Everything you need to know about Whistler Scanners and SD-Cards in one handy location!
After installing EZ-Scan on a bunch of computers and talking to several customers on the phone it appears that there are issues installing EZ-Scan from the memory card. This occurs on on various Whistler scanners, like the new TRX-1 and TRX-2 as well as the older WS-1098, 1095, 1088 and 1080’s. It appears that the most problem-free method to follow is to download the installer from the Whistler website and install and update it before connecting to your radio.
Follow these steps and you should be good to go. While we have also installed it fine in some instances from the memory card there have been enough issues to warrant us suggesting this method to avoid problems.
1) Download the software from Whistler (https://www.whistlergroup.com/usa/updates/)
(Do NOT install the version on the memory card)
2) Install it on your computer from the downloaded file.
3) Check for updates to the SOFTWARE and run them if applicable
4) Connect the scanner to the computer and run the database, firmware and DSP updates via EZ-Scan.
Here at ScannerMaster our folks have used this procedure on several computers with no issues. We did have a problem on a couple computers installing from the SD Card and reverted to the above procedures to make it work.
Remember that on Whistler scanners the scanner needs to be OFF to recognize the card for database updates and programming. This is the opposite of Uniden scanners. Also remember that you can use an SD Card reader to program your radio instead of connecting the radio itself. This is sometimes quicker due to the faster read-write times of a card reader. You still need to connect the radio (with the card installed) to do firmware updates.
Mac users: This worked fine in Windows 7 and Windows 10 using Parallels and BootCamp. Joy for the Rest of Us!
EZ-Scan has the ability to reformat SD Cards from within the application. Instructions are provided at the above software link. You can create spare SD Cards for your scanner in case your regular card gets corrupted. Certain SD-Cards may perform better in the scanner but also know when using larger capacity cards the radio will take longer to become active at startup. Once the radio is on it should work just fine with higher capacity cards, it just takes longer to load.
Whistler mobile radios (TRX-2, WS-1098, WS-1095) use full-size SD Cards (or Mini-SD Cards with the full-size adapter) while the handheld scanners (TRX-1, WS-1088, WS-1080) use Mini SD-Cards. Cards are cheap, buy a good one if you want better results and more reliability.