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Having been around for nearly four decades (WOW!), the POLICE CALL books
have been a staple of scanner listeners across the US and one of the most
respected names in our hobby. Every fall, just after the leaves have all hit
the ground, hobbyists flock to their local RadioShack stores to pick up their
annual copy.
With such a successful product and the increased importance of computer power as an integral part of every listener's shack, it seemed only natural that the next step would be to provide the POLICE CALL series on CD-ROM media. 1999 was the year when Pozilla released POLICE CALL on this computer media format and with the popularity of the hardcopy volumes, everyone was eager to get their hands on a copy. Unfortunately, this first version was a disappointment for many since people expected the best to get better with the addition of a computer interface. And while the data itself was a comprehensive reference of all 9 volumes, the usability of the product left something to be desired in some areas. Thankfully, Pozilla stood by their product and vowed the next generation would be better than the first. But how much better is the question. Many who plunged in to buy the first edition are now gun shy and with the second edition soon to arrive, are waiting for feedback before they decide on whether to buy the tried-and-true hardcopy or chance the CD-ROM version. Wait no more for the answer you seek is before you now. What follows are my personal impressions regarding the features and usability of this software. This, in no way, should be viewed as an endorsement to purchase this software nor is it intended to discourage anyone from buying it. I have no personal relations with either Hollins Radio Data or Pozilla Software. These are simply thoughts offered to my fellow hobbyists who may be interested in purchasing this particular software or simply knowing more about it. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into the testing and writing of this review. I would appreciate it if every effort is made to keep this document whole with me as the original author. Of course, it doesn't hurt that this document is copyrighted and therefore protected by US law and international treaties governing intellectual property. Except for personal use, and for the sake of brief passages quoted in reviews and given appropriate credit, no part of this work may be reproduced in any forms or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. And if you want to share your thoughts about this review with me or have further questions, feel free to send e-mail. Thank you and enjoy!
Rich Wells |
To perform the installation, simply locate the setup.exe icon in the CD-ROM folder and double-click on it. Follow the prompts and in just a few seconds you'll be good to go!
After the installation, anytime you put the CD-ROM in the drive POLICE CALL will automatically be run!
User Interface
The program starts by displaying a window with five large buttons contained in
a pane atop an outline of the 48 contiguous United States. Shortly after this,
another pane pops up briefly to display the program name and version which also
contains a respectful dedication to George Switlyk who passed away earlier this
year. George was instrumental in the compilation and editing of the frequency
data which was the backbone of the POLICE CALL series since its inception. He
and his tireless efforts will be missed.
The function of the five buttons are mirrored in the menu bar located at the top of the window. Also contained in this menu bar are functions to browse the last set of search results, program the search results to a RadioShack PRO-2052 connect to your PC and provide access to the help system.
Going from top to bottom, the functions of the buttons are to browse the database, search the database, configure program options, access program help and exit the program.
The last button, used to exit out of the program asks if you really want to exit once it has been clicked. This personally bugs the daylights out of me and I wish it could be disabled via the program configurations menu.
Browsing
Accessing the browse function of the database is akin to leafing through the
POLICE CALL book itself. The CD-ROM version is split up into sections just like
the book, making it easier to navigate and quickly find the desired info. The
sections are as follows:
What follows is a description of the access methods and information provided for each of these sections:
From the main program screen, the search button is clicked to bring you to the all-powerful Search window.
Looking at the available input areas and selection criteria gives you an idea of the power and flexibility at your fingertips! The first few text input areas allow you to specify the search criteria to be used to locate exact matches. This includes the ability to search by Licensee name, Usage, Transmitter City, Frequency Range, Callsign and Talkgroup information. The more data you enter, the more exact your matches will be allowing you to find exactly what you're looking for in a minimum of time.
With the search criteria text selected, you then move on to select the type of records to matched against. You can search by all Station Types or any individual one of them. You can then indicate to search all licenses in the database or in just one state. Finally, you can specify the Services to search by specifying all of them or just one. I was disappointed to see that for all of these, you could only specify all or one. I would have liked to have seen the ability to specify multiple options in each category.
The next step is to indicate whether you want to search just the public safety data or if you would like to include one or more additional sections such as aircraft, railroads, government, etc. Very nice!
The last option you're likely to specify is whether you want the search discovered records to be displayed sorted by licensee name or frequency.
Once all of your criteria are specified, the search can be started and any results will be displayed in a browse window to view with the number of matching records displayed at the bottom. Not only are you able to freely browse the precious info you've masterfully retrieved, you can also print the results, export them to a file or program them into a connected PRO-2052 scanner!
Sources have confirmed that since both the BC245XLT and PRO-2052 are made by Uniden and use the same computer interface protocol, BC245XLT users can use this feature to program their radios as well!
Moving the mouse up to the menu bar and clicking on Export reveals the ability to export the search results to the following file types: dBASE IV, Text, Lotus 1-2-3, Excel 2.0/3.0/4.0, Excel 5.0. Simply select your preference, supply the export file location and name, and you're done! You can now import this file into another application to massage it as you please.
The Text export format creates a comma-separated format (CSV) file with each output field enclosed in quotation marks and separated by a comma. I would personally like a fixed-field length format so that the output is in nice, tabular columns and there are no messy quotation marks and commas to deal with!
Going back to the main program menu bar, under View there is an option titled Quick Search. Selecting this provides a single text input area to provide the search criteria and a list to select the state to search within or all states. The supplied criteria are then applied to all sections of the database containing frequency information. Once done searching, a dialog appears prompting you to select the section to view the results of if matches were found in multiple sections.
Again, the resultant search data can be printed, exported to a file or downloaded into a PRO-2052 (or BC245XLT).
Configuration
Clicking the Configure Options button from the main window displays a dialog
prompting for a number of options. These include the directory to use for file
exports, the COM port that a PRO-2052 (or BC245XLT) is attached to, options to
remember selected search fields, selected states and selected sections to
search, displaying a prompt before printing and issuing a warning if the
printed report size will exceed 5 pages in length.
I was disappointed to note that the 'selected states' option only seemed to remember the state I had chosen from the search window. Whenever I access the browse window, it never remembers the state I last selected. That means that every time I want to browse a section I have to tediously scroll down and select my state each and every time. Bummer!
Help
As indicated in the section on Installation, the Help files consist of multiple
HTML files which exist on a directory of the CD-ROM and use Internet Explorer
to view them.
Such an HTML format makes the data easy to navigate and should be helpful for most users; especially those use to surfing the net. The text includes many screen captures which help to walk the user through various procedures.
The down side to using HTML files as opposed to typical Windows help files is that there is no searchable index to use. Luckily, most users will find this program is to use and likely need little help assistance so this is not that big of an issue.
In the 'Viewing Search Results' file, a picture of a window was screen captured a little hastily since it includes a bit of the screen background around it which makes it look as though this window image is hiding something. This same image is also used on the 'Exporting Search Results' and 'Printing Search Results' pages.
With the release of this second version of POLICE CALL on CD-ROM, I shall not hesitate to recommend it to everyone who asks! Not only does it provide all of the information found in the hardcopy, it does so for all 9 volumes while only costing a bit more than buying 2 of the hardcopy volumes.
Better yet, the ability to search across the entire series and using multiple search criteria puts an end to the manual searching and marking I use to have to do just after purchasing the hardcopy each year! I now also have the ability to print my own reports as well as save the results to disk for easy reference or to be manipulated by other programs.
The benefit to PRO-2052/BC245XLT users is obvious given they can search for data and download it into their radios with just a few mouse clicks. Within seconds they can be actively monitoring while those using the book version will waste time searching and programming by hand. Perhaps Pozilla will be able to add even more radios to the interface list for next year's version.
The inclusion of Grove's Top 1000 SW frequencies is an added bonus for those of us interested in HF listening and especially useful to those just starting out and need help locating listening targets!
If Pozilla really wants to mimic the utility of the POLICE CALL guides, then I believe they need to provide traveling users with the ability to manipulate the map images by allowing rotation and zooming. For those of us who travel, we don't always have access to printers, ya know?
Considering the entire package, the shortcomings are few and far between while the benefits form a long list of desirable features that should appeal to all who are interested in getting the most out of their monitoring whether at home or on the road. This is one of those products that falls into the "must have" category!
Nicely done, Pozilla. And long live POLICE CALL!
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If you are interested in purchasing this software or simply want more information, visit the Pozilla web site or contact them at products@pozillasoft.com.
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| Copyright © 2010 by Richard J. Wells |
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