PRO-163 Mods

[N9JIG]

I bought a PRO163 the other day and performed my usual mods:

I installed a Discriminator Tap using a standard RCA jack with a single wire to the TP-4 common to most Radio Shack scanners.

I also installed a Size "M" coaxial power jack to the rear panel. Since most of my other scanners all have this connector I like to standardize on it. I have equipped my various RS scanners (2 Pro2096's in the current shack) as well as other devices such as my several CD-1 decoders with this jack.

Both of these jacks were installed on the rear panel of the radio by drilling a simple home (1/4 inch for the RCA jack, 5/16 inch for the power jack) and then running a single wire to the proper place on the board. The power jack was connected to the reverse polarity protection diode near the existing power jack while the discriminator was run to the usual TP-4.

The radio seems to work well so far, I have been using it mostly for searching the aircraft bands. I am getting a little broadcast interference on the upper reaches of the UHF aero band but not more than any other radio.

 

[kd5dga]

Rich,
Did you hook up you discriminator output directly with out a resistor?

 

[CStarr59]

N9JIG, Could you please explain to me what a Discriminator Tap is...? Im not new to scanners and I've heard this before, I've just never understood what it was or does exactly. Thanks in advance for setting me straight.

 

[N9JIG]

Rich,
Did you hook up you discriminator output directly with out a resistor?

Yes, I did, I just ran a thin wire from the board to the jack.

 

[N9JIG]

N9JIG, Could you please explain to me what a Discriminator Tap is...? Im not new to scanners and I've heard this before, I've just never understood what it was or does exactly. Thanks in advance for setting me straight.

The discriminator provides unfiltered, unprocessed audio that can be run thru various decoders. Using speaker audio doesn't allow some data and tone decoders to work properly since some portions of the audio is filtered out.

I use it mostly for PL and DPL decoding as well as trunked radio control signal decoding.

 

[kd5dga]

So no isolation through a resistor? All of mine have a 4.7 k ohm resistor. Since I am NOT a electronic engineer I only followed this route as recommended from others.
How is the audio?

 

[N9JIG]

So no isolation through a resistor? All of mine have a 4.7 k ohm resistor. Since I am NOT a electronic engineer I only followed this route as recommended from others.
How is the audio?

I never listen to the discriminator audio...

 

[kd5dga]

I only do that (through the soundcard) for trouble shooting. I noticed that my PRO 2055 has a chuf chuf sound.Kind of a momentary pause every second.

 

[N9JIG]

Haven't noticed anything like that, so far I have only used it for Trunker and a CD-1 decoder with no issues.

 

[kd5dga]

May I ask.. What is CD-1 Decoder?

 

[N9JIG]

May I ask.. What is CD-1 Decoder?

It is a PL, DPL and DTMF decoder made by Conncet Systems some years back. They have since replaced it with the CD-2 which added a serial interface.

It is a handy little box that displays the PL, DPL or DTMF codes decoded off the air. I have one in the van connected to a BC796, another on my R8500, a third on a BC780 and one on the PRO163.

(I guess you can tell I like decoding PL tones...)

 

[kd5dga]

I feel stupid. I have one and its hooked to my pro 2006. CSI CD-1communications decoder unit. I picked this unit up last year at a ham fest. CSI also makes a LTR unit I looked at some time ago.