Help! I just bought a Pro97 Scanner

[itismeuc]

Hi All -

I sure hope I am in the right place. LOL

First, my brothers and I just bought a Pro97 Scanner for my Dad's b-day today. He is retired from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and I need help in programming this scanner.

I have the cable and the USB driver cd. I have the Win97 trial software. I read the book and it is not easy to understand what I have to do.

Is there anyone out there that can help me?

Thanks!

 

[lowboy654]

Welcome to the forum, you have a good scanner I have one myself, you need to let us know, what it is that you want to receive and where you are at, what you are asking has been asked many times over here read the Wiki and you will also find a lot of help in your State forum about programing your scanner and what other's can receive in your area. And a little word of advice here, don't keep asking the same thing in every forum here if you ask in one place someone will answer you, and you wont have to jump all over the place to find what you want. If you jump all over the place the Moderator's here will just close double post's. and like I said give us a little more INFO, on what you want I would be more than glad to help you, I know that a new trunking scanner can be a big pain in the butt, but once you and your dad get it up and running, he will just love it.

 

[Bolt21]

Here is an EXCELLENT alternative to the Greek RS manual - http://myweb.cableone.net/marksscanners/97/97.html

 

[N1BHH]

I have mentioned this before, the manual isn't too bad. People need to read it carefully. The scanner is far more intuitive than people think. It's much more simple when you start doing it all on your own. Start pressing buttons and see what they do is what I did, without reading the manual. I found out the basics just by doing that. People think it's complicated because they use all those terms, EDACS, DPL, Search. It really is an easy to program scanner. I programmed my scanner manually at first, but of course not all 1000 channels. Do just a little at a time and you'll get it.

And when it comes to programming talk groups, I hear people say they can't figure it out. First off it comes out of the box with the banks are set to open, so you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to put talk groups into it. When they talk, you just hit the trunk button. You can later on put a tag on them. I still have my scanners banks set to open, because there aren't more than about 40 talk groups even active on the systems. If nothings talking, you aren't going to hear it anyway.

You should learn how to program on the fly, because if you go to a distant city and have a short list of frequencies and other basic information, you won't have to rely on software to program it. I say learn to do it on the fly, and you'll have a more meaningful experience. You don't ride around the rest of your life on training wheels, do you? It's the same thing, you are in training. Half the fun is knowing you can do it.

 

[fmon]

Brevard County is EDACS Networked as indicated in DB page. In Win97 set the Type to EDACS. Enter each frequency of a site nearest your location in the exact order as listed. Example...if using Palm Bay site, the first frequency is programmed in channel number 01 (not 00) and last frequency is in channel 20 of selected bank. Set each of the frequencies to EDACS by clicking in FM in third column and using the pulldown. Alpha Tag the frequencies up to 16 characters, Example...Brevard County 01, 02, 03 etc.

Enter the desired ID's and Alpha Tag them also. AFS is normally best for ID format but your choice. Give the bank a name also (Tag next to Bank near top).

In Configuration menu set your serial Com Port number as found in Device Manager Ports (COM & LPT). It will be listed as USB Serial Port (COMx).

Save the file and send to scanner.