Getting Started

Plug in the scanner, launch Bearpaw, and you're watching live traffic on screen. This walks the path from cable to first hit. It assumes you know your way around a BC125AT; if a Bearpaw-specific term is new, the Glossary has it.

What you'll need

A Uniden BC125AT or BC75XLT scanner. Bearpaw also works with the closely related BCT125AT, UBC125XLT, UBC126AT, and AE125H. It detects which one you have and adapts — a BC75XLT has 300 channels rather than 500, and no alpha tags, so Bearpaw doesn't show a column for names it can't store.
The USB cable that came with it, or any USB cable that carries data, not just power. A charge-only cable is the usual reason the app won't connect.
Bearpaw installed on your computer. If you haven't done that yet, see the download section.

Step 1: Plug in and launch

Connect the scanner to your computer with the USB cable, turn the scanner on, and open Bearpaw.

The colored dot in the bottom-left corner shows where the connection stands:

Yellow, "Connecting…": Bearpaw is reaching for the scanner, which is normal for a few seconds at launch.
Green, "BC125AT": connected, showing your scanner's model name.
Red, "Disconnected": no link yet. If it stays red, go to Troubleshooting.

Step 2: The first sync

Each time Bearpaw launches, it reads every channel out of the scanner — 500 on a BC125AT, 300 on a BC75XLT — and it takes a few seconds.

A "Syncing Scanner Memory" panel covers the screen with a progress bar while it runs.

Bearpaw does keep a saved copy of your channels between sessions, but by default it still re-reads them from the radio at every launch — so what you see is what's actually in the scanner. If you never program on the radio's own keypad, you can turn that off for an instant start: see Re-read Channels on Connect.

Step 3: Watch it scan

The big amber panel is designed to resemble the display panel on your scanner, scaled up to fill the window.

Step 4: Your first hit

When the scanner lands on an active frequency, that's a hit.

"Scanning…" is replaced by the signal. The big line shows the channel's name — its alpha tag, the label you gave it — if it has one, or the frequency if it doesn't.
The detail line fills in underneath: the frequency, the modulation (FM, AM or NFM — how the signal carries sound), the channel number, and, if the transmission carries one, its CTCSS tone. That's a quiet code some radios send so only certain receivers hear them.
The signal-strength bars on the right fill to match the RSSI — how strong the signal is where you are.
When the transmission ends, the scanner resumes and the display goes back to "Scanning…".

Bearpaw's Scan tab during a hit: the big amber display reads 'WOF Security' with frequency 463.425 NFM CH 84, the Recent Hits list on the right, and the Busiest Channels and Activity Heatmap dashboards below. — The Scan tab during a hit — big display, Recent Hits, and the activity dashboards.

Step 5: Look at what you've caught

Bearpaw records every hit and turns the record into a read on your local activity:

The Recent Hits list, to the right of the big display, shows the last few active frequencies with how long ago each one happened.
The dashboards below, a "Busiest Channels" bar chart and an "Activity Heatmap," show which channels carry traffic and when, over time.
You can export the whole log to CSV and analyze it yourself.

Where to go next

Everything on the Scan tab, the controls, the status bar, what each part of the display means: The Scan Tab
Edit your channels, rename them, change frequencies, lock out the noisy ones: The Channels Tab
Adjust the scanner itself — volume, squelch, Close Call, custom searches: The Device Tab
Something not working? Troubleshooting