The last time I mentioned BBScanner it was called BerryScanner and in public beta. Since then it’s been updated a few times (the latest being Nov 29th) with many bug fixes and new features.

BBScanner allows you to over listen to over 1,500 police and fire scanners, railroad communications, and weather radio broadcasts from around the world using your BlackBerry with more being added daily.

BBScanner is now a “freemium” application where you can use it for 7 days as a free trial, after which you will need to register the app for a one-time charge of $4.99. Should you choose not to register the app you can still listen to police and fire scanners up to five minutes each session and access to weather radios will always be free. This application is only available for BlackBerry devices running OS 4.5 and later.

I’ve included the most recent changelog after the jump. For more info and to download visit bbscanner.com.

November 29, 2009 update to v1.6:

• Added support for users being able to enter an affiliate code on the About screen to give credit to an affiliate for registering.  Menu item is not visible after the app has been registered.
• Added a “Keep backlight on when charging” setting to the Player Settings screen, specifies that the backlight should not be turned off when the player screen is visible when the phone is running on external power.  The setting is ignored if the sleep timer is active.
• Added a new setting to the Player Settings screen to allow the user to specify how much the volume level should be changed (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, or 25%) each time one of the volume keys is pressed.
• Added confirmation dialog box to Remove Favorite and Remove Custom to prevent removing an entry by accident.
• Added “Show transfer rate” option to the Player Settings screen.
• Added “Transfer Registration” menu item for use in transferring a registration from another phone from within the app, the menu item will be visible only when the app is not registered on the device on which it is currently running.
• Added “Check Registration” menu item which can be used to check to see whether one’s registration has been processed successfully, the menu item will be visible only when the app is not registered on the device on which it is currently running.
• Added “Space bar behavior” setting to the Directory Settings screen, allows you to use the space bar to page down through directory listings.
• Added the ability to cancel retrieval of directory information.
• Added progress windows with cancel buttons to the Add Favorite, Remove Favorite, and Remove Custom actions.
• Added “Notify when new beta version available?” setting to the General Settings screen, used to specify that a notification should be displayed in the footer when a new beta version is available.  If this is set to No, you will only be notified about a new beta version when you’re currently using a beta version.
• Added “Do Nothing” to choices for mute key behavior, useful when a media player is playing audio while BBScanner is in use.
• Added notification if an access point’s login/banner page is received instead of expected data.
• Fixed problem where pressing the mute key always muted/unmuted audio regardless of what the “Mute key behavior” setting was set to.
• Battery icon is now displayed in red if percent remaining is less 21 and yellow if less than 31.
• Changed the default behavior for the Escape key from “Do nothing” to “Hide app”, affects only new installs of BBScanner.
• If a new version is available, it’s a beta, and the currently running version is also a beta, the text displayed in the footer will begin with “Beta version…”
• Modified retrieval of location to indicate which method is being used (cell towers vs GPS).
• Modified LED blinking functionality to not blink the LED if the sleep timer has been activated.
• Modified to display custom error message if player won’t start due to BlackBerry OS reporting that voice dialing is active.
• Modified the “new version available” functionality so that if a beta version is being used the notification message will be displayed in the footer if a new beta version (or released version) is available.
• Modified “Upgrade” menu item so that the app is closed if the “Download” button is pressed, should reduce the chances of having to reboot after upgrading.
• Modified thread that receives streaming data so that it will disconnect if no data is received for 45 seconds.
• The audio buffer is now recycled regularly so that memory allocated to store received audio doesn’t grow forever (controlled by new setting on the Player Settings screen, enabled by default when running OS version 4.x (should not be enabled when using OS 5.x).  In conjunction with this change, the setting used to have the player automatically stop and restart every x minutes is now set to Never by default when running OS version 4.x.
• Added experimental streaming method which requires less audio to be buffered before playing can begin, controlled by a new setting on the Player Settings screen, disabled by default.
• In 4.6+ version, changed background on settings screens from image to a solid color.
• Fixed a problem which could result in the press of a volume key being processed more than once.
• Fixed bug where muting/unmuting the audio using the mute button and then unmuting/muting it using the spacebar required two presses of the spacebar instead of one.
• Fixed bug in version for OS 4.5 that results in the “New version” footer not being visible at the bottom of the top-level screen.