Writing to Your Radio

Summary: What happens when you click Write to Radio, and two things worth knowing before you rely on this for anything you can’t afford to lose.

Once your scan lists are set up the way you want, click Write to Radio.

There’s No Confirmation Prompt

Unlike every other scanner this Programmer supports, clicking Write to Radio doesn’t ask you to confirm first – it starts writing immediately. The button’s amber colour and the Auto backup before sending checkbox are the only safety net offered, so make sure you actually mean it before you click, and strongly consider leaving auto-backup switched on.

While It’s Running

A progress bar shows channels being written. As with Squawker PC’s other scanner guides, there is no Cancel button – once started, it runs to completion (or failure) on its own. Closing the window mid-write shows a warning that the radio may be left in an incomplete state, but doesn’t cleanly stop the write already underway.

If Something Fails Partway Through

This is worth knowing clearly: if an individual channel fails to write, Squawker PC stops and shows a generic error rather than a “wrote N of M channels” summary – even though every channel written before that point genuinely did make it onto the radio. If you ever see a write fail partway through, use Read from Radio afterward to see exactly what state your radio’s actually in, rather than assuming nothing or everything was written.

Your Radio Reboots Automatically

After writing finishes, Squawker PC reboots the radio automatically – this is necessary because some of the settings involved (like the transmit lock) only take effect after a restart, not immediately. You’ll see a confirmation once the write and reboot are both complete, along with how many channels were written.