The developer of the PSR-500 application has updated his app to include the
new Whistler units. The software is pretty accessible with JAWS. I will be
happy to correspond with anyone who needs some tips as they begin to use the
software with their scanner.

73,

Ron Miller


-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Jim Gammon
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 1:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: accessible scanners

Martin and all interested.  I posted some emails to the list about Whistler
Group making their new trunked scanners accessible.  This is important
because Whistler bought the GRE America PSR scanners when GRE went out of
business.  Currently, Whistler has introduced a scanner very similar to the
PSR500 handheld scanner but the speaker is below the keypad rather then
above it.  In any case, Whistler has plans to introduce new scanners which
is why I approached them about adding a series of beeps at the very least,
or at best, adding a plug like Kenwood has in their rigs so people can buy
speech boards to make their scanners way more accessible.  I talked to a
lady named Sheri Nolan in customer service who told me to write up my ideas
and send them to her then she in turn, would forward them to the company
engineers in Ma.  They are responsible for designing the new scanners.
That's obviously where the universal design, or access needs to be
introduced, from the ground up.  In my first email to her, I had put some
questions that I originally had posed to GRE America about their PSR500.  I
didn't expect answers, just thought they might like to see some of the
problems I was facing with that scanner.  What did they do? They wrote me
back with information from the manual that was supposed to answer my
questions.  This included remarks like, just go to the menus and scroll
through them until you get to the one you need.  Of course I'm
para-phrasing, but clearly, the engineers did not get what I was trying to
explain.  After getting that email from Sheri, I wrote back suggesting that
the engineers take their handheld scanner and just put some tape over the
display and see if they can figure out some work-arounds so they can use it
without seeing the display.  She thought that was a good idea and sent it on
to them.  So far, I  haven't heard back.  I hope that those of you who are
interested would also give input to the Whistler Group by writing email to
Sheri Nolan who's email [log in to unmask] I recommend trying to
keep focused particularly on accessibility issues for their scanners and
emphasize that there are many people with low or no vision who would really
appreciate it if they would incorporate speech output or at least a series
of different beeps in their up-coming scanners.  I for one, would like a
handheld scanner with onboard accessibility where you don't have to drag a
laptop around in order to achieve  some degree of access.  73, Jim WA6EKS

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Martin G.  McCormick" <[log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date sent: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:14:28 -0500
>Subject: Re: accessible scanners

>	Another useful feature is when one can communicate with a scanner or

>transceiver via serial interface.  I have two Uniden scanners.  One is 
>now eleven years old and has a rather turse command set that one can 
>access via a terminal program much the way you can access one of the 
>old telephone dial-up modems.  All the characters must be upper case 
>and all the replies are also in upper case but you can read the 
>display, setup trunking systems, etc.  The only problem is that the 
>Motorola SmartZone trunking is now unusable since the new rebanded 
>frequency plans can not be fed in to the scanner as a flash upgrade 
>since the
>bc780 does not have that capability.
>	It is, however, accessible since the command set and responses are
all 
>plain ASCII text.
>	That sort of access is much appreciated.  I also have another Uniden

>which was made around 2008.  It does P25 and the new rebanded Motorola 
>trunking just fine.
>	It also has an ASCII command set and is potentially totally
accessible 
>but one needs to either be running one of the Windows programs that 
>talk to your scanner or you must be willing to write your own 
>communications program in C or perl.  I am a Linux user so that is kind 
>of par for the course.
>	For the BCD996 and the BCD396, the commands and responses are still 
>ASCII but they use CSV or Comma-Separated Variable strings.  These are 
>sometimes hugely long lines of text in which each field is separated 
>from it's neighbors by a , so a string for input or output might look 
>like 1,01453500,1,,,3,2,7,K5SRC Stillwater Repeater,14,0,9
>	That is not a valid entry anywhere, but it is an example of what a
CSV 
>string looks like.  You see them all the time in business applications 
>that may be used with spread sheets and tables.
>	One of my next home projects is to take the C program I wrote for
the 
>BCD996 and try to re-do it in perl as I may get it to do more than it 
>presently does.
>	I would sure like to see more radios that have some sort of
electronic 
>input and output like the Kenwoods and several others.  To me, that is 
>almost as good as having speech boards in the radio which, of course, 
>is the holy grail but may not have as much mass appeal as being able to 
>interface with a serial port on a computer or maybe a web interface.
>	Let's hope that this period of totally inaccessible technology is 
>ending and we just might be able to really use some of this stuff 
>again.
>	I remember the first truly inaccessible piece of amateur radio gear
I 
>encountered.  It was in the mid seventies and was a two-meter 
>transceiver that had an Up and Down button pair for frequency, no 
>direct entry and no way to get to a known state except for that stupid 
>little LED display.  If you could even get it to start at 144.000 MHZ, 
>do you really want to count in 5 KHZ steps up to say, 147.925 and hope 
>there were no key bounces or missed presses?
>	The guy in the store said, I don't think there is any way you can
use 
>that and he was absolutely right.  Don't you just hate that?

>73 Martin McCormick WB5AGZ

>Jim Gammon writes:
>>     John, I have been corresponding with the Whistler group
regarding
>> there
>> trunked scanners.  Thought you would like to read the latest.  
Jim