GRE PSR-500 Post Release Thread

[Air490]

I hear you Mancow. I am waiting form mine to arrive from the US, so I really hope there is no major problems too.

 

[mancow]

Ha...well maybe so, but I gotta have something to be loud first. No amount of wire will bring in silence.

:lol:

Hey Guys If You Want Loud ..audio Just Wrap A Wire Around The Bnc .then Around The End Going In To The Ear Jack An Plug The Speaker In An It Will Blow You Out Of The Room It Works Better On The Psr 500 Than The Pro95 Or Pro 96 But I Would Not Do This With A Ear Plug .but Think It Has Better Audio Than The Pro 96. This Is One Hell Of A Radio.

 

[wwhitby]

-- No scan list alpha tag readout while monitoring.

I've been thinking about this, and i've come up with a workaround. This will only work in manual mode, but it will at least let you see what is in what scanlist.

When you a programming a scan list, create a dummy or duplicate frequency or talkgroup object as the first object in your scanlist and program the text tag as the name of the scanlist (i.e. Autauga County, or Local PDs). When you go into manual mode, and then left and right arrow through the scanlists, the first object in the scanlist will display, which will be the dummy object with the name of your scanlist.

On trunked systems, the system name and TGRP tag will alternate flashing back and forth. I haven't figured out anything for conventional frequencies, but I put mine in geographic location by county, so it isn't a big deal to me. When I see xxx PD come up, I know its in xxx county.

Warren

 

[wwhitby]

After making my wife a scanner widow and son a scanner orphan for a day , here are my impressions:

- The audio has less treble than the audio on my PRO-96, which I prefer
- I really like the temporary lockout feature. It works great when you want to listen to one or two talkgroups or frequencies, but don't want to permanently lock everyone out.
- Since this scanner operates much differently then what I was used to, there was a learning curve. However, the learning curve was very shallow.
- The LED feature works great, especially for I-Calls and new talkgroup objects when you use a wildcard.
- P-25 decoding is much better than that on my PRO-96. The audio isn't
"muddy", and I don't get the digital noise from packets being lost/not demodulated.
- The receiver seems much more sensative. Using the same style antenna, I was able to hear the CW identifier of a distant repeater on my '500 while my '96 didn't break squelch.
- I don't have a problem with the color of the faceplate or its contrast.
- They keys are stiffer than that on my '96, so they take more force to press. At first I didn't like it. However after taking my '500 on a train trip yesterday while it was in my pocket, I realized that the stiffer keys won't get accidentally pressed. A definate benefit.
- Its really, really nice to see an S-meter on a scanner!
- The '500 scans faster then my PRO-96. My '500 had already acquired a talkgroup, while the '96 hadn't even got to it yet.
- No more "location zero" for programming the first EDACS LCN. That used to drive me crazy on the PRO-95 and PRO-96.
- The size isn't a big deal to me. I prefer larger radios. When I went on the train trip, the '500 fit comfortably into the large outside pocket of the shirt I was wearing.
- The online help is fantastic!
- The LEDs work great. I didn't think I would use them, but I assign them to I-Calls or wildcard talkgroup objects, or little used frequencies, so that I can see at a distance when one becomes active.
- The 6db audio boost is a fantastic feature!

Overall, I rate the '500 as a winner!

BTW, my wife isn't mad. I moved furniture and painted for her while I was listening

Warren

 

[troymail]

True, but after $514.00 I'm a bit apprehensive.


I'm getting partial transmissions from known good signals right now. This isn't right. I am trying it now with different combinations of AGC and Supertrack.

I'm giving it more time... just got pretty much burned out and needed some sleep last night.

Sure, firmware can fix things by you don't know if/when that's going to be (if that is even a solution) - and we need forums like this to get the word out to determine what the problem really is (I can only assume someone from GRE is watching this forum).

I did briefly try some of the the different settings to no avail. I plan on taking my radio outside for a bit today. I often wonder if there is just far too much "noise" on my house from other wireless signals (ADT alarm/wireless transmitters, wireless routers - mine and 3-5 from my neighbors, 3 PCs using the wireless connections, etc.)... I'm probably 1/2 mile from a cell tower also that blocks nearly everything when I drive past it.

So far one of the systems I wanted to listen to and was partially the reason for this new purchase is Baltimore City and it works for that system much better than my 396 does. I've also been able to pick up the system on the Upper Maryland Eastern Shore with the 500 that the 396 can't "see" at all from my house without also of extra effort. One of the reasons I got the 500 is that I assumed it would receive as well or better than the PRO-96 and that is turning out to be true. Another is that the PRO-96 digital decoding/audio was much cleaner than the 396 and again, the 500 is just as good or better than the PRO-96 - for the systems it locks into properly.

I'm fairly certain that if I were closer to some of the systems I want to listen to things would be fine ... but in the case of the two systems I'm having problems with (Howard County MD and Maryland Aviation Admin), both are received fairly well on the 396 so why not on the 500?

So I'm no where near throwing in the towel - there's lots more "playing" to do.... can't wait for some software to do some programming though. When I got my 396 and the software came with it, I had all of the systems loaded by now -- I feel like I'm being "held at bay" waiting for software (I'm not a fan of the 3-3, 4-3, 7-3, 3-2 key sequences to type the word "FIRE", etc. - what would be wrong with just hitting the "3" key three times instead?)...

 

[troymail]

Let me put this question out once again --

I have the Maryland Aviation System (http://radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=4790) programmed in to my PSR-500.

When scanning, the PSR-500 is showing "S" and nearly a steady 5-bars of signal strength but NO "T" for the control channel.

WHAT is it receiving 5-bars of????????

(Note: my 396 is sitting directly next to the PSR-500 showing 1-2 bars of the same signal.. occasionally there is a conversation which is somewhat broken but readable - nothing at all on the PSR-500).

EDIT: For giggles, I programmed the CC freq. as a convention channel in a different scan list.... with an LED that shows the channel active. Since it is a control channel, I would expect that it would lock and stay but it does not. It locks, the LED lights, and the bottom of the display shows P25:1B0 (occasionally thee is a / appearing to the right of it)... but then the radio goes back to scanning (LED out) and returns to lock in again...

I went outside the house (on the side of the house facing the system) and nothing really changed. But while out there, I looked at the settings again and realized that at some point, the radio reported an opportunity to "STOR" the NAC code, etc. which I had previous done. I cleared the NAC code from this convention channel setting and now I can hear the control channel and I'm seeing "S/" on the bottom line of the display. After a brief period, I once again "STOR" the NAC and the audio stops and I go back to lock/unlock/lock/unlock, etc.

I'm assuming I'm going to hear "the system is too weak to receive", etc. which may be true (although frustrating because it is so close). I'm planning to drive closer to the system later today and see how things change....

EDIT (again): while sitting on the CC, I hit FUNC TUNE and the display is showing -- 99% N1B0 W:BEE00 alternating with Sys:1BA R01 S01 -- which according to the user's manual is saying that it is decoding at 99%....

 

[LEH]

Don,

Going back to my issue with the scanner appearing to stop on a signal with no audio. I have been watching this a bit this morning and it really seems that the radio is missing the signal. The radio will be scanning, then stop (the LED will come on is my key here) and stay on the signal for several seconds (seemingly longer than the delay) and then either continue scanning or finally put out audio. The audio does not seem to be clipped.

What I really need to do is set up two radios with the same talk groups and compare side by side.

The systems this seems to be happening on are P25, but I haven't looked closely at an analog system just yet. I am seeing some other concerns with P25 reception.

Thanks for the heads up on the 'pause' versus 'manual' settings for LED.

For all,

When the battery gets low, the radio will put up a message and STOP. Unlike other scanners, where (and I may have missed it the one time I ran the batteries down) the scanner will start beeping and run for a while longer. This just stops PERIOD. I'm running the batteries down again to see if this is right or not. I noticed that I may have not saved the setting for NiMH which may have an impact on how the radio operates.

 

[DaveNF2G]

No, the mod to make it transmit will come out first!

Look for that mod sometime around next April.

 

[scan-pa]

Rechargeable Batteries - operation time

I have 4 Sony NiMh 2500 Orange tipped Batteries that were fully charged by the time the scanner arrived on Sat. without the power cord, and with both keyboard and LCD lights on full time, plus the alert LED going for every FD, EMS, PD, FP, EMA object. The Scanner Batt. settings were set for NiMH type with the low alert settings left alone.

I spent most of the first 5 hours putting in 200+ objects w/ full tags + 4 Trunking Syst Object and about 40 TG Objects.

The scanner went for 14h12m before I got the bat. low alert.

what is everyone else getting out of there batteries?

 

[DaveNF2G]

I think troymail and LEH are experiencing the same problem. Try clearing the NAC. Your scanners are probably seeing the signals, but as the NAC doesn't match what's in memory, the audio is not being processed. Sounds like what happens when the wrong CTCSS tone is entered.

 

[DonS]

When the battery gets low, the radio will put up a message and STOP. Unlike other scanners, where (and I may have missed it the one time I ran the batteries down) the scanner will start beeping and run for a while longer. This just stops PERIOD. I'm running the batteries down again to see if this is right or not. I noticed that I may have not saved the setting for NiMH which may have an impact on how the radio operates.

When the batteries start getting low, the 'battery' icon should light solid. When they get really low, that icon should start blinking along with an alerting beep. When they get too low, the radio will halt with the "Low Voltage" message.

If you don't see that sequence, or don't see much time between the various stages, you may not have the battery type set correctly. Old rechargables that "drop off" very quickly might do it, as well.

 

[troymail]

When the batteries start getting low, the 'battery' icon should light solid. When they get really low, that icon should start blinking along with an alerting beep. When they get too low, the radio will halt with the "Low Voltage" message.

If you don't see that sequence, or don't see much time between the various stages, you may not have the battery type set correctly. Old rechargables that "drop off" very quickly might do it, as well.

If you haven't yet seen the "Low Voltage" message, try unplugging the radio end of the wall wart ...

 

[SCPD]

I have set up the LED to display for a couple of systems. I am noticing that the LED will be on but there is no audio. Some of this I attribute to the delay, but other times, I have been watching the scanner and see the LED light up, the scanner stop, but not get audio.

Anyone else seen this?

Many times the user or dispatcher will key the Mic momentarily in indecision, which brings up a TGRP, but there is no audio. With the nice alert features, this is more evident now. On previous radios you would see it go to a voice channel and then back to control.

Another thing I noticed. I paused on a talk group in a system that has the LED set. While scanning, the LED lights up, but while paused and with a transmission, the LED does not light up. The talk group was found with the WILDCARD feature and I just paused to hear what was happening.

When I press PSE in Scan mode and am on a TG with the alert set, it re-alerts. Can you explain more details?

 

[troymail]

I think troymail and LEH are experiencing the same problem. Try clearing the NAC. Your scanners are probably seeing the signals, but as the NAC doesn't match what's in memory, the audio is not being processed. Sounds like what happens when the wrong CTCSS tone is entered.

I was able to find and clar the NAC in the CONV object I created for testing but I haven't seen/found a place where is is set (or able to be cleared) for the TSYS or TGRP objects. Further, the TGRP object is a WildCard and sometimes things come through and sometimes they don't...

The other system I'm having issue with, it's not a P25 system... in that system, the symptoms are a bit different - the radio almost always tracks the TG but it appears that some of the voice freqs "make it though" and others don't (I noticed some consistency on which freqs voice comes through on vs. the ones that it does not).

 

[SCPD]

My 96 is the same way. If it is near my computer monitor the reception/decode rate goes way down. IMO the 500 isn't as bad with it though.

When there is noise on a frequency ...... there is noise on the frequency.. This is not a defect

 

[LEH]

cpunut,

What I had done (and Don S explained this very well) was use the PSE to stop a wildcard scan. While scanning, the LED would illuminate on the system, but with the PSE, the LED would not. However, when one uses the MAN, the LED will work on a talk group that you have stopped on to listen to specifically.

I'm up to about 10 hours of intermittent use on the batteries. First time I had charged them was on the rapid charger (15 minute) which does charge them, but seems to not give them the longevity of a slower charge.

I still haven't gotten low battery icon to flash, I'll keep going until I do. Don't know what I didn't save the first time, but the battery type was wrong. Set to Alkiline not NiMH.

 

[SCPD]

If you haven't yet seen the "Low Voltage" message, try unplugging the radio end of the wall wart ...

It seems to me this message is when the CPU resets when the voltage is at the point the CPU is about to crash. I think this is better than some other radios that start the motor-boating reset and reboot cycles when the batteries go dead.

 

[troymail]

I see this radio still doesn't handle plugging and unplugging the power supply from the radio - unplugging (even with batteries) causes the radio to drop out and plugging it in seems to cause the radio to power cycle.... I think I recall the PRO-96 doing the same thing.

 

[scan-pa]

I see this radio still doesn't handle plugging and unplugging the power supply from the radio - unplugging (even with batteries) causes the radio to drop out and plugging it in seems to cause the radio to power cycle.... I think I recall the PRO-96 doing the same thing.

The scanner needs to be turned off, before adding or removing the external power supply.

It does not support hot swaping of power source.

 

[troymail]

I'm still on the fence but really leaning towards wishing that GRE and Uniden would merge forces -- can you imagine what kind of radio we'd get???? (but the flip side would probably kill us -- the radio would probably be $1000 or more --- just because they could...).