PSR500/PSR600: Can you temp. lock onto a certain Talkgroup while scanning?

So say im listening to the local PD in my area, Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western. I have these all in one Trunk System ( ARC500 ).

Then say I hear something going down in Northern, can I lock onto that certain Talkgroup and stop the scanner from "scanning"? I only want to hear Northern until either turn the scanner off or hit a button so it can start to scan the whole Truck System again.

Pressing MAN will stop the scan on the current or most recently heard talkgroup if it is scanning. You can use the arrows to navigate between your scan list and objects. Pressing SCAN will resume scanning.

Alternatively, you can use PSE (pause) when it becomes active to stop it and also lock onto the current control channel. To resume scanning, you can either press PSE again or SCAN. It does behave a little weird where losing the control channel can cause issues and make it totally quiet.

Spitfire8520 said:

Pressing MAN will stop the scan on the current or most recently heard talkgroup if it is scanning. You can use the arrows to navigate between your scan list and objects. Pressing SCAN will resume scanning.

Alternatively, you can use PSE (pause) when it becomes active to stop it and also lock onto the current control channel. To resume scanning, you can either press PSE again or SCAN. It does behave a little weird where losing the control channel can cause issues and make it totally quiet.

Click to expand...

Perfect, thanks!

Hey Spit, now that Im thinking.. How can I omit a talk group and then return back to hearing all talk groups?

L/O will L/O a TG until you reboot. (Power cycle)

ind224 said:

L/O will L/O a TG until you reboot. (Power cycle)

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Thats what I was doing, but wasnt sure if there was a way to lockout and then unlock without a power cycle.

IM going to add this in:


How come the T on the LCD sometimes is flashing or solid or non-existent? I think I remember that this is an indication of a trunked system? Whats crazy is if its not there it sounds good, if its flashing its coming in and out, as if it were weak...

mroneeyedboh said:

Thats what I was doing, but wasnt sure if there was a way to lockout and then unlock without a power cycle.

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As far as I am aware, there is not. The alternative is to take advantage of your scan lists a little bit more. Place the talkgroups many different scan lists so that you can turn them on and off with a single press of a button while scanning.

mroneeyedboh said:

IM going to add this in:


How come the T on the LCD sometimes is flashing or solid or non-existent? I think I remember that this is an indication of a trunked system? Whats crazy is if its not there it sounds good, if its flashing its coming in and out, as if it were weak...

Click to expand...

The T indicates that it is decoding a control channel on a trunked system. It disappears when it goes to a voice channel and that is why it is not present on clear transmissions. When it flashes, it means that it has a poor decode or weak signal on the voice channel which makes the scanner think the transmission has ended. As a result, it swings back to check the control channel for any traffic (where the T shows up) and learns that the talkgroup still has traffic on the same voice channel. It goes back to the voice channel (where the T disappears) and the process repeats, leading to the flashing T icon.

Being able to decode the control channel is an okay way to approximate whether or not you can hear something, but it does not always guarantee that you will be able to hear a voice channel clearly due to a number of factors.

Thanks spitfire.