Read around pages 28-30 in manual abour PRIO programming, assigning DLY D/S key and knob to scan speed or scan delay function. Once the outer concentric DELAY/SPEED is assigned to SPEED it should be able to select priority timing.
You must remember the Icom receivers are communications receivers that scan and not a scanner. Putting a large scan list in to scan will result in a real slow scan cycle.
As for priority function I miss too much when it is on and I just get another radio for that channel if it is that critical.
I'll try reassigning that control to speed and see what happens. I do normally have it set on delay as I use that feature more than anything when I'm searching a band segment (PROG scan).
I mainly use my Icom's for manually tuning a band or I'll run small width PROG searches across maybe 1 MHz of spectrum. That's the same thing most scanners call a "Limit" search.
Yes, I'm aware they are "communications receivers" and not scanners!
I own almost every receiver (base model) they made from the R9000 (two of them) down all the way to the oldest PCR series and everything in between or older including the HF only receivers like the R71 and R75 and the older R7000 for the VHF/UHF stuff. I was never into their portable line of receivers. The R8500 was one I was missing from my collection.
They are my primary receivers and my large collection of scanners come in second unless I'm monitoring a digital trunked system.
The Icom's all kick any scanners butt especially when you live in an RF saturated area like I do. Most scanners require some form of external filtering due to all the paging crud in my area along with the other high power transmitters around me like at the county EOC just down the street. All of the above can and do cause a typical scanner to overload or desense, especially the digital GRE models. Nothing seems to stop the Icom's!
Two I don't own are the R7100 and R9500. I'm very close to getting an R9500 though from a guy in Canada. I'll need to find a new spot for one of the R9000's though as I'm out of space. I thought about selling one of the R9000's but I talked myself out of that as one was bought new and the other was from a fellow that owned several broadcast stations. It was his personal receiver from his home so it had very little use according to the guys wife. She said he may have turned it on once a month if even. I also have several spare parts for the R9000's so I may as well keep them. I also have two new LCD panels for when the CRT's start failing. They are supposed to be a direct fit without much modification to the R9000's but my CRT's are still fine so no sense in swapping them out yet.
I've read that some don't like the LCD panels for some reason. I don't use them for video signal display since most TV went digital so I don't see why I would not like the LCD panels. They are just displaying text and then the spectrum scope.
I prefer the R9000's the most but the R8500 is catching up fast.
It is smaller but not so small that my fat fingers can't easily turn the knobs or push the buttons like on the R2500 control head. I like large radios with large free spinning tuning knobs!
All of mine are hooked up via several Stridsberg multicouplers for both HF and everything above 30 MHz. I use almost all on a daily basis.
The R9000's require a seperate antenna for 1 GHz and above. I only have one antenna suitable for that range so it only feeds one of the R9000's. There really is not much above 1GHz here that does not also need some type of external demodulator or decoder (mostly special digital signals) so I don't tune that range very often.
Ok, off to try setting the Delay/Speed control to Speed. That seems backwards though but I'll give it a try.
I'm like you though and will often have another receiver running on anything I may consider for a priority need. It's something I would probably only use if I take the receiver on a road trip to the country property.
The 8500 is nice and small compared to the R9000 and I've already modified a Pelican case to carry it in when we do go to the cabin. I don't have the luxury of multiple antennas or multicouplers there so I'll usually only take one comm receiver and one digital scanner for the new statewide P25 system. The R8500 and 9000 are best for my needs as they both do HF plus the VHF/UHF bands. I guess the R1500 or 2500 would do also but they just don't have the feel I like being so tiny. Sure would be easier to haul them though. I have the remote heads for both so no computer needed.
I have a nice longwire strung up at the cabin as well as a simple discone for my VHF/UHF needs. I find that I mostly do HF monitoring though as it is so radio quiet out at the cabin. Nothing around that will cause interference! Even old single conversion scanners work great out there with NO intermod problems.
I wish Icom would get into designing a receiver that can follow both analog and digital trunked systems and still keep the superior receiver performance they have over a wideband scanner. I guess it would be expensive and not a huge market other than government use so I doubt we will ever see one.
My PCR 1500 and 2500 both do single channel P25. Of course they will not follow a trunked signal but I'm pretty sure there is a program out there that will steer them using another receiver for the control channel signal source. I've never bothered messing with that. Maybe some day.
Thanks for the suggestion to try setting the control to Speed instead of Delay.
I just tried what you said and sure enough, it does control the priority check interval. But as suspected, it also slows down the speed of any scans you may be running so it is a useless feature for my needs. If they only sampled the priority frequency for maybe 30 milliseconds, I may be able too use it but the sample time is much longer and like you said, you will miss much on the non priority channels or scans or limit type searches you may be running.
Icom should have allowed the setting of a user choice check interval set when you you program the priority channel instead of making it adjustable with the same control that affects your memo or limit search speeds.
Oh well, at least I know how to do it should I ever use the priority feature on this radio!
Thanks for the answer!
The printed manual does not tell you that the dual purpose control must be set to Speed mode in order to adjust the priority check interval. Maybe it is in a later revision of the owners manual. I read mine cover to cover three times last night figuring I had just missed how to adjust the setting it says you can adjust but nope, not in my manual!
