PSR-800 Micro-SD Maximum Card Size?

[W2GLD]

I recently purchased one of these radios, originally for the X2-TDMA functionality; however, I have found numerous things about this scanner that are excellent compared to others, though there is also some bad which I will save for another post.

One of the greatest features of this radio is it's ability to use a Micro-SD card for storage. The reason I highlight this as the #1 reason is because of it's seemingly endless space for talkgroups and radio id's. Until now, I could never program more than around 200 radio id's without running out of memory. Over the weekend, I programmed in all of the radio id's for the Burlington County, NJ SmartZone system. Each department has over 100 id's each. This is especially helpful because in this county, they have consolidated channels and sometimes it's difficult to remember who each user is by radio I'd or call sign. (Example: 498xx on the common channel I now see as Evesham Twp.)

In any case, as I expande my programming I am sure I will begin to run out of memory. Does anyone know what the largest Micro-SD card that is supported in this unit is? I see that Radio Shack has a 16gb Micro-SD card on-sale this week for $29. If I can go larger, I may consider it as you can never have too much memory.

Any comments would be appreciated. Also, I have submitted numerous updates to radio reference.com because their database for Burlington County is way out-of-date and is missing almost every essential talkgroup and does not contain the radio I'd format listings that I submitted over a year ago. I have this entire system mapped out, and I have sent countless updates into radioreference.com; yet it never seems to get updated. This iOS what I see as a major problem for these types of scanners.

Thanks all and happy scanning!

Jerry - W2GLD

 

[fmon]

If you only intend to scan (no recording), the 2 gig SD will never overload. Considerable SAVED recording will go beyond 2 gig's.

I use a 4 gig for backup but each time I upgrade the library, the 4 gig takes more time to load new data then does the 2 gig. (using a card reader for both)

If RS 16 gig will format, it should work.

 

[TES]

. . . Does anyone know what the largest Micro-SD card that is supported in this unit is? . . .

From the one that knows:

Any microSD Card up to 32GB is supported, as long as it uses 512-byte blocks (I've never seen one that doesn't, though the SD spec allows it) and is formatted correctly:
* 2GB or smaller: FAT16, 32kB clusters
* larger than 2GB: FAT32, 32kB clusters

 

[W2GLD]

Good deal, looks like I'll head over to the Rat Shack tomorrow and grab a 16gb SanDisk.

This is a cool radio; however, I miss the keyboard and the ability to edit frequencies, bandwidth settings, etc from the radio. The digital decode on the another hand is excellent, in some cases it actually sounds better than my XTS radio. The ability to track radio id's in conventional P25 mode as well as the conventional P25 talkgroup is invaluable for monitor certain types of agencies.

Thanks for the tip and after searching all the PSR-800 posts, I did see a few comments regarding the Micro-SD cards.

Jerry - W2GLD

 

[Jay911]

I have a 32gb card in my 800 ... the only downside is it takes a long time to power up (when it is initializing the file system).

 

[W2GLD]

I have a 32gb card in my 800 ... the only downside is it takes a long time to power up (when it is initializing the file system).

Good info; how long is long though?

I was thinking 16gb would be more than enough, but if it slows down the boot process; perhaps I'll drop back to the 8gb. since I really won't be using the record feature all that much.

Thanks,

Jerry

 

[ka3jjz]

According to the FAQ, others have reported that San Disk, PNY and Micro SD cards seem to be the most reliable. I thought I saw a couple of posts where others had tried other brands (Kodak?) and they didn't seem to work - the radio wouldn't initialize them, I believe.

Anyhow if you find other brands that do work, consider adding them to our FAQ for future reference

best regards..Mike

 

[Jay911]

I think you are dealing with about 1 second per GB, or thereabouts. Takes about 20-30 secs for my scanner to boot up.

I don't necessarily "need" all that space right now, but when I travel, I'd much rather not have to switch out cards/dump data off the scanner until I'm completely done what I'm doing.

 

[W2GLD]

I think you are dealing with about 1 second per GB, or thereabouts. Takes about 20-30 secs for my scanner to boot up.

I don't necessarily "need" all that space right now, but when I travel, I'd much rather not have to switch out cards/dump data off the scanner until I'm completely done what I'm doing.

I am with you sir and I couldn't agree more. Well since it doesn't have to boot all that often, 30 seconds isn't too bad; though still not the idea solution but it is allot of memory to verify at power on.

Thanks for the info and happy monitoring!

Jerry - W2GLD

 

[PC_Medic]

I think you are dealing with about 1 second per GB, or thereabouts. Takes about 20-30 secs for my scanner to boot up.

I don't necessarily "need" all that space right now, but when I travel, I'd much rather not have to switch out cards/dump data off the scanner until I'm completely done what I'm doing.

Just out of curiosity, have you used the 'Optimize Scanner/SD Memory' function in the EZ-Scan software to see if that would help. I have found that when I have longer than usual boot times doing this reduces boot time 4 fold.

 

[Jay911]

Just tried it now, let's see.

"Init SD FileSys" was on screen for 29 seconds between when I pressed the ON button and the GRECOM screen came up.