pcrd - PCR1000 on Linux

The Icom PCR-1000 is a computer based radio scanner that tunes from 10Khz though to 1.3Ghz in all modes (AM/CW/FM/WFM/SSB). Finding linux support for these scanners seem to be getting harder and harder - and with recent changes to gcc, some have broken.

In a quest to make this information available again to people who run PCR-1000 scanners, I’ve pieced it all together here and made pcrd compile with the latest gcc versions and released it as v0.12.

The source for pcrd v0.12 is here.

Compiling pcrd is straight forward. You can use the make command and include your distro, for example “make linux”.

Once everything has compiled, you should have a working pcrd binary. You can bring up the help screen by running ./pcrd -h. You should get the following output.

$ ./pcrd -h
Usage is ./pcrd [-i] [-s <squelch>] [-v <volume>] [-d <device>] [-C port]
[-A 0|1] [-N 0|1] [-S 0|1] [-I <if_shift>] <freq> <mode> <filter>
Options:
-b                  = Daemon Mode (Background) - I ran out of letters!
-C                  = Use alternate socket port nnnnn
-X                  = eXit (only in Daemon Mode)
-D &lt;0-9&gt;            = Set program debugging level
-R                  = Suppress radio status reporting while looping
-C <nnnn>           = Use this port number for socket Communications
-l                  = Loop sending command to radio every 5 Seconds
-i                  = Initialize radio
-s <squelch>        = Hex range from 00 to FF
-v <volume>         = Hex range from 00 to FF
-O                  = Radio OFF
-d <port>           = serial port. Default /dev/cua0
-A &lt;0|1&gt;            = Automatic Gain Control <slow fast>
-N &lt;0|1&gt;            = Noise Blanker <off on>
-S &lt;0|1&gt;            = RF Attenuator </off><off on>
-I &lt;00 - FF&gt;        = IF Shift 80 is Center
Freq                = 0.050 -&gt; 1300
Modes               = lsb,usb,am,cw,nfm,wfm
filter              = 3,6,15,50,230
 
Example:
./pcrd 101.700 wfm 230
./pcrd 137.500 am 50
 
./pcrd looks for /dev/pcr1000 before using default port for radio connection
 
Socket communications are assigned to port 5151
 
This is ./pcrd Version 0.12

This should be about all you need to tune your PCR-1000 through linux. I use mine via a PHP interface and stream the output to an icecast server. This means I can tune and listen to my scanner from anywhere on the web. It shouldn’t be too hard for anyone else to do this.