PSR-600 Sensitivity

[Mojaveflyer]

I bought a PSR-600 this winter after one of my Uniden 780s died. I have a number of public safety systems in it (for Colorado where I live) as well as railroad and aviation frequencies which are my main monitoring interests. After several months of playing with it, I've come to the conclusion the PSR-600 is virtually deaf for 160.215 - 161.565 MHz railroad band and the 225 - 400 MHz Mil Air bands. The reception was no where near what my 780 did and I took the PSR-600 out of my truck and put another 780 back in it. The reception is back to what it was so I know it's not the antenna set up on my truck. Has anyone else experienced this and is there anything I can do to improve reception or should I just look to sell the PSR-600 and get another Uniden? Thanks in advance for your help! (The performance on the public safety systems is great but virtually all of them are repeated, not simplex like the railroad and aviation bands)

 

[K9WG]

Do you per chance have the attenuation set on for those objects?

 

[wmbio]

Many threads on the subject here...The GRE 500/600 series radios are too sensitive and the front end is easily overloaded from 120-170 Mhz. Even a cheap $2.72 FM trap from MCM electronics will fix GRE reception problems, Just add inline to your antenna feed. This little FM filter has worked wonders for many GRE scanner owners to remove the de-sense of the front end.

link
FM Trap | FM-88 (FM88) | Distributed By MCM

enjoy
Wmbio

 

[Mojaveflyer]

Thank you gentlemen! I apologize for the repetitive post...

 

[gewecke]

Good thread! On a slightly different note, with a pass band of 88-108 mhz. with that trap I wonder if it would attenuate the intermod on my pro-197 from the NWS transmitter on 162.525 mhz. which almost kills my vhf reception? This NWS transmitter is in direct line of sight of my antennas but about 1.5-2 miles from me.
Also I found that if anyone likes to listen to wireless mics,the 780xlt will program and receive ALL of them as the pro-197 will not. The wireless mics from 180- 213 mhz. are out of range of it.


73,
n9zas

 

[mjmurphy61]

I have had excellent results using a PAR 162 Mhz notch filter for the NWS in my area.

 

[wmbio]

Duplicate post...sorry

 

[wmbio]

YUP...every freq on VHF is improved with the cheap FM trap....The trap has very low loss on insertion and will not degrade any specific frequency. I only pick up 1 NWS station without it. 5 with it inline....

I own 4, GRE 500/600 radios and there is a trap on each radio.

A chap on another thread wrote to GRE and told them they would have a wonderful scanner if they included the cheap trap with every 500/600 they sold!...

The other traps (PAR) mentioned work fine also....but for 2 dollars and change....give it a try.

enjoy
Wmbio

link to previous discussions of the problem...http://forums.radioreference.com/gre-scanners/135662-psr-600-overload-desense.html

 

[Mojaveflyer]

Sensitivity Of PSR-500/600s

I bought a FM trap today from Radio Shack with connectors to go from the "F" type connector to the BNC connectors. It's made a huge difference in the reception on my PSR-600. Thanks for the help!

 

[N1BHH]

The reality is that this scanner is more susceptible to "in band" and nearby signal overload. If your near a big city, you'll need to use the global attenuator. If you are using a quality roof mounted antenna at home you will have this problem. Close to an FM broadcaster, near a paging transmitter? All sorts of signals nearby will overload your receiver.

The sensitivity of this scanner is very good. I have the Pro-106 which is the same radio and on a recent trip through Boston I had to set the attenuator mode to Global and activate the attenuator. But once I was a few miles outside the city all was well.