CityTable and Custom Locations

CityTable and Custom Locations

The BearTracker 885's firmware ships with a CityTable*.dat file that maps named cities (as chosen by the scanner user) to coordinates. The scanner itself doesn't display city names in its UI, but the table is used for GPS-relative decisions. You can extend it.

Reading the table

On Load, Scanner Manager parses firmware/CityTable*.dat from the SD card. The parser auto-detects record sizes of 12, 16, 20, or 24 bytes (Uniden has shipped multiple revisions), and preserves any trailing bytes in an extras field so round-tripping is lossless even for records the parser doesn't fully understand.

Adding a custom location

1. Tools → CityTable editor...
2. Click Add row....
3. Enter a city name, state abbreviation, and decimal-degree lat/lon.
4. Export patched CityTable... writes a new CityTable*.dat back into the firmware folder.

A .session.bak snapshot is written beside the original, so reverting is a file-copy away.

ZipTable interplay

The firmware ZipTable*.dat is parsed in the same pass. Its extras (flag byte at offset 7 plus any trailing per-record bytes) are captured into zip_flag_bytes and zip_extras maps so the same round-trip guarantee holds.

Currently the GUI only reads ZipTable; write support is on the 0.9.x roadmap.

Warnings

• The scanner is picky about CityTable size and alignment. Don't hand- edit the file outside Scanner Manager or Uniden's tools.
• A malformed CityTable can prevent the scanner from booting the firmware's ZIP UI. Keep a session snapshot.
• Your scanner displays SCAN / POLICE / EMS / FIRE / DOT and nothing else - adding a city doesn't add a display, just a coordinate the firmware can use.