WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

G’day all, Been near on 10 years since I last had a scanner of any sort, that was Bearcat 9000. I’ve been missing any radio interaction for a while now and since it’s just too difficult to set up antennas etc, HF is out of the question. So I’m hoping their’s plenty to listen too from this location, I’m located in Wellard and have just purchased a Uniden UBCD436PT hand held scanner. I guess I’ll be working these forums pretty hard while I learn the ins and out of a totally different scanner.

Cheers
Dale

Hi Dale
Welcome back to radio. Things have changed a bit, quite a few analogue systems have either gone quiet or migrated to digital. Just did a google and looks like your scanner can do digital, P25 at least out of the box, DMR and NXDN however they want you to cough up some more $$, typical right?

DFES is still analogue
Transperth trains still analogue
St John has gone P25 encrypted
WAPOL is P25 encrypted

Royal Perth is P25 unencrypted and sometimes you can catch Rescue 651 requesting to land.
Surfcom is DMR and unencrypted.
Path Transit have a DMR network for the busses
Random networks for couriers/plumbers/etc both digital and conventional.


The ACMA database is very helpful in identifying what signal you have picked up.
https://web.acma.gov.au/rrl/assignment_range.search

Hope this helps.

Cheers Macca

Well this has so far been a total exercise in frustration. The Sentinel software does nothing for Western Australia and more recently I found Free Scan but that does not work with the 436 scanner. It appears I hit a wall with every move I make.

Cheers
Dale

Hi Dale,

I had some similar findings and frustrations when learning / programming my USDS100. I started with the WAERN frequencies available on this forum, to figure things out. Much like you though, still pining for more, especially as the software solutions are less than user-friendly.

Ozfisho wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:23 pmWell this has so far been a total exercise in frustration. The Sentinel software does nothing for Western Australia and more recently I found Free Scan but that does not work with the 436 scanner. It appears I hit a wall with every move I make. Cheers Dale

Sentinel software is used to program the scanner with data you have collected. It does not come with included frequency information. You need to flick through the posts in this forum to find frequency and mode information for your area. No scanner programming software in Australia ever came with pre-programmed data, Sentinel is no different.

A check of the ACMA online database will also provide frequency data for your area. Scanning has changed and changed dramatically. It is no longer a case of entering a frequency and pushing the ENTER key. A bit more time and knowledge is required and I would suggest mapping your programming on paper before committing to entering the data into the scanner.

Ozfisho wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:23 pm Well this has so far been a total exercise in frustration. The Sentinel software does nothing for Western Australia and more recently I found Free Scan but that does not work with the 436 scanner. It appears I hit a wall with every move I make.

Cheers
Dale

I'm in the same boat, got a Uniden USDS100, and using Web.acma and ProScan to program it all in.
It's a learning process.