scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
forget it. i figured it out. was using old, rough draft of owners manual.
GRE PSR-120 Post-Release Thread
- Thread starter DaveIN
- Start date
- Status
scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
some initial observation's. the construction and feel of this scanner is outstanding. the audio is definetly loud enough,but a bit tinny. fm radio audio is very good. the scanner does not like my computer one bit.
about 15' away or more, thing's start to improve. the scaner also does not seem to favor my car's interior either. here's where thing's seem to get a bit ugly. i'm not a big fan of high squelch setting's. i set the squelch to low. all of the frequencies that i have in the scanner so far have either a pl or a dpl attached to them. i noticed that on several frequencies, the squelch briefly open's. i did a little experiment. i prog. the national weather service frequncy into a channel. i assigned it a pl tone. turning on the scan function yielded the result of the scan cycle stopping on the frequency about every 3 or 4 scan cycles,briefly unmutting,so that you can hear at least 2 to 3 words of the broadcast. it then closes, and resumes scanning. very annoying !. maybe gre can look into this,and address it with a future firmware upgrade.
i also find the choice of just 2 squelch setting's utterly ridiculous. they could have saved the sparse real estate available on the scanner by using a squelch pod/volume pod assigned to the volume button atop of the radio. the backlight, and large frequency display are very nice. sensitivity is not bad,however i think the bc125at has gre's sensitivity ever so slightly beat. i did immediatly replace the toy like antenna with a regular gre whip. the supplied antenna may be better for stealth though. i was impressed that gre supplied a wall wart. one thing that really impressed me though. i have been running almost nonstop for about 10 hours on 3 nimh batteries. this is with my local pd assigned to a channel <fairly busy>. i had a chance to play around with the spectrumsweeper and service search. both seem very nice. the key's are tiny, and seem a bit stiff. bottom line, for about $100.00, it's not a bad backup/beginner scanner. i would have liked to see the addition of milair. it is what it is. if i had the choice between the 2 new similar entries,it would be the uniden bc125at, by a slight margin.
about 15' away or more, thing's start to improve. the scaner also does not seem to favor my car's interior either. here's where thing's seem to get a bit ugly. i'm not a big fan of high squelch setting's. i set the squelch to low. all of the frequencies that i have in the scanner so far have either a pl or a dpl attached to them. i noticed that on several frequencies, the squelch briefly open's. i did a little experiment. i prog. the national weather service frequncy into a channel. i assigned it a pl tone. turning on the scan function yielded the result of the scan cycle stopping on the frequency about every 3 or 4 scan cycles,briefly unmutting,so that you can hear at least 2 to 3 words of the broadcast. it then closes, and resumes scanning. very annoying !. maybe gre can look into this,and address it with a future firmware upgrade.
i also find the choice of just 2 squelch setting's utterly ridiculous. they could have saved the sparse real estate available on the scanner by using a squelch pod/volume pod assigned to the volume button atop of the radio. the backlight, and large frequency display are very nice. sensitivity is not bad,however i think the bc125at has gre's sensitivity ever so slightly beat. i did immediatly replace the toy like antenna with a regular gre whip. the supplied antenna may be better for stealth though. i was impressed that gre supplied a wall wart. one thing that really impressed me though. i have been running almost nonstop for about 10 hours on 3 nimh batteries. this is with my local pd assigned to a channel <fairly busy>. i had a chance to play around with the spectrumsweeper and service search. both seem very nice. the key's are tiny, and seem a bit stiff. bottom line, for about $100.00, it's not a bad backup/beginner scanner. i would have liked to see the addition of milair. it is what it is. if i had the choice between the 2 new similar entries,it would be the uniden bc125at, by a slight margin.
Squekch ob Service and Spectrum Search
I am not sure if this is the way the 120 was designed, or if my particular unit is defective, but when I search using SERVICE SEARCH, or SPECTRUM SEARCH, the squelch seems to be off.
Whether I have the squelch OFF, or ON, set to Lo or Hi, the unit continually stops on every frequency with the rushing sound of open squelch, and as I said, the squelch settings appear to be useless in this area.
I will mention that I am connected to a topside discone through a Stridsberg Multicoupler with amplification.
As stated in previous posts, in Manual and Scan mode with entered frequencies, the squelch setup on this rig is not a major problem, however, it being either OFF or non working during searching and spectrum sweep is a major flaw.
As much as I like this little scanner I must join the chorus of others and shake my head in disappointment at GRE with this silly STUPID squelch design.
Squelch knobs are standard design on ALL radios, GRE, why re-invent the wheel here?
I am not sure if this is the way the 120 was designed, or if my particular unit is defective, but when I search using SERVICE SEARCH, or SPECTRUM SEARCH, the squelch seems to be off.
Whether I have the squelch OFF, or ON, set to Lo or Hi, the unit continually stops on every frequency with the rushing sound of open squelch, and as I said, the squelch settings appear to be useless in this area.
I will mention that I am connected to a topside discone through a Stridsberg Multicoupler with amplification.
As stated in previous posts, in Manual and Scan mode with entered frequencies, the squelch setup on this rig is not a major problem, however, it being either OFF or non working during searching and spectrum sweep is a major flaw.
As much as I like this little scanner I must join the chorus of others and shake my head in disappointment at GRE with this silly STUPID squelch design.
Squelch knobs are standard design on ALL radios, GRE, why re-invent the wheel here?
I suspect your signal is overloaded and above the automatic squelch setting when using the discone antenna while the radio is more suited to handheld/portable use. The signal stalker and service search apparently has a set level for squelch, so a high gain antenna is going to raise the noise floor above the automatic squelch setting. YMMV, but you get what you pay for.
Thanks Dave, I thought as much.
Overall, still a great little scanner for the money!
Overall, still a great little scanner for the money!
scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
i respectfully have to disagree. this scanner is the biggest piece of crap since i bought the alinco dj-x30. i'm totally disappointed in this thing. it's like 2 lbs. of sh*t in a nice bag !. the only thing it is good for,is to sit on a table, on the highest squelch setting. i took it on the road,it's overloaded by everything. only reason i don't send it back,is that i would take a $22.00 hit in shipping. i hate the thing. my advice,if you need an inexpensive scanner, go with the uniden bc125at. i will be expressing my view to gre. i'm sure they will give 2 craps less.
Kel
Member
I am sorry to hear you are having some concerns with your unit but I have to disagree on some of your comment,have you tried setting the squelch?even on my PSR-500 and 800 I get overloaded and yes it is annoying,try talking to GRE and see what they say,keep us informed.
scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
yup, i tried my 2 big choices of low and high squelch settings. the POS opens even with pl/dpl on every fq., but aircraft. i'm far from a set it and leave it scanner guy. however, if you have to stand around and try a million solutions to get the thing to work, it just ain't woth it. been around radios long enough to know sh*t from shinola. i guess this one will either be a single channel monitor,or an overpriced fm radio.
not saying everything gre is garbage,but this one is.
not saying everything gre is garbage,but this one is.
Wow, this is quite a departure from your initial thoughts above.
Like Dave said, you get what you pay for, and I guess wishful thinking will have us
believing we will get $500 performance from a $100 scanner.
I am very disappointed in the squelch design. BAD idea GRE.
I am disappointed it's missing Mil Air.
And I cannot understand why on the Uniden 125AT they left out 800 mhZ.
One day we will get someone to build a low cost scanner with the best of both, but I am sure it will be a bit more then $100.00
Like Dave said, you get what you pay for, and I guess wishful thinking will have us
believing we will get $500 performance from a $100 scanner.
I am very disappointed in the squelch design. BAD idea GRE.
I am disappointed it's missing Mil Air.
And I cannot understand why on the Uniden 125AT they left out 800 mhZ.
One day we will get someone to build a low cost scanner with the best of both, but I am sure it will be a bit more then $100.00
scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
absolutely correct. at first i thought it was a decent,cheap scanner. after i played around with it for awhile, i changed my mind. i bought a $139.00 psr-310, that i'm very contented with. the bright side is, that if there is an emergency, i'll have this POS, that is very battery conservative, to listen to my local pd or fm radio. pretty sad when an old pro-84 beat's the reception crap out of this thing. i will not waste my finger's anymore. i cannot recommend this scanner to anyone. some little bug told me to wait.
i did find another good use for it. i use it to compact the garbage in my garbage can.
i did find another good use for it. i use it to compact the garbage in my garbage can.
Last edited by a moderator:
I see your in New Jersey. That has to be a high level of RF on any adjacent band your listening to, resulting in the radio overloading and opening the squelch.
Curious, are you using the stock antenna or something different with the 120?
Curious, are you using the stock antenna or something different with the 120?
scannersnstuff
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,972
- Reaction score
- 238
i was using a gre regular stock <psr-310> antenna. there may be some rf here,but not a constant problem.
the only time this radio <?>, i mean JUNK is fairly well behaved, is when it's sitting in my living room, on high squelch. then, i notice that it's not picking up a few of my routinley scanned frequencies. let's call it the way it is. gre saw an opportunity to compete with uniden's bc125at. they wanted it to come in at a slightly lower price. it did. they sacrificed any type of quality. poor shielding,poor squelch design,poor performer. although the bc125at is not perfect,it is a useable,pretty decent radio. which is more then i can say for the psr-120. in gre's case, this psr stands for Poorly Squelching Rubbish. and i learned a $100.00 lesson. you get what you pay/or don't pay for.
the only time this radio <?>, i mean JUNK is fairly well behaved, is when it's sitting in my living room, on high squelch. then, i notice that it's not picking up a few of my routinley scanned frequencies. let's call it the way it is. gre saw an opportunity to compete with uniden's bc125at. they wanted it to come in at a slightly lower price. it did. they sacrificed any type of quality. poor shielding,poor squelch design,poor performer. although the bc125at is not perfect,it is a useable,pretty decent radio. which is more then i can say for the psr-120. in gre's case, this psr stands for Poorly Squelching Rubbish. and i learned a $100.00 lesson. you get what you pay/or don't pay for.
- Status
