The Channels Tab
The Channels tab is where you manage your scanner's memory: rename channels, change frequencies, set tones, lock out the noisy frequencies, and reorder them. When you're done, you push your changes back to the radio.
Your edits don't reach the scanner until you press "Upload Changes." Everything you change here is held as a draft, a pending change stored in the app, until you upload it. Batching this way lets you make a set of changes and review them before they go to the scanner. (More on this below.)
Banks: the sidebar
Your channels are organized into 10 banks, evenly split. A BC125AT-family scanner has 500 channels in banks of 50 (channels 1 to 50 are Bank 1, 51 to 100 are Bank 2, and so on); a BC75XLT has 300 in banks of 30. The left sidebar has a button for each bank.
Click a bank to see its channels. Only one bank shows at a time; the app opens on Bank 1. The selected bank is highlighted with a small glowing dot, and its number appears next to the "Bank Channels" heading.
These sidebar buttons choose which channels you're looking at and editing. They're different from the bank buttons on the Scan tab, which turn banks on and off for scanning.
The channel list
Each row is one channel. The columns, left to right:
On a BC75XLT you'll see fewer columns. That scanner doesn't store channel names, per-channel modulation, or tone, so TAG, MODE, and TONE aren't shown — there'd be nothing to put in them. Search matches on frequency alone, and DLY is a simple on/off rather than a number of seconds.
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| ☑ | A checkbox to select the row for a bulk action (see the toolbar). |
| ⠿ | A drag handle. Grab it to reorder the channel within its bank. |
| CH | The channel number (1 to 500). |
| FREQ | The frequency, in MHz (e.g. 146.8500). |
| TAG | The channel's name (its alpha tag), or a dash if unnamed. |
| MODE | The modulation: AUTO, FM, AM, or NFM. |
| TONE | The CTCSS tone in Hz, or a dash for none. |
| DLY | The delay in seconds before the scanner resumes after a transmission. |
| L/O | A red lock icon if the channel is locked out (skipped when scanning). |
| PRIO | A glowing dot if this is the bank's priority channel. |
To edit a channel, click anywhere on its row except the checkbox. That opens the edit panel. The checkbox in the header row selects (or clears) every channel currently shown.
Editing a channel
Clicking a row opens the Edit Channel panel. Every field:
Frequency (MHz) is a direct entry. The BC125AT doesn't
cover one continuous range; it covers four bands:
25 to 54, 108 to 174, 225 to 380, and 400 to 512 MHz.
Enter something outside those bands (say, 90.0 MHz) and the app rejects
it with a message. Enter 0 to mark the channel empty.
Alpha Tag is the channel's name, up to 16 characters.
Modulation is one of AUTO, FM, AM, or NFM (narrow FM). AUTO lets the scanner choose based on the frequency.
Tone Squelch (CTCSS Hz) sets a CTCSS tone so the scanner only opens on transmissions carrying that tone. Leave it blank for none. The app accepts only the standard CTCSS tones (67.0 to 254.1 Hz) and warns you on a value that isn't one of them.
Delay (seconds) is how long the scanner waits on a channel after a transmission ends before it resumes scanning, giving you time to hear a reply. Choose from -10, -5, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The negative values are pre-delays: the scanner holds before the next transmission.
Lockout is a switch. On means the scanner skips this channel.
Priority is a switch, and it applies to the scanner immediately rather than waiting for Upload. The radio allows only one priority channel per bank, so turning it on where another channel already has priority asks you to confirm moving it. (More on priority in the Glossary.)
Drafts and uploading (the important part)
Between the toolbar and the channel list is a status strip that reads either "Edits are saved as drafts. No pending changes." or "…N pending.", next to two buttons: Discard Changes and Upload Changes.
- Edit one or more channels. Each saved edit becomes a draft. Rows with pending changes get a colored bar down their left edge, and the pending count ticks up.
- Review. Nothing has touched the radio yet. Edit more, or change your mind.
- Upload. Press Upload Changes. The app writes your drafts to the scanner, then re-reads the channels to confirm they took. The button reads "Uploading…" while it works.
To throw away all your pending edits without uploading, press Discard Changes (it asks you to confirm first).
The Priority switch is the exception. It applies the moment you toggle it. Everything else waits for Upload.
The toolbar
Across the top of the tab:
- Search box: filter the current bank by frequency or name. Drag-reorder is turned off while a search is active.
- Clear Selected: blanks all the checkbox-selected channels. Like edits, this creates drafts; it doesn't wipe them from the radio until you upload.
- Import / Export: move channels between the scanner and a file. Both work in two formats, CSV and native Uniden. See Import and export below.
- Drag to reorder: change the channel order within the bank by dragging. Reordering is a draft, and uploads with everything else.
To reorder a channel: point at the drag handle (⠿) at the left of the row then press and hold the mouse button and drag the row up or down. Release it where you want the channel to land. The move is saved as a draft (a colored bar appears on the affected rows) and goes to the radio on your next Upload Changes.
Two limits. Reordering is mouse-only — there's no keyboard path to it yet. And drag is turned off while a search is active, since the list you see is filtered rather than the full bank order; clear the search box to drag again.
Import and export
Your channels don't have to live only in the radio. Bearpaw reads and writes them to files, in two formats, so you can back them up, edit them at your desk, or hand them off to other software.
The two formats
CSV is a plain spreadsheet: one row per channel, with columns for frequency, tag, mode, tone, delay, and lockout. Open it in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets, make bulk edits, and load it back in.
Native Uniden (a .bc125at_ss file) is the
same format the official Sentinel software reads and writes. It's a full
snapshot: all 500 channels and the scanner's settings. Because
it speaks Sentinel's own language, you can move a channel set between
Bearpaw and Uniden's software in either direction, or keep one as a
complete backup of the radio. Exporting it takes a few seconds longer
than CSV.
Exporting
Export saves your channels to a file. Pick
CSV for just the channel list, or your radio's
settings file for the full backup. The app writes
channels.csv, scanner.bc125at_ss or
scanner.bc75xlt_ss and lets you choose where it goes.
The settings-file format is the one Uniden's own software uses, and
there is one per radio family: .bc125at_ss describes a
500-channel BC125AT-family radio, .bc75xlt_ss a
300-channel BC75XLT. Bearpaw offers whichever matches the scanner
that's plugged in.
Export needs the full channel list first. If Bearpaw hasn't finished reading your scanner, it stops and asks you to sync — a backup written from a half-read list looks complete without being complete, and you would only find out when you tried to restore it.
Importing
Import loads channels from a file, and reads either format automatically. A CSV brings in just the channels. A settings file brings in everything it holds and overwrites all channels and settings on the radio, so the app asks you to confirm before it does.
A settings file is a complete picture of the radio, not a list of additions. Restoring one makes the scanner match the file exactly. Where the file records a channel as empty, Bearpaw erases that channel on the radio — including channels you programmed after you saved the file. Restore a file saved from a blank scanner and you clear every channel.
If you only want to add channels without touching the rest, use a CSV instead.
Import writes straight to the scanner. Unlike a hand edit, it isn't held as a draft: the file's channels are written to the radio as the import runs, with a progress bar covering the screen while it works. A full settings-file restore writes every channel slot, empty ones included, so it takes a few minutes. When it finishes, Bearpaw re-reads the channels so the list matches what's now in the radio.
Refreshing from the scanner (memory sync)
Your channels are read from the scanner when the app starts. This memory sync takes about five seconds, because the scanner hands over its channels one at a time. A panel covers the screen with a progress bar while it runs — the scanner stops scanning for the duration, so the app says so rather than pretending otherwise.
Bearpaw also keeps a saved copy of your channels between sessions, so the list can appear instantly at launch instead of after a sync. Whether it re-reads the scanner anyway is up to you — see Re-read Channels on Connect. It's on by default.
How old is this list?
Next to the search box, Bearpaw shows when it last read your channels from the scanner — Synced 3d ago, or Synced just now. The same note sits at the bottom of the window beside the connection status.
It matters because the scanner never tells the app when something changes. It answers questions and volunteers nothing. So if you program a channel on the radio's own keypad while Bearpaw is closed, the saved copy is out of date and nothing on screen looks wrong — the timestamp is the tell.
Press Refresh beside that timestamp to re-read the scanner. Scanner → Sync Memory in the menu (or Ctrl/⌘ + Y) does the same thing.
Editing a channel is safe even when the list is stale. Bearpaw re-reads a channel from the scanner immediately before writing to it, and keeps the scanner's own values for every field you didn't change. So editing the tag on a channel whose frequency you retuned at the keypad won't put the old frequency back.