. ProScan gives you the option of setting up the scanner so you can have the complete ability to monitor, program, or control your scanner remotely or you can set it up so you can multi-cast it so numerous people have the ability to monitor you scanner. And you can record the audio on either end for later playback which is another neat feature.....You need one license for the PC that is going to "host" the scanner and the other license for the PC that is going to do the controlling and monitoring of the scanner. If you decide that you want to stream the scanner, anybody who wants to listen to you scanner can download a free "Client" version that allows monitoring only..... You can download the client and listen for free to other scanners that are online (There are about 20 now) or you can download the full version as a 30 day trial and try your luck at remote controlling your scanner........ IMO - If you are a die hard scanner listener, this is a must have program.... And for $50 it's cheaper than some programs that only do programming....... You can check the program out at ProScan.org.......

Edited December 2, 2007 by Photounit

[x635 4,066]

Wow, that is AWESOME! Great find, Bill! I'm definetly going to check it out!

[Guest Photounit]

Wow, that is AWESOME! Great find, Bill! I'm definetly going to check it out!

I like this program a lot and I use it all the time........... I have used it with my 780 and 996 and it really works well........ If you need help setting it up, let me know....... If you just want to remote control/monitor your scanner, I highly recommend downloading a VPN program called Hamacchi (https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/list.asp) It makes getting this to work almost effortless and the program is FREE in the basic mode which is all you need. I wanted to set it up so I could stream my scanner so others can listen but I have not been able to get that to work as I know just about everything about computers except networking which you really need to know to set the program up to stream..... By using Hamachi I was able to remote my scanner in about 10 minutes..... If you download the ProScan trial, there are about 20 streams on-line from various parts of the US and there is no real set-up to just monitor (Only to remote control or stream)........ I like the Orange County CA stream as I used to go there on business and listened to ORCO FIRE when I was there and I know the area...... Pretty cool program and I'm surprised there hasn't been more interest in it...... It does add a new dimension to scanning...... Even my wife thought it was cool and that says a lot

[Guest Photounit]

I'm really supprised there has not been more interest in this...... That being said.... I have set up a stream of Dutchess County Fire Frequencies....... I am having a problem where the clients (Programs monitoring the stream) get kicked off every 15 minutes or so and I'm working on finding out why..... Just hit start again and the stream will resume.... I have the most commonly used DCFD frequencies on-line and I'm just doing this temporarily.... You can download the client for FREE at www.ProScan.org and it's easy to set up..... The stream is dutchesscntyfirescanner.no-ip.org....

Edited January 13, 2008 by Photounit

[jack10562 414]

Hi Photounit

I just downloaded and installed ProScan Version 1.7 build 1, and can't get it to play back recordings. The volume control on the GUI responds to the scanner volume control, set record to Activity and skip silence. I have *.*.WAV files that populated the Audio Recordings tab, but when I click play, nothing happens. COM port is set COM4 BAUD rate 115200.

Any clues?

Thanks

[edit] I located the audio files in the program folder, they're all 1kb (empty)[/edit]

[Goose 188]

Photounit,

Listening to City Fire over your thread now, awsome tool!

[Guest Photounit]

I have been working on getting my scanner server onto it's own PC and I have done that..... A friend gave me a broken laptop which I have since fixed and it is now doing duty as my server..... It's been running for several days now w/o any issues and has been reliable.... I need to add an external antenna and make some other changes and it may go down briefly from time to time, and I may swap in my BC780, but I plan on leaving it up for now.... If you download the free client from ProScan.org, you can listen to it.... I would really like to have someone stream the Westchester County Fire Frequencies........

If you have the full version of ProScan it works well for programing the scanners which it supports and also one thing you could potentially do is let somebody remotely program your scanner if you are having trouble...... I have to say that I consider myself "scanner literate" but even I find the BC 396 and 996 a little intimidating at times..... With the full version you could have someone who knows the scanner log in and check your configuration and make changes for you or at least tell you what you did wrong..... But then again, if you could get the streaming working you probaly could handle programming the scanner I know that several have tried the program and had troubles getting it going...... The biggest problem is getting the network part of it configured..... There is really no tutorial or written instructions available to help you do this and I have actually began to put something together that explains what you need to do to get everything running.... If you want to listen it's a piece of cake..... If you want to serve, it is a little frustrating to set up if you don't understand networking...... Once you get it working though, it's worth the effort.... If you are serious about scanners then this is a must-have program in my book.....

Edited January 26, 2008 by Photounit

[Guest Photounit]

The author of ProScan has released a new version 1.7-2 that has some improvements. If you are unfortunate enough to be running Widows Vista,

It now runs correctly (At least for me anyway)..... If you tried it in the past and had troubles, you may want to try it again...... The good thing about this program is that it works with many radios instead of buying a program for each one..... Support for the BC246 and BC15 are supposedly forthcoming......Here's the improvements:

Version 1.7 Build 2 - February 1, 2008

Added - Radio Reference Database import service.

Fixed - Bug monitoring LTR trunking systems. Talk Group ID's didn't appear correctly in the history logging or recordings.

Fixed - Bug with the virtual keypad. Pressing a key would send a command twice to the scanner.

Fixed - Bug with the Display Only View. Did not display correctly.

Changed - Completely reworked the Scanner Over IP internally. Connecting is more reliable, no more disconnects, best audio quality, no more virtual display freezing.

Changed – Option "Show Freq / Talk Group In Caption" changed to show more formats; "Text Tags" or "Frequency/Talk Group ID" or "Text Tags - Frequency/Talk Group ID".

Download link : http://www.proscan.org/ProScan_1_7_Build_2.zip

[jack10562 414]

Hi Bill. I'm going to give it another shot, but I seem to still be having a problem with recording audio.

I posted "over there" and am waiting for any help that might be available.

Update: 2/5- I got it to record! It's like having a TiVo for your scanner!

Except I'm having a problem with it freezing all the time...