800 rebanding

[RohnsRadio]

Maybe this has been discussed but........
How will the rebanding of the 800 and 900 MHz band effect scaner users? Will the scanner still be able to "trunk track" ?

Rohn
KD4HCT

 

[brian]

The answer is...it depends.

Do you regularly monitor a trunked radio system with assigned frequencies above 861.000MHz?

Do you use an older trunk tracker scanner (more than say, 2 years old from its release date).

If your answer to these two questsion is yes, then you will very likely be affected by rebanding.

We won't know for certain which systems are affected until the process proceeds further. Those of us in the Southeast are in Wave 3, which isn't supposed to begin the negotiation process until sometime in early 2006. From what I read and hear about this, that timeframe is likely to slip even more, so the positive aspect is that it's still a ways away.

There are a couple of threads in the Uniden forum on this site that cover rebanding and scanners more in depth.

Hope that helps.

 

[brian]

The answer is...it depends.

Do you regularly monitor a trunked radio system with assigned frequencies above 861.000MHz?

Do you use an older trunk tracker scanner (more than say, 2 years old from its release date).

If your answer to these two questsion is yes, then you will very likely be affected by rebanding.

We won't know for certain which systems are affected until the process proceeds further. Those of us in the Southeast are in Wave 3, which isn't supposed to begin the negotiation process until sometime in early 2006. From what I read and hear about this, that timeframe is likely to slip even more, so the positive aspect is that it's still a ways away.

There are a couple of threads in the Uniden forum on this site that cover rebanding and scanners more in depth.

Hope that helps.

 

[RohnsRadio]

does anyone know how to read the date code on a Rat Shack Pro-95?

it has a sticker that reads 03A04. I think that means 03 month of 2004. If that is the case then it would be OK. So gusess out of luck with the 2066 and the 2050.


Rohn
KD4HCT

 

[jeffmulter]

I get the impression you might be out-of-luck with the Pro 95, unfortunately.

From what I've read, the three conditions for whether a scanner will be able to handle the rebanding are:

- The scanner will come from the manufacturer will firmware written to follow the new / rebanded frequency architecture

- The firmware can be upgraded by the owner, via a file from the manufacturer, to follow the new architecture

- or -

- The scanner can be manually programmed for custom look-up trunking tables

Nothing on the horizon matches the first condition. Even the widely-heralded Uniden 396 MAY be shipped with the current frequency architecture, requiring a firmware reprogramming.

Only a couple of the most-recent Uniden scanners meet condition two. The Uniden 250 / 785 and 780 - and earlier scanners - WILL NOT be upgradable.

I believe only the Pro 96 / 2096 meet condition three, and have enough custom tables to handle the expected changes to 800 MHz under rebanding.

Rebanding will be an interesting period for our hobby ... kind of like a bear stock market. Alot of scanners will drop in their value as trunktrackers "overnight." But there will also be some good values on the used market for scanners, if you have some non-trunking use in mind.

And, be careful about buying a used two-way trunked radio, if you don't understand how that radio will be affected by the rebanding.


Jeff Multer

 

[brian]

I wasn't clear about what I said in terms of the age of a scanner and rebanding.

It's not the date the scanner was manufactured that will determine if it will work or not. It's the original release date for the radio model. According to strongsignals.net, the PRO-95 was released in September 2002.

As Jeff said, for GRE scanners, probably the PRO-96/PRO-2096 are the only current models that can handle rebanding as they are now (with some tricky programming). I find it hard to believe that they won't provide some type of upgrade for the recently released PRO-97/PRO-2055. Others PRO-95 and older (based on the release date of the model, not on the manufacturing date of the radio) are probably out of luck.

Uniden has already posted their upgrade plans. Look in the Uniden forum on this site for that information.

Keep in mind that not all trunked systems will be affected. Only Motorola systems (not EDACS or LTR) that use a 3600-baud control channel AND that use frequencies in the 861-869MHZ range will be affected. So these "non-upgradeable" scanners will still work fine on all the systems that don't match those criteria. That doesn't make me feel much better, since the TRS I listen to the most will be affected and all but one of my trunk-trackers can't be upgraded, but that's the way it goes.

Brian