PSR-800 - Expensive door stopper?

[AniMal717]

After doing some research between a few scanners that i had in mind, well this one won out of the pack but not so sure - yet! I hope someone could give me assistance wit my problem in my area. I live in New Britain CT area and I be travelling to Bristol CT and the surrounding areas. Thru this website I learned that Bristol CT Police are now transmitting encrypt, which i can live with that but - when i try to program the PSR-800 for New Britain CT area - i see the town and all the sub categories and prog the scanner but i hear nothing. Then i noticed that under New Britain CT listing it says "One or more sites for this trunking system have gone through the 800 MHz rebanding process." and "Please visit the RR Wiki Rebanding page for additional information" how ever when i go to this site its in Chinese - i dont understand on how i would program the scanner so i can listen to the New Britain PD at least. other than that most of the town around here are conventional systems and therefore i think i bought an expensive door stopper cuz a reg scanner would of done the job just as well as this one.

Thinking on returning it to GRE if i wont be able to program my town - i used to own a pro-95 trunk scanner and it picked it up with no problem like 3 or 4 years ago. Then through forum and one not - i heard that police system /radios are going digital and thats why i advanced myself and bought this one cuz alot of scanners would become obsolete as the pro-95 did.

Any help would be appreciated - i mean its kool to listen to surrounding towns but its more exciting hearing your own town. I mean when you pass by a scene and see alot of cops and the works you wonder whats going on - in the past all i had to do is turn on the scanner and know whats going on - i missed that so i bought the psr-800.

I guess my question is this re-banding programming how do you do it? do i have to turn on some feature in the scanner? And please dont tell me to read the manual cuz im on my second week with this scanner and i must of read the manual from begining to end like dozens of times.

User in distresssssss please help. (with good news) thanks in advance

[fourthhorseman]

far from a door stopper mate!

ok,after searching through the counties i found new britan,,

have you just tried to enter the freq's manually,into the software i mean?
the channels look straight forward,the RR DB is up to date..just put them in
conventially,add the CTCSS info and assign a scanlist,

CT has many trunked systems,butthe 800 may be overkill..the 500 would look
to fit better,lots of systems to pick from,but i see no X2-Phase2/TDMA systems..
even a pro106 would be a good pick,,

good luck

[troymail]

One of the nice things about the 800 is that if the RR page says rebanding has taken place, the weekly library updates *should* take care of that for you so you do not need to worry about it. Just make sure you have the most recent library.

Can you be more specific about which system(s) you are trying to load/listen to?

[Halfpint]

First off have you clicked on the `Advanced' menu and have clicked on *all* of the choices *EXCEPT* the `Start Full Screen' selection? If not then enable all but `Start Full Screen'.

Next, go down to the `Advanced Features' tab on the bottom and bring up the `Advanced Features' page. Down in the lower lefthand corner of this page you will see `Set Location'. Make certain that it is set to `Off'. (You most likely aren't going to want to use this `feature' until you are more familiar with both the software and the scanner. And... You may never turn it on unless you eventually try it out just to see what it does. I know that I finally decided to see `what it was all about' and immediately turned it back off and hasn't ever been on since then.)

Originally Posted by troymail

One of the nice things about the 800 is that if the RR page says rebanding has taken place, the weekly library updates *should* take care of that for you so you do not need to worry about it. Just make sure you have the most recent library.

As Troymail has said, having the *LATEST* version of the RR Database files loaded is necessary to stay up to date on various systems and any changes, such as `rebanding' that may happen. As of this time the latest `Library/Database' version is 193. To get it you use the `Updates' menu at the top of the program's screen. Making certain that you are online click on the `Check for Library Update' selection and follow the onscreen instructions. (For right now you will only need to update the `Library' and not worry about doing anything but that.) Once you gotten the latest `Library' you can then go to the `Library Import' tab on the lower edge of the software's screen and start selecting the data for whatever system(s), *I* would only select *1* system to start because it will make it a lot easier to set up just how you may want to scan/listen to without overwhelming you, you are interested is listening to.

When you have what you have done in the program set to your satisfaction and are ready to load it into the scanner carefully, Some people have `launched' the `card' and then had a dickens of a time finding it (Yes! I had that happen!), remove the MicroSD `card' from the scanner, noting it's orientation in it's slot, put it in a MicroSD to `regular' SD adapter and plug it into the correct slot in a memory reader and upload the programing data to the MicroSD card. Trying to go straight to the scanner is both `SLOOOW' *and* more prone to erroring out on you.

[Stoat]

Hi, I'm noticing that GRE has released two firmware updates for the PSR-800. If you're up to date then disregard this post, but if you're not you may wish to consider upgrading...it may have fixes that either address some or all of the problems you're experiencing or makes the overall functionality better in some regard. The one from January 2012 is described as a 'major update' and you can read more about it here:

GRE America, Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

There's also one from October 2012 which is described as a beta firmware upgrade:

GRE America, Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

Hope this helps and best wishes for good luck with your scanner :-)

[troymail]

Originally Posted by Halfpint

First off have you clicked on the `Advanced' menu and have clicked on *all* of the choices *EXCEPT* the `Start Full Screen' selection? If not then enable all but `Start Full Screen'.

Next, go down to the `Advanced Features' tab on the bottom and bring up the `Advanced Features' page. Down in the lower lefthand corner of this page you will see `Set Location'. Make certain that it is set to `Off'. (You most likely aren't going to want to use this `feature' until you are more familiar with both the software and the scanner. And... You may never turn it on unless you eventually try it out just to see what it does. I know that I finally decided to see `what it was all about' and immediately turned it back off and hasn't ever been on since then.)



As Troymail has said, having the *LATEST* version of the RR Database files loaded is necessary to stay up to date on various systems and any changes, such as `rebanding' that may happen. As of this time the latest `Library/Database' version is 193. To get it you use the `Updates' menu at the top of the program's screen. Making certain that you are online click on the `Check for Library Update' selection and follow the onscreen instructions. (For right now you will only need to update the `Library' and not worry about doing anything but that.) Once you gotten the latest `Library' you can then go to the `Library Import' tab on the lower edge of the software's screen and start selecting the data for whatever system(s), *I* would only select *1* system to start because it will make it a lot easier to set up just how you may want to scan/listen to without overwhelming you, you are interested is listening to.

When you have what you have done in the program set to your satisfaction and are ready to load it into the scanner carefully, Some people have `launched' the `card' and then had a dickens of a time finding it (Yes! I had that happen!), remove the MicroSD `card' from the scanner, noting it's orientation in it's slot, put it in a MicroSD to `regular' SD adapter and plug it into the correct slot in a memory reader and upload the programing data to the MicroSD card. Trying to go straight to the scanner is both `SLOOOW' *and* more prone to erroring out on you.

Quick clarification before someone feels "cheated" -- the latest RR database library for the PSR-800 is 163 (vs. 193) -- hey, it was early, right?

[tilt404]

Just wanted to give my 2 cents, and say that even if there was nothing digital here to listen to I still love the scanner. The ability to record everything it hears is one amazing feature i've been waiting years for alone. Then the micro SD card and how I can program so much into it and manage it so easily with its file system and controls. I felt discouraged when i first got mine too, but over time grew to love it.

[troymail]

Patience is the key.... I know it's hard.... for me anyway.

[Halfpint]

Originally Posted by troymail

Quick clarification before someone feels "cheated" -- the latest RR database library for the PSR-800 is 163 (vs. 193) -- hey, it was early, right?

Yep! Just another case of `FFS' (Fumble Finger Syndrome) I thought I'd fixed all of them but that one managed to sneak by. {WAN GRIN}

[cg]

It is possible that New Britain control channel is still using an unlicensed frequency that is not on RR.com. If you use one of the scanners that depends on the RR database, you may be out of luck.

New Britain is going to a P25 trunk system in the near future with Phase II capability so don't downgrade to a lesser radio if that one will do that mode.

chris

[troymail]

Originally Posted by cg

It is possible that New Britain control channel is still using an unlicensed frequency that is not on RR.com. If you use one of the scanners that depends on the RR database, you may be out of luck.

Not really - that's where you (and I and everyone) come into the game.... the radio doesn't rely on "licensed" or "unlicensed" frequencies but it does rely on all of us to find and submit our findings to RR for others to use.

Consider using the radio's search feature to find the control channel (if it's new and unlisted).

If / when you find it, you can add it to the programming using EZ Scan ... and submit it to RR!

OF course, you could just wait for someone else to do it -- but you cold be waiting a long time.

This is just part of the hobby.

[cg]

I was not specific enough, they were using an unlicensed frequency for the control channel as recently as a month ago and may still be using it. It was in the database before and was removed.

chris

[AniMal717]

Hey guys - sorry for the delay was away on trip for work. I think i got the unit working by adding the frequency manually but i did it through the software. I went to the trunked radio system tab - on the top i selected the new britain system and then on the bottom half of screen i selected primary and to the right i added 2 more frequencies, and it started to work. Was this correct?

But I do remember they had like 4 different frequencies the 2 i added was 860.2125 and 855.9625? Are these the only ones they have now? I do see the new ones being listed but they're not working and the old frequencies that are still working but not listing in radioreference.

Thanks for the input you all been a help. Satisfied with the unit

p.s. i was just joking about the expensive door stopper as i knew you guys was going to jump on my case - lollolololo - I was just looking for a quick reply cuz other forums could go by a few weeks or month without answer and i guess i was wrong about this forum. Quick response - thanks again.