Pro-668: 668 Newbie

[ajayward]

Hi All...

I've been an interested reader of the forums for several years, but really had few questions cuz' my scanners weren't all that difficult to sort out.

However, as my subject says, I just picked up a new-ish Pro-668. It's up and running and I'm getting a bit of traffic, but... the manual... great for installing batteries and powering up the unit. Beyond that, it starts getting a little murky. Okay... a lot murky!
In the coming days, I suspect I'll have some questions for the gurus around here.

My current equipment: Pro-668, Pro-163, Pro-137 Race and a Pro-2016. Yeah, all RS units, but I always search for their sale items.

Eh... that's 'bout all for now.

Amanda Ward

 

[buckyswider]

Check out the "easier to read" scanner manual over at Mark's scanners. you can also order a printed version of that for like 30 bucks.

Easier to Read Pro-668/PSR800 Digital Scanner and EZ-Scan/iScan Software Manual

 

[ajayward]

I found that. it kinda goes to the other extreme. A =lot= of reading in there. =:-|

Amanda

 

[buddrousa]

You have a lot of scanner and that is the best manual for that scanner

 

[ajayward]

Yep... not complaining and yeah, a lot of scanner with a lot to learn!

Amanda

 

[buckyswider]

Yeah, it's (IMO) overly complex now in a quest to make it 'easier to use'. But what can we do but deal with it?

There's lots of musings out there about the different memory constructs being the issue. IMO, that's not really it- it's much simpler than that. With me, I know what I want to receive. In the past, I'd just go in and select what I wanted to scan. Easy Peasy!

BUT, the target market (?) now is people who want to listen to EVERYTHING and can't figure out what to add. So, whereas in the past we'd just go program what we WANT, now we have to go remove what we DON'T want to hear.

Add to that the increased memory (for 'banks') far exceeding the number of buttons you can possibly have on the unit, so that forces you into different programming paradigms in order to group things in a way that makes sense to you.

I've just yesterday gotten back to try to program my 668, after hardware issues foiled me a couple months back (oddly now, after changing nothing, it works!!). So I've boiled it down to this:

-we have 200 'banks*' in which to set up your scanlists. I equate this with the 10 buttons on my PRO-96.
-we also have 20 'master banks**' in which we can set up lists of different banks to scan.

The software leaves some things to be desired (I'd really want to see all 200 banks on the same scrollable screen instead of pulling them up one at a time, for example) but I think once we figure out how to set up the different type systems, and figure out how we want to set up our 'banks' and 'master banks', it will only be a matter of figuring out the proper knob-pushes on how to enable the different banks/subbanks when we're not attached to a computer.

*- Playlists
** - Scan Sets

But soldier on; it should become apparent soon. Due to my 'helpful' nature I have to learn this for a new Uniden scanner also so I can set SOMEONE ELSE's scanner up in addition to my 668!!

 

[ajayward]

@buckyswider - I'm starting to get some things, somewhat sorted out, but there is a steep learning curve.
I've "cleverly" figured out how to add a couple of trunked talkgroups only to find out they are already available. DOH!

Something else I've discovered is that the antenna that comes with the unit works pretty well as opposed to the extendable, center loaded RS model I've used on my Pro-163. Could I do better? Yeah, probably, but with only 48 hours experience with the 668, I can spend some time looking around.

Thanks for your response!!!!

Amanda