He's in China?
So one can maybe presume, eroniously of course, that whistler scanners will 
be produced in China for about the cost of a baofeng UV5R...lol or perhaps 
slightly more meaning they'll still cost $600 to buy and 50 bucks to make 
haha.
Anyway, good to keep on her about this Jim as I think so many of us are not 
only confused about what can be done to make these things more accessible 
but how to implement said accessibility.
Short of making the whole thing talk, or accessed via a portible device like 
an android or Ios product anyway.
Of course making the whole thing talk would be the ultimate solution but 
likely that isn't in the development budget at this point.
Making a radio like the UV5R talk is easy as it's a relatively simple 
device...a modern scanner with all the features isn't a simple device and 
depends upon firmware, not software to operate...making full speech access 
difficult to build in.

73
Colin, V A6BKX
-----Original Message----- 
From: Jim Gammon
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 3:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Programming the PSR500 and radio reference

Ron, I just ran across that great recording of the last launch of
Shuttle Discovery.  Thanks again for that.  I tried to go check
that out but, 20 minutes prior to leaving Tampa for the Cape,
they had a glitch with the umbilical and the launch was scrubbed
for three months.  We couldn't stay with my wife's cousin that
long to wait for the launch, talk about wearing out your welcome!
Regarding scanners, I just sent Sheri Nolan from Whistler a
reminder of my interest in accessible scanners and she wrote back
that she had forwarded  my email to her engineer in the Boston
area who is currently in China.  She said he would respond to my
email.  I have also forwarded that email to a friend of mine,
also visually impaired and an inventor type who also lives in
that area in the hope that he can maybe work with the engineers
closely as they are in the same area.  Who knows, maybe we will
yet be able to experience an accessible scanner! Jim WA6EKS