How well can you use your 780? I tried translating the mnanuals and wasn't
impressed with the BC245XLT.  I'll have to check and see if the BC250D has
its manual on line yet and translate it.  I had heard some place that the
780 wasn't user friendly for someone who is bldin.





On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Martin McCormick wrote:

>         They do, in fact, have their manuals in pdf format and
> the pdf2text service translates them well so go for it.
>
>         I just bought a BC780XLT and generally like it very well.
> My only complaint at all is that the front end gets clobbered by
> strong signals and all the attenuator seems to do is slightly
> improve the situation but a greater dynamic range front end would
> have cost a bit more but been well worth it.
>
>         Other than that, it is a great piece of engineering.
>
>         As for accessibility,  I recommend that one gets familiar
> with the computer control aspect of the scanner.  It has a female
> serial port on the back and you can talk to it with a
> straight-through DB9 or even a DB25-DB9 cable from your computer
> to the scanner.
>
>         To answer the question as to whether it is accessible, I
> say that definitely yes, but you will have to do some work.
>
>         The description of the serial protocol can be found at
>
> http://www.freqofnature.com/software/protocols.html
>
>         I don't know how well the Windows software works with
> JAWS, but those of you who work in that environment can fill us
> in on that.
>
>         The scanner has a pretty extensive menu system which
> could cause some problems if you hit the wrong button, but the
> computer interface lets you know how you are doing if you ask.
>
>         That is mostly how I use it so far.  The one key you do
> need to find is the E or Enter key.  You must hold that down
> until the scanner beeps to bring the serial port to life.
>
>         I am working on a Linux program to store frequencies,
> etc, but I have it right now connected to an old PC running
> Kermit.  When you type in the commands, there is no echo, but
> after you hit Return, the scanner responds with either ER for
> Error or NG for No Good if you do something that doesn't make
> sense like ask it what frequency it is on while it is scanning.
>
>         Don't ask me about trunking modes yet.  I tried to set it
> up yesterday ona trunked system and I got nothing out of it so I
> will have to study that some more, but the CTCSS and priority
> features seem to work fine.
>
>         It will even read you the LCD display, but it is kind of
> hard to listen to raw as one isn't really supposed to read the
> elements linearly in some cases.
>
>         I haven't bought a new scanner in sixteen years so it is
> nice to see all the neat stuff that is available now.
>
> Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
> OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Network Operations Group
>
> Russ Kiehne writes:
> >It's my understanding that Uniden has there manuals on there site for
> >download.
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "JEFFREY MICHAEL KENYON" <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 8:48 PM
> >Subject: Uniden's manuals
> >
> >
> >> Hi everyone.  Has anyone had any luck with getting Uniden to put any of
> >> their manuals in either Braille oron tape.  WIth the new scanner I am
> >> about to purchase in a week or so I want to cut down on list posts and
> >> just get the manuals from Uniden if I can.  Any information would help,
> >> and thanks.
> >>
> >
>