GRE PSR-800 Repair Don't let this happen to you!

[konabrian]

I had a feeling that when my scanner was next to a Law Enforcement vehicle and the cop transmitted quickly, that it may have blown out the front end and I lost all sensitivity except for extremely strong, local signals.
The quick story is that I received an RMA from GRE America, sent the scanner in and then got a phone call from their repair dept. When the first thing they say to you on the phone is "are you sitting down?", you better head for the alcohol in the fridge quickly.
The module was blown out and the cost to repair it was $329.50! WOW!
Lesson learned.
Now I have essentially become one of the poor saps that has paid $700+ for the PSR-800. Not a good feeling.
My electronic friends wonder why they don't use some form of back to back diode protection to prevent the module from going. Oh well; live and learn.
The moral of the story is be careful where you are with the radio.
Brian

 

[DaveIN]

Ouch! Lesson learned!

 

[scosgt]

Probably better off buying a new one off ebay for $450 or so and keeping the old one for parts.

 

[kb8rvp]

This is more common that you think. Have two friends that had this happen to RS Pro-96 scanners. I am a ham and when I have my PSR-800 in the car to take it to work it leave the rubber duck off the scanner because most of the time I am transmitting all the way to work and back. The mobil base scanners have built in protection at the antenna connection but most handheld scanners don't. My Pro-2096 has been in the car for years and never had a problem.

 

[IowaGuy1603]

I had a feeling that when my scanner was next to a Law Enforcement vehicle and the cop transmitted quickly, that it may have blown out the front end and I lost all sensitivity except for extremely strong, local signals.
The quick story is that I received an RMA from GRE America, sent the scanner in and then got a phone call from their repair dept. When the first thing they say to you on the phone is "are you sitting down?", you better head for the alcohol in the fridge quickly.
The module was blown out and the cost to repair it was $329.50! WOW!
Lesson learned.
Now I have essentially become one of the poor saps that has paid $700+ for the PSR-800. Not a good feeling.
My electronic friends wonder why they don't use some form of back to back diode protection to prevent the module from going. Oh well; live and learn.
The moral of the story is be careful where you are with the radio.
Brian

I use my PSR 800 IN MY Law Enforcement vehicle all the time and never have problems . I even use an outside antenna (at times within a foot of my LE transmit antenna)


The repair for your problem isn't really out of line. Expensive but not out of line

 

[HM1529]

I use my PSR 800 IN MY Law Enforcement vehicle all the time and never have problems . I even use an outside antenna (at times within a foot of my LE transmit antenna)


The repair for your problem isn't really out of line. Expensive but not out of line

I also have had a PSR-800 and PRO-106 in my work vehicle while transmitting on VHF at 50 watts on multiple occasions. I've had handhelds in the vehicle (not the PSR-800) back when I had a 100 watt VHF mobile, too, and never had a problem. I guess I'll consider myself lucky.

 

[scosgt]

I have taken scanners into work and held the radio key down while running close call or equivalent to discover our frequency and tones (I was the one who put them into the RRDB). I never damaged a radio that way.
I suspect that is not why the module blew out.

 

[IowaGuy1603]

I also have had a PSR-800 and PRO-106 in my work vehicle while transmitting on VHF at 50 watts on multiple occasions. I've had handhelds in the vehicle (not the PSR-800) back when I had a 100 watt VHF mobile, too, and never had a problem. I guess I'll consider myself lucky.

I use a van with a 40 watt Kenwood PS radio and/or a Squad with a Kenwood 110watt PS radio.

The mobile external antenna slaps on the van about 10" from the transmit antenna The squad is closer to 2 ft separation.

...................I just don't see it being much of a problem

I also us the radios in each of my personal vehicles with 50 watt Yaesu Ham radios.........with similar seperations

 

[KC8ESL]

Desense is a temporary phoenomenon. Never have I ever had a permanant issue with another reciever going deaf when I unkey my mic. I've occasionally listened through a set of cans to my signal from a repeater, makes you less cb-like asking for signal reports. Bottom line is the receive antenna was about 30" from the tx antenna on the same groundplane (roof of my car).

Are you sure you didn't just drop the radio trying to hide it from the police officer?

 

[KB7MIB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

Is it possible that circuit component got by quality control and into the scanner when it shouldn't have, causing it to go bad in the presence of too much RF?

 

[gunmasternd]

Im willing to bet there are devices you can put inline to prevent this. My dad has a dozen amateur radios from 1kw-3kw i should say amps and ive never heard him blowing up another radio.

I think you had a problem before and you radio just decided? to call it quits.

think about it all the scanners out there and all the people around you running radios from 55-110watts daily yet they dont have issues.

 

[gunmasternd]

I had a feeling that when my scanner was next to a Law Enforcement vehicle and the cop transmitted quickly, that it may have blown out the front end and I lost all sensitivity except for extremely strong, local signals.
The quick story is that I received an RMA from GRE America, sent the scanner in and then got a phone call from their repair dept. When the first thing they say to you on the phone is "are you sitting down?", you better head for the alcohol in the fridge quickly.
The module was blown out and the cost to repair it was $329.50! WOW!
Lesson learned.
Now I have essentially become one of the poor saps that has paid $700+ for the PSR-800. Not a good feeling.
My electronic friends wonder why they don't use some form of back to back diode protection to prevent the module from going. Oh well; live and learn.
The moral of the story is be careful where you are with the radio.
Brian

Hm i think there blowing smoke up your butt. i cant imagine when those scanners are built that they would cost that much to build. I really think you getting lied to.

 

[jackj]

The module probably only cost them around $50 or less, gunmasternd. The rest of the charge goes to offset the costs of labor, shop overhead (electricity, heat/AC, solder stations, etc) and insurance. It could easily take a couple of hours to disassemble a portable radio to the point where a component could be replaced, replace that component and reassemble it. At an estimated $100+ per hour, well it all adds up. Don't forget that you also must pay for the shops profit.

You now know why most electronics today are considered throw-aways. They aren't built to be easily repaired and it could easily cost more to repair them than it would to replace them.

 

[ratboy]

A friend's of mine had this happen too. He was next to a semi at a truck stop outside Chicago and the trucker's CB (Well, the linear, actually) killed his 800. It was the second time something had gone wrong with it and he wasn't a big fan of the 800 anyway, so he ended up selling it after it came back. GRE did cover the repair under warranty though, as the radio was almost brand new. I think the $329+ amount the OP was charged was excessive.

 

[Ensnared]

Linear Power

A friend's of mine had this happen too. He was next to a semi at a truck stop outside Chicago and the trucker's CB (Well, the linear, actually) killed his 800. It was the second time something had gone wrong with it and he wasn't a big fan of the 800 anyway, so he ended up selling it after it came back. GRE did cover the repair under warranty though, as the radio was almost brand new. I think the $329+ amount the OP was charged was excessive.

While I was scrolling down to make a post, I was thinking to myself, what about truckers and linear amps? I have one in a box, but have not hooked it up in years because I didn't know if it would affect the computer in the car. Futhermore, I have too much juice under my seat for the battery load, JBL stereo amp. If I hooked up both in my Nissan Versa, I might not have lights.

This linear issue concerns me since I travel a great deal with my CB. I've never ever had an issue with my PSR 500 & I've been right next to a big rig who keyed up some powerful transmissions. Nothing happened, luckily.

 

[faraday51]

Thanks for the heads up. That is a terrible price to pay for a repair. I will keep it in mind when using my PSR-800 in the field.

 

[garys]

I'm skeptical that being too close to a transmitter caused your problems. Our ambulances have had every thing from BC780s up to PSR 600 scanners in them along with two UHF and two 800 Mhz radios and I've never heard of any of the scanners having front end problems. The antennas are all mounted on the cabs of the ambulances, so they are in close proximity. One of the 800 radios is used for vehicle location data transmission, so it's transmitting almost constantly. Still, no problems.

While the module might be gone, I don't think that the officer transmitting had anything to do with it.

 

[Ensnared]

Linear Power

I'm skeptical that being too close to a transmitter caused your problems. Our ambulances have had every thing from BC780s up to PSR 600 scanners in them along with two UHF and two 800 Mhz radios and I've never heard of any of the scanners having front end problems. The antennas are all mounted on the cabs of the ambulances, so they are in close proximity. One of the 800 radios is used for vehicle location data transmission, so it's transmitting almost constantly. Still, no problems.

While the module might be gone, I don't think that the officer transmitting had anything to do with it.

Well, there are some kickers that exceed 1,000 watts. I've never heard of an emergency vehicle radio putting out that kind of power.

 

[garys]

Well, there are some kickers that exceed 1,000 watts. I've never heard of an emergency vehicle radio putting out that kind of power.

And I don't think that the "Law Enforcement Vehicle" that the OP refers to has a CB linear amplifier in it either.

 

[faraday51]

And I don't think that the "Law Enforcement Vehicle" that the OP refers to has a CB linear amplifier in it either.

Either way, that is a very high price to pay for a repair.