DonS said:
:lol: :lol:
GRE PSR-500 Post Release Thread
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:lol: :lol:
Statevillian said:
Nice review Statevillian. One thing I noted about the overloading problems people are posting about is that much of it could be from computers and Wifi. Also in the case of the EDACS system being two to three miles away it could be overload. This radio is obviously real sensitive. There is a per channel attenuator and a global attenuator available. I have yet to see if any of the radios with signal problems are using attenuation. It may not help at all, but it would be good to know.
ATTEN, Global or Normal, The attenuator reduces the amount of signal at
the receiver input. This helps reduce interference from strong nearby transmitters. Global attenuator mode applies attenuation radio-wide, regardless of individual object settings. In Normal attenuator mode, the attenuator follows the individual object attenuator setting.
Global ATTEN, On or off, When the ATTEN mode is set to Global, this
controls whether the Global attenuator is on or off.
Statevillian
Member
DaveIN said:
My wifi has no impact at all on my 500. In the car nothing interferes. Right now the transmissions on the same system (Stateville Prison) are not impacted by the EDACS tower but when I drove down the road where the tower is I had voice traffic overridden by the EDACS control channel! Amazing. It must only be when the 867.xxxx is the control channel. I experimented a little with the atten but to be honest, my listening has been so interference free it is not an issue. Dave in Indiana you are correct...very sensitive unit. It's a good thing.
D
DaveNF2G
Guest
About this P25 simulcast issue -
Do the problems occur only when the receiver is within range of more than one simulcast site? Or does the PSR-500 have trouble just because the system uses simulcast?
Do the problems occur only when the receiver is within range of more than one simulcast site? Or does the PSR-500 have trouble just because the system uses simulcast?
Statevillian
Member
P25 site simulcast issue
I have tried listening near and far from the site and the issue remains dropped comms and Tgs appearing on the display but no audio....same as with the Uniden 396 and from those I know who have the 996. I have turned multi-site on and off and it is all the same...... It does not, I repeat, does NOT appear to be a specific scanner issue at all. Others are experiencing the same thing on various brand of scanner. Definitely only happens on the 700/800Mhz simulcast site. I am not a tech so I don't wanna jump out there and offer what I THINK the problem might be. I am confident it is not the 500. It performs flawlessly in other P25 areas.
DaveNF2G said:
I have tried listening near and far from the site and the issue remains dropped comms and Tgs appearing on the display but no audio....same as with the Uniden 396 and from those I know who have the 996. I have turned multi-site on and off and it is all the same...... It does not, I repeat, does NOT appear to be a specific scanner issue at all. Others are experiencing the same thing on various brand of scanner. Definitely only happens on the 700/800Mhz simulcast site. I am not a tech so I don't wanna jump out there and offer what I THINK the problem might be. I am confident it is not the 500. It performs flawlessly in other P25 areas.
Statevillian said:
There's two software programs already released:
www.psredit.com
www.starrsoft.com
DaveIN said:
Dave, as mentioned in my "review" I had ATT "on" for the individual Marine band objects that were breaking thru full squelch... so in my case, at least, that did not help.
I would like to selectively switch off the various computers, monitors, etc here to find the culprit(s) but I no longer have the unit.
My concern is that none of the other three scanners compared (pro-43, 780XLT, 996T) exhibited this... even though I rotated all of the antennas here thru each scanner.
offsite said:
Is possible that one of the IF frequencies on the PSR-500 is getting hammered by interference where as the other radios have different IF frequencies that don't match any harmonics or spurious signals created by other devices in your house.
D
DaveNF2G
Guest
Statevillian said:
I understand what you're saying about being close to a site. My question, though, is based on the way simulcast works. It means that more than one site is transmitting the same signal on the same frequency, supposedly in phase with each other. What I'm asking is whether your scanner could be receiving two (or more) simultaneous - but not phased correctly - signals on the same frequency from more than one tower.
Statevillian
Member
It's Possible
It's possible. I don't have an explanation for it though. It's not happening at every simulcast site. One of the top guys at CARMA Radio Club, Rich Carlson recently posted at another web group that in his travels to another part of Illinois he was having a simulcast site issue like we are experiencing in the Chicagoland area. And, he really knows his stuff. Naturally, it doesn't seem to have an impact on the end users of the actual Starcom21 system so far as I can tell. It's a little annoying to see TGs flash and hang or sart to talk and just drop off, but the same conversation is going strong on another site. Your scenario is entirely possible.
DaveNF2G said:
It's possible. I don't have an explanation for it though. It's not happening at every simulcast site. One of the top guys at CARMA Radio Club, Rich Carlson recently posted at another web group that in his travels to another part of Illinois he was having a simulcast site issue like we are experiencing in the Chicagoland area. And, he really knows his stuff. Naturally, it doesn't seem to have an impact on the end users of the actual Starcom21 system so far as I can tell. It's a little annoying to see TGs flash and hang or sart to talk and just drop off, but the same conversation is going strong on another site. Your scenario is entirely possible.
I'm one of the people that are having problems with the simulcast towers on the SC21 system...
My Pro96 rocks on it, no issues at all, but my BC296D just doesn't work on the simulcast towers. Same symptoms that "Statevillian" posts. I was really hoping that the GRE unit would behave like the Pro96, I've been waiting for word on that before pulling the trigger.
Search on my username to find what I've posted on this. I've also had some email exchanges with Rich of Carma, pretty much the same deal for him.
My Pro96 rocks on it, no issues at all, but my BC296D just doesn't work on the simulcast towers. Same symptoms that "Statevillian" posts. I was really hoping that the GRE unit would behave like the Pro96, I've been waiting for word on that before pulling the trigger.
Search on my username to find what I've posted on this. I've also had some email exchanges with Rich of Carma, pretty much the same deal for him.
RF Noise near a PC, expected
I have tested the Pro-96 vs the PSR-500 in a variety of circumstances now, and I find that the PSR-500 does a better job at receiving FM/AM and DG signals. To me, it looks like GRE did their homework and made a fine radio.
I can not imagine judging any radio, with the "duck" antenna attached while placed near to a laptop or, with a few foot cabled external antenna that is also placed in my shack which has a PC / monitor and printer (not to mention the cables connecting them).
What I do for home listening... I put a discone outside a bit away from the PC/Monitor/printer fed with about 25 feet of good foil shielded RG-8X and that works very well. If I want to go portable with a rubber-duck around the house, that works well also as long as I do not put the radio on my desk here next to the PC.
While mobile I use a small mag mount external antenna with a short piece of coax.
I've been a ham for almost 30 years and from what I have learned, it is almost impossible to supress on-frequency interference whether it is from a desired source or from modern consumer electronics. A good radio receives what is presented to it.
I also understand that I may have problems while mobile and near cell sites. In this case I select the attenuator, and things are usually good.
I have tested the Pro-96 vs the PSR-500 in a variety of circumstances now, and I find that the PSR-500 does a better job at receiving FM/AM and DG signals. To me, it looks like GRE did their homework and made a fine radio.
I can not imagine judging any radio, with the "duck" antenna attached while placed near to a laptop or, with a few foot cabled external antenna that is also placed in my shack which has a PC / monitor and printer (not to mention the cables connecting them).
What I do for home listening... I put a discone outside a bit away from the PC/Monitor/printer fed with about 25 feet of good foil shielded RG-8X and that works very well. If I want to go portable with a rubber-duck around the house, that works well also as long as I do not put the radio on my desk here next to the PC.
While mobile I use a small mag mount external antenna with a short piece of coax.
I've been a ham for almost 30 years and from what I have learned, it is almost impossible to supress on-frequency interference whether it is from a desired source or from modern consumer electronics. A good radio receives what is presented to it.
I also understand that I may have problems while mobile and near cell sites. In this case I select the attenuator, and things are usually good.
Viable Software
I'm a big fan of Don Starr's programs, but the WIN500 program isn't even a workable program yet. If I only have one fault with this scanner, it is that GRE released it before viable programming software was released. Yes, you can read the manual, but being able to see how the programming resided in the radio like we were able to do with the BCD396T, 996 and BCT-15 was a big help. This scanner is definately not for newbees. I will definately be looking closely at PSREdit later tonight, it appears to be a viable product.
Mark
I'm a big fan of Don Starr's programs, but the WIN500 program isn't even a workable program yet. If I only have one fault with this scanner, it is that GRE released it before viable programming software was released. Yes, you can read the manual, but being able to see how the programming resided in the radio like we were able to do with the BCD396T, 996 and BCT-15 was a big help. This scanner is definately not for newbees. I will definately be looking closely at PSREdit later tonight, it appears to be a viable product.
Mark
Simulcast Pro-96 vs PSR-500
I tested some today with one antenna going into a 800MHz capable splitter and two short BNC cables going between the splitter and a Pro-96 and PSR-500. I tested with the splitter connected to the stock antenna, the RadioShack 800 antenna, and with my discone. What I found.........
On a strong 800 DG system with very little simulcast distortion (little of the rapid fading/ringing sound on the control channel), both radios did equally well.
On a strong system (4-5 bars on the signal meter 100% of the time) that has simulcast distortion (the rapid fading/ringing sound was present when listening to the control channel) the Pro-96 seemed to pass slightly more voice audio in broken syllables than the PSR-500, although many times I could hear the Pro-96 pass the raw modulation sound whereas the PSR-500 stayed muted.
It seems to me that the PSR-500 has additional filtering to not pass the heavily distorted signals (it stays muted). I do see the point that maybe it is better to hear some digital "noise" more often and to catch the partial syllables of the good demodulation since we like to hear what is going on, even with a bad signal?
I find that my Pro-96 decodes a bit more of the DG voice in momentary human syllables on weak signals and also passes a lot of digital noise. The PSR-500 seems to favor staying muted on bad signals.
I know that there was a 1.2 vs 1.4 DSP code for the Pro-96 which suited our different tastes. I bet that GRE will come out with a similar choice of downloads for the PSR-500. One which tends toward muting unless there is continuous voice, and another which favors hearing partial voice and some digital noise.
I tested some today with one antenna going into a 800MHz capable splitter and two short BNC cables going between the splitter and a Pro-96 and PSR-500. I tested with the splitter connected to the stock antenna, the RadioShack 800 antenna, and with my discone. What I found.........
On a strong 800 DG system with very little simulcast distortion (little of the rapid fading/ringing sound on the control channel), both radios did equally well.
On a strong system (4-5 bars on the signal meter 100% of the time) that has simulcast distortion (the rapid fading/ringing sound was present when listening to the control channel) the Pro-96 seemed to pass slightly more voice audio in broken syllables than the PSR-500, although many times I could hear the Pro-96 pass the raw modulation sound whereas the PSR-500 stayed muted.
It seems to me that the PSR-500 has additional filtering to not pass the heavily distorted signals (it stays muted). I do see the point that maybe it is better to hear some digital "noise" more often and to catch the partial syllables of the good demodulation since we like to hear what is going on, even with a bad signal?
I find that my Pro-96 decodes a bit more of the DG voice in momentary human syllables on weak signals and also passes a lot of digital noise. The PSR-500 seems to favor staying muted on bad signals.
I know that there was a 1.2 vs 1.4 DSP code for the Pro-96 which suited our different tastes. I bet that GRE will come out with a similar choice of downloads for the PSR-500. One which tends toward muting unless there is continuous voice, and another which favors hearing partial voice and some digital noise.
letarotor said:
Yeah, I know what you mean. The PSREdit software ise awesome except it seems there is no way to cut and paste information yet. From what I've see of Don's Win500 it looks very promising nad familiar. I noticed that in Win500 you can cut and paste information and I was able to import a Win 96 file into the Win500 program.
I think within the next month or so both programs will be awesome and I will probably end up purchasing both.
Re: PSREdit
It appears that even after a DOWNLOAD from the scanner you cannot view Hit Counts for objects (the count always shows 0) even when there is a count shown in the radio itself. I assume this will be corrected in an update of the software... right Mike? The software seems to do good for all else...but then again I have only had the radio and software working for about 3 hours. Still a lot to learn.
It appears that even after a DOWNLOAD from the scanner you cannot view Hit Counts for objects (the count always shows 0) even when there is a count shown in the radio itself. I assume this will be corrected in an update of the software... right Mike? The software seems to do good for all else...but then again I have only had the radio and software working for about 3 hours. Still a lot to learn.
letarotor said:
The PSR-500 hasn't even been available a full week yet and two memory management programs have been made available. That's pretty good, I think. I don't believe we have even scratched the surface for what this radio is capable of doing and its definitely state of the art. I think GRE has done a good job with the user interface. Having said that, some new scanner users or veterans that have never programmed a Uniden DMA scanner may be able to program this radio easer than those who may be used to the Uniden method. I think it's going to take some time for new owners to get accustomed to the Object Oriented memory management and all the feature sets.
This does not sound too good. My radio comes tomorrow, so I will be able to test it on our 700/800 Mhz simulcast P25 system here in New Orleans... I will be very disappointed if GRE did not get this right. Ok, so this scanner can now trunktrack 700 Mhz... No problem. Why not get this thing working, when there was a big outcry with the Pro-96, resulting in a "fix" (if you could even call it that) with a DSP update? I am really hoping it is not as bad as it is sounding in this threadcpunut said:
Again, why should we settle for hearing digital modulation, or nothing at all? I will report my findings tomorrow, but please GRE, get working on a CQPSK solution. Be the leader that you are!
-- Kevin
I think a big drawback will be the inabililty to quickly assign all objects in a scanlist to a different scan list. With the Uniden models you can just reassign a system a different number in one simple step.
troymail
Silent Key
It interesting how we become comfortable with the interfaces and options of one radio like the 396 and then are not happy with the way a new radio made by a different company works.... I'm am personally working throught this... I was always very happy reception and digital decoding of the PRO-96 but not enough to keep one. I really didn't like the programming interface/keystrokes required. I just prefered the way he programming, scanlists, and otherparts of the 396 worked.
With the PSR500 coming out with a completely new interface and the promise of equal or better digital/reception/audio quality than the PRO96, I decided I had to have one. I originally thought - well, I don' really need it right now so maybe I'll wait (I said the same thing when the BC-396 was about to ship for the first time). But, about a week before they PSR500 started shipping, I decided I wanted one now (I did the same thing when the BC-396 came out!). I like's my toys... and I ike to have he latest and greatest of my toys.
I can say that the steps it takes and the natural progression of programming trunk radio systems in the PSR500 is very good - much, much better than the PRO-96 in my opinion. The reception is also very good - but perhaps maybe TOO good - there is a good possibility that it receives too much and therefore is prone to interference much more than the 396 -- I'm working on trying to prove/disprove that in the coming days. I think it comes down to being willing to take the good with the bad...
Personally, I'm still working through the decision process - is this radio better than the BC-396? In some areas - absolutely. In others, not even close. Then again, these are personal preference items that each of us must decide for ourselves... it's just not a one-size-fits all situation...
My opinions at this point (my choice listed)
Size - BC-396
Ease of programming - about the same - just different
Reception - PSR500
Digital decoding/voice quality - PSR500
Scanlist management - BC-396
Display content - BC-396
Storage (virtural scanlists) - PSR500 (no such capability on the BC-396)
Priority channels - PSR500 (even does priority on TRS TGs)
Rejection of interference/unwanted signals - BC-396
Ability to take advantage of 'status bits' - BC-396 (apparently no options in PSR500)
Programming software - BC-396 (comes with usable software; PSR500 s/w in development/separate)
I'm hoping some of this may change in the coming days as I do more testing/evaluation (specifically the interference issues)...
With the PSR500 coming out with a completely new interface and the promise of equal or better digital/reception/audio quality than the PRO96, I decided I had to have one. I originally thought - well, I don' really need it right now so maybe I'll wait (I said the same thing when the BC-396 was about to ship for the first time). But, about a week before they PSR500 started shipping, I decided I wanted one now (I did the same thing when the BC-396 came out!). I like's my toys...
and I ike to have he latest and greatest of my toys.I can say that the steps it takes and the natural progression of programming trunk radio systems in the PSR500 is very good - much, much better than the PRO-96 in my opinion. The reception is also very good - but perhaps maybe TOO good - there is a good possibility that it receives too much and therefore is prone to interference much more than the 396 -- I'm working on trying to prove/disprove that in the coming days. I think it comes down to being willing to take the good with the bad...
Personally, I'm still working through the decision process - is this radio better than the BC-396? In some areas - absolutely. In others, not even close. Then again, these are personal preference items that each of us must decide for ourselves... it's just not a one-size-fits all situation...
My opinions at this point (my choice listed)
Size - BC-396
Ease of programming - about the same - just different
Reception - PSR500
Digital decoding/voice quality - PSR500
Scanlist management - BC-396
Display content - BC-396
Storage (virtural scanlists) - PSR500 (no such capability on the BC-396)
Priority channels - PSR500 (even does priority on TRS TGs)
Rejection of interference/unwanted signals - BC-396
Ability to take advantage of 'status bits' - BC-396 (apparently no options in PSR500)
Programming software - BC-396 (comes with usable software; PSR500 s/w in development/separate)
I'm hoping some of this may change in the coming days as I do more testing/evaluation (specifically the interference issues)...
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