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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!drutx!drux3!druny!jml
From: jml@druny.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Subject: re: New! Computer Controlled Radio Scanner
Message-ID: <775@druny.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Jan-84 18:28:48 EST
Article-I.D.: druny.775
Posted: Mon Jan  9 18:28:48 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Jan-84 05:44:05 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 15


I saw the Bearcat CompuScan 2100 at Comdex.  Unfortunately, my initial
impression was not good.  The scanner was connected to a Commodore 64
and every time it found a frequency with something happening, the C64 went
to it's disk to find the appropriate info belonging to that frequency.
The program is written in BASIC (or so the salesperson said) and it was
slow.  It would take several seconds to find the info on the disk, by
which time the scanner would have taken off trying to find another
active frequency.  Therefore, the display was useless in search mode.
The idea is good however, as happens all to often, the implementation was
lacking.  The scanner itself was a nice machine, and the potential with a
fast micro is good. It would probably be better with a micro that had a hard
disk or ram-disk.
John Leon	druny!jml
AT&T Information Systems Labs