The death of whistler scanner's ?

[scannersnstuff]

I occasionally look for a deal on the ws-1040. I have noticed that almost all site's are listing it as discontinued or no longer available. To boot, universal radio is not showing any whistler scanner's. This,combined with the departure of whistler wendy, make's me wonder. Is whistler out of the scanner market ?.

 

[doctordialtone]

Why all the extra apostrophes?

Yeah. I predict that Whistler is out of the market. There's nothing left to develop after the Uniden SDS scanners

 

[prcguy]

It was all about the red head. No Wendy, no peace.

I occasionally look for a deal on the ws-1040. I have noticed that almost all site's are listing it as discontinued or no longer available. To boot, universal radio is not showing any whistler scanner's. This,combined with the departure of whistler wendy, make's me wonder. Is whistler out of the scanner market ?.

 

[buddrousa]

Now lets not be haters just because they stopped making new scanners no new scanners and selling Cheap Chinese Antennas Stopping Don Starr from talking when he spilled the beans on the scanner virus on the GRE built scanners so stop free DMR and now Wendy leaving you think they are gone?

 

[jimg]

Hope not, because I'm thinking about purchasing a TRX-1.
jimg

 

[sallen07]

Now lets not be haters just because they stopped making new scanners no new scanners and selling Cheap Chinese Antennas Stopping Don Starr from talking when he spilled the beans on the scanner virus on the GRE built scanners so stop free DMR and now Wendy leaving you think they are gone?

Huh? What "scanner virus on the GRE built scanners"? And "stop free DMR"??? Do tell!

Yes, Wendy left for a new job in a different field. So what? Happens all the time, especially with Millenials. Whistler already has a new presence on RR.

And as far as the WS1040 not being available, have you looked at prices and availability for Uniden scanners lately?

Supply-chain disruption due to Covid-19.

 

[buddrousa]

Whistler scanner supply has been thin before 2020 covid had nothing to do with it.
Whistler put a time bomb in a firmware update without telling and if you had the free unofficial DMR upgrade it removed the update and locked the scanner to old firmware that you could not update.
LINK HERE

DMR hopes for the PSR-800

I've been gone awhile, so is there any hope that the PSR-800 can be converted to DMR reception?

forums.radioreference.com

Pro-668: - Firmware Rollback

Hi, I apologize if this is re-post, or if the answer is somewhere I didn't see it. I'm trying to use the the GRE tool to rollback my 668 to radio shack firmware. It has whistler 4.6. I want to send it in for the upgrade. I keep getting this "cpu update error", or the scanner restarts. Is...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[russbrill]

I hope not, it's nice to have more than one player in any game...

 

[trentbob]

Those who don't know Whistler bought out GRE when they were closed by the Chinese government.

Whistler never made their own scanner they just updated GRE scanners by adding a keyboard and other capabilities to a PSR 800 and PSR 900 and made cosmetic changes to some pretty long in the tooth GRE / RS radios.

Unfortunately the TRX radios do not work on simulcast distortion secondary to LSM. No consumer scanner does except the SDS series.

If TRX radios worked with simulcast distortion secondary to LSM they would be one sweet radio. I would LOVE that radio and it would be my go-to radio. I would have waited before buying the SDS radios and as things panned out I would have ended up not buying them at all.

When it was obvious that they were not going to make a simulcast capable radio that could be crammed into the carcass of a psr-800, 900 it is only a matter of time as more and more systems convert over.

Nobody knows what's going to happen with Whistler or what their business model is, for that matter we don't know what's going to happen to Uniden as things quickly change in the hobby.

 

[russbrill]

Those who don't know Whistler bought out GRE when they were closed by the Chinese government.

Whistler never made their own scanner they just updated GRE scanners by adding a keyboard and other capabilities to a PSR 800 and PSR 900 and made cosmetic changes to some pretty long in the tooth GRE / RS radios.

Unfortunately the TRX radios do not work on simulcast distortion secondary to LSM. No consumer scanner does except the SDS series.

If TRX radios worked with simulcast distortion secondary to LSM they would be one sweet radio. I would LOVE that radio and it would be my go-to radio. I would have waited before buying the SDS radios and as things panned out I would have ended up not buying them at all.

When it was obvious that they were not going to make a simulcast capable radio that could be crammed into the carcass of a psr-800, 900 it is only a matter of time as more and more systems convert over.

Nobody knows what's going to happen with Whistler or what their business model is, for that matter we don't know what's going to happen to Uniden as things quickly change in the hobby.

I'm hoping we'll see something new from them next year after all the COVID-19 craziness calms down.. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, and Wish Whistler the Best...

 

[trentbob]

I'm hoping we'll see something new from them next year after all the COVID-19 craziness calms down.. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, and Wish Whistler the Best...

Your sentiments are appreciated and it's always good to hope. Honestly I don't think any of this has anything to do with the virus.

The key here is making a spectacular simulcast distortion capable radio that works as well as Uniden.

There is also the issue of nxdn which Uniden pays the money for. That's going to have to work properly and be able to trunk track on any new radio. I know plenty of people say they think nxdn works great on their Whistler but on busy nx48 multi-site trunk systems it's got to work as well as Uniden.

They've never made their own design radio and it's obvious that the cancellation of their simulcast capable radio was because it didn't work well or maybe they never even made it at all per some of the comments made, there is some debate about that. They may have realized pretty quickly they could not fit it into an already existing radio.

They weren't going to introduce a radio that couldn't do the job as it wouldn't be financially feasible.

Anything's possible and it's always good to keep up hope year after year after year. You never know what'll happen.

 

[SteveSimpkin]

...
Whistler put a time bomb in a firmware update without telling and if you had the free unofficial DMR upgrade it removed the update and locked the scanner to old firmware that you could not update.
LINK HERE

DMR hopes for the PSR-800

I've been gone awhile, so is there any hope that the PSR-800 can be converted to DMR reception?

forums.radioreference.com

Pro-668: - Firmware Rollback

Hi, I apologize if this is re-post, or if the answer is somewhere I didn't see it. I'm trying to use the the GRE tool to rollback my 668 to radio shack firmware. It has whistler 4.6. I want to send it in for the upgrade. I keep getting this "cpu update error", or the scanner restarts. Is...

forums.radioreference.com

Whistler was likely caught between a financial rock and a hard place with DVSI vocoder licensing when around December 2016 a very clever person created a way to load WS1080/88 firmware (with DMR) onto the PSR-800, PRO-18, or PRO-668 scanners. If this DVSI licensing issue was the case (or something similar), Whistler had to come up with a creative solution to get out of this situation, which they did. Later Whistler came out with an official feature upgrade program for the Pro-18, Pro-668 and PSR-800 scanners.

If you are sending in your unit for the Legacy Upgrade - PLEASE READ

On a side note and just plain old silly on my part not to mention a waste of everyone else's time. I was just wondering if it was legal for Whistler Wendy to use a modified version of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers Company logo while she's representing another company. Ok, that is all. I'm...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[Australia4001]

I’m just getting started with the Trx models , used unidens all my life , the Trx is an upgrade from the SDS as far as I’m concerned ,

the old saying , if it ain't broke ..

 

[fredva]

I’m just getting started with the Trx models , used unidens all my life , the Trx is an upgrade from the SDS as far as I’m concerned ,

the old saying , if it ain't broke ..

I take it you are not affected by LSM simulcast systems in your area.

 

[APX7500X2]

I’m just getting started with the Trx models , used unidens all my life , the Trx is an upgrade from the SDS as far as I’m concerned ,

the old saying , if it ain't broke ..

I also have a TRX-2 and it works fine on LSM simulcast if you know how to work with it, Im sure its not as easy as a just program and go SDS
but with some tricks and use of the attenuate and good antenna choices I have no issues

 

[buddrousa]

Well please share because it has not been told here in the US how to TRICK PROGRAM A TRX SCANNER.
The only trick and I own 2 was Whistler gave up on trying to build a LSM SCANNER and never released the how to TRICK a TRX.

 

[bberns22]

I also have a TRX-2 and it works fine on LSM simulcast if you know how to work with it, Im sure its not as easy as a just program and go SDS
but with some tricks and use of the attenuate and good antenna choices I have no issues

Yes please share! The community has been looking for some kind of simulcast remedy for Whistler!!

 

[fredva]

I also have a TRX-2 and it works fine on LSM simulcast if you know how to work with it, Im sure its not as easy as a just program and go SDS
but with some tricks and use of the attenuate and good antenna choices I have no issues

Many people have tried different antennas and know to turn on attenuation, so please let us know what tricks will work on LSM systems.

 

[jaspence]

The 1040 is an old design and was never updated or intended to handle today's standards. DMR reception quality of the 800 is better than some of the CCR made for DMR radios. For those that tried the free "unofficial" DMR upgrade, that is a chance you take with experimental firmware. The factory firmware was worth the cost and works well in both my GRE and RS radios.

 

[KK4JUG]

I sorta hope Whistler hangs around. I'm a Uniden guy but competition is good for the market and developing technology.