MacBearcat heeft niets met energie te maken. De Uniden Bearcat UBC125XLT is een scanner waarmee onder meer de luchtvaartband (militair en civiel) kan worden beluisterd. De interface van het ding is hopeloos en programmeren van de kanalen een drama op het toestel zelf. Er is PC software, die er naar mijn mening ook vreselijk uitziet. Vandaar dat ik de stoute schoenen heb aangetrokken om Mac software te schrijven om de Bearcat te programmeren, vandaar MacBearcat. Ik heb sinds 2015 niets aan de software gedaan, maar in beginsel werkt die naar tevredenheid.
A Beta version is available now! Download the MacBearcat.app
I am new to using scanners for plane spotting. I have bought a Uniden Bearcat UBC125XLT scanner to discover that entering channels is quite awkward and time consuming. Google informs me that there are Windows applications for making this easier (for instance Butel’s Arc125, or Nick Bailey’s free Scan125.
But hey, I don’t do Windows.
So what do you do?
First, I discovered programming the Bearcat from a Mac is not impossible. ‘Brutha’ explains how to use a serial tool to read and write data to the Bearcat on transmission1.eu. Now there’s a start. The (very awkward; who in his right mind would use 0 for enabling an option and 1 for disabling. In another instance it is 99 for disabling and 0 for enabling. Sigh) protocol the Bearcat uses can be downloaded from the Uniden site.
Ok, time to dust of Realbasic to build a native Mac application.
MacBearcat is currently in Beta.
Here are some screenshots
The ‘main screen': corresponding to the Scan button functionality
The Search button screen.
The settings screen.
The help screen
The About screenA Beta version is available now! Download the MacBearcat.app
To use the App, you first need to install the appropriate USB driver. You can download one here
After installing the driver, connect your Bearcat (UBC125XLT or UBC125AT) to a USB port on your Mac. Then switch on the Bearcat. Next launch the application. It will try to connect to the scanner and read out all the settings and channels.
Changelog:
0.9.2:
- fixed a situation where saving a bank before uploading it to the scanner resulted in data loss of that bank
- fixed various minor bugs
0.9.1:
- fixed spurious redundant communication between MacBearcat and Bearcat
0.9.0:
- initial beta release