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.
>>
>