PSR-300 Mode button

[TPKeller2]

I have noticed an irritating human factors condition with regard to the Mode button on my PSR-300.

When I am scanning at night, I will often press the Light button in the lower left corner of the key pad so I can see what channel the scan has stopped on. Sometimes as I do this in the dark, I will accidentally press the Mode button, which is directly above the Light button.

This is bad. It changes the mode of the channel to an improper mode, which can result in degraded sound quality. If I pressed the Mode button instead of the Light button, I also don't know which channel it was that I just changed, so then to fix it, I have to step through all the channels that I'm scanning to find the one that was just set wrong.

Now there very well may be a good reason for it, and I suppose that is what I'm asking, but why doesn't the Mode button only apply when a channel is in "Program" mode? I would seem reasonable to me that once I set a mode for a channel (at the time of programming) I would not want to be able to easily, and certainly not accidentally change that mode to something else.

What am I missing?

Theron

 

[n2mdk]

At night why not turn the light on and leave it on. That would negate the problem.

 

[SouthSoundScanner]

You could use the Keylock, Func + Lite. Page 45 in the manual.

 

[TPKeller2]

Well... leaving the light on all the time will run down the battery faster than if it weren't on all the time.

And turning on the keylock function will prevent me from using any of the other keys.



I'm just trying to make sense of why the Mode key is functional outside of Program mode.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Theron

 

[KW4EZR]

You can set the light to ignore the first button push. The radio will turn on the light regardless of what button you push and completely skip whatever function that button does. Not sure right off had where it is in the manual but it is very handy for night time use.

 

[DaveIN]

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Pro-164#Operating_Tips