SDS100/SDS200/UBCD3600XLT Programmer – Overview & Getting Connected

Summary: How the SDS100/SDS200/UBCD3600XLT programming hierarchy works, an important warning about trunked systems, and how to get connected.

Unlike the UBC125XLT/C’s fixed 10 banks of 50 channels, the SDS100/SDS200/UBCD3600XLT family uses a four-level hierarchy – Favorites List > System > Department > Channel – with no fixed capacity built into Squawker PC itself. You can add as many of each as you like; the only practical limit is that each level only has 100 “Quick Key” slots available to assign (0-99), after which new items simply go without one.

Before You Start – A Trunked-Systems Warning

If your scanner already has trunked systems programmed on it (P25 Trunk, Motorola, EDACS, LTR, MotoTRBO, DMR/NXDN Trunk), please read this before using Squawker PC’s Read or Write features with that scanner.

Squawker PC’s editor only understands conventional (single-frequency) systems. If you use Read from Scanner on a radio that has trunked systems programmed, those trunked systems are silently left out of what appears in the editor – and if you then use Send to Scanner, whatever trunked systems were on the scanner get overwritten and are not correctly recreated, even if you try to rebuild them by hand using the System Type dropdown (see Editing, Sorting & Deleting for exactly why). In short: don’t use Squawker PC’s Read/Write round trip to manage a scanner with trunked systems you want to keep – manage those through Uniden’s own software (Sentinel/ProScan) instead, and only use Squawker PC for conventional programming. The automatic backup described in Reading, Backing Up & Restoring is your safety net if this catches you out.

Getting Connected

1. In Connect Settings, create or select your profile with Scanner System set to Uniden, Scanner Type set to your exact model, choose the correct COM port, and tick Enable Programming.
2. Selecting a COM port automatically probes it for a connected Uniden radio and fills in what it detects.
3. Open Programmer, select that profile, and click Open Editor.
4. When you read from or write to the radio, Squawker PC connects over serial at a fixed speed (115200 baud) – unlike the UBC125XLT/C, it doesn’t try multiple speeds, so if the connection fails, it fails outright rather than retrying at a different speed.
5. If it can’t connect, double-check: the scanner is powered on, the USB cable is properly seated, you’ve selected the correct COM port, and no other program (including Squawker Connect) is using it. If no COM port is set at all, you’ll see a reminder to pick one in the scanner settings first.

What Happens Behind the Scenes: Mass Storage Mode

The SDS100/SDS200/UBCD3600XLT family doesn’t program over a continuous serial link the way the UBC125XLT/C does – it uses your scanner’s own SD card. When you click Read or Send, Squawker PC connects briefly over serial just to tell the scanner to reboot into Mass Storage Mode (essentially, to appear on your PC as a USB drive), then waits for that drive to appear and works directly with the programming files stored on it. This is entirely automatic – you don’t need to do anything on the scanner itself, and there’s no manual “put the scanner into USB mode” step to perform. If the SD card doesn’t mount within about 30 seconds, you’ll see an error asking you to check whether it mounted manually and that it has a “FavoritesLists” folder on it.

Important: for the SDS100/SDS200/UBCD3600XLT family, Squawker PC does check that the physical radio plugged in matches the profile you’ve selected, and will warn you if they don’t match – see Writing to Your Scanner for exactly how that check works. (This protection doesn’t exist for the UBC125XLT/C or other Uniden families.)