iSCAN Post-Release Discussion Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.

DonS

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2003
Messages
4,102
Location
Franktown, CO
Oh sure I remember what I did. I didn't look to see what my GF tried doing. I should preface this by saying that I do not have an iPod, iPhone or ANYTHING "Apple". I do have an MP3 player and cell phone and lots of scanners.....

I pressed and held the button with the clock symbol to turn it on. I don't recall if the menu came up or I had to press MENU to get to it. But I recall trying to just press PLAY from power up and got a message that there was nothing selected to play.
That makes sense. It would be like taking a new MP3 player out of the box and pressing "Play".

In the menu I selected California, then Sacramento County. I remember being given a list of "types of agencies" (my words, not what the scanner used). I selected the trunked system. As I recall I had to use the -> arrow key each time I selected something. When I got into the trunked system it gave me every TG. I didn't see a way to select "ALL".
Every "selectable" item had an empty square (a "checkbox") to its left. Pressing the SEL key would've selected ("checked") that item and everything below it in the hierarchy (e.g. for a trunked system, it would've selected every site and every talkgroup).

Attempting to press PLAY at this time led me nowhere. None of the other keys seemed to get me anywhere as well.
Pressing the "Play / Pause / SELect" key would've toggled the selection state of the current item. That merely "selects" the item for import. You then need to either a) press the MENU key to bring up a menu from which you can continue the import process or b) left-arrow out until you're presented with that same menu.

the MENU key takes you back to the beginning.
Not within the "import" process, it doesn't. It asks you if you want to import the selected items, go back to the selection menus, or return to the main menu.
There is no "select" key
Yes, there is. It's the round key in the middle, labeled Play (icon) / Pause (icon) / SEL.
and PLAY didn't get me in to play apparently because I had not yet populated a play list. And the fact the scanner had nothing in its play list shows me no one else had gotten that far either (including the store employees).

Or maybe nobody else actually "PLAYed" with it enough ;)

I'll try to create a little sample video in a bit.
 

DaveIN

Founders Curmudgen
Database Admin
Joined
Jan 5, 2003
Messages
6,515
Location
West Michigan
I take it it was full price and no Black Friday sale was available? There were none available in store, in the areas I was near this holiday weekend to even try out.

It appears that the final PDF manual is not going to be available in the support section of the RadioShack web site any time soon either, or we could read up on the operation of the iScan.
 

gemonomoon66

Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
2
Location
Ohio
Just purchased the iScan PRO-107 this afternoon. I have never owned a scanner before and have been looking into buying one for quite awhile. After reading a lot of the posts on here about this scanner I decided to go ahead and buy this.
I also bought a set of enercell "AA2" 2500mAh rechargeable batteries. I picked up a pack of Duracell Alkaline batteries so I could check out my new "toy" on my way home. Making sure I switched the switch to "Alkaline" in the battery compartment I put in 2 new Duracells, put the antenna on and powered up the scanner. After a quick scan of the "Start Here" booklet I was able to make a playlist for the county I was in and listening to traffic within 15 minutes of walking out of the store! This scanner is very simple to set up and use! Once I got home I made a new playlist for the county I live in and started listening. It was very easy to personalize all the info on the screen when you turn the scanner on as well as changing the names of my first 2 playlists. I just renamed them by county and also made yet another playlist for another county, as I live in a tri-county area. I made my purchase around 1:30 this afternoon and it is now 9:00p.m. and my scanner has been on the whole time with the Duracell batteries and the battery meter has only dropped 1 bar. Not too bad for around 8 hours of play time. Also found out that I can recharge the enercell batteries by just plugging it into my laptop USB port. How simple is that! Already I love this scanner and am considering buying another one for my son as well.
Sorry for the "book" here but I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents, for what it's worth.
For a first time buyer I think I made a great choice, mainly based on this forum.
So, thanks to all of you that posted about this model and happy scanning to all!!!
 

DaveIN

Founders Curmudgen
Database Admin
Joined
Jan 5, 2003
Messages
6,515
Location
West Michigan
Welcome to Radioreference gemonomoon66! Congratulations on your first scanner.

Did you get a deal on the iScan or did you have to pay full price at store?

I find it interesting that you used the Start Here book. Not many people even look at instruction books unless they are stumped.

Thanks for the quick review and battery report. Let us know what you think of the manual and software once you get into your new radio a little more.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
Wirelessly posted (Blackberry: Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14912/1006; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

DonS said:
Has anybody played with the "Flash Pattern" setting for conventional channels or talkgroups?

I'm not sure what it's supposed to do even after reading the description several times. But now that you mention it I'll give it a try on one of my favorite talkgroups.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
Wirelessly posted (Blackberry: Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14912/1006; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

DaveIN said:
I take it it was full price and no Black Friday sale was available? There were none available in store, in the areas I was near this holiday weekend to even try out.

It appears that the final PDF manual is not going to be available in the support section of the RadioShack web site any time soon either, or we could read up on the operation of the iScan.

If you go to Pro-107@yahoogroups.com I believe someone has already uploaded a PDF version of the manual.
 

gemonomoon66

Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
2
Location
Ohio
Thanks DaveIN! No deal here, paid full price but feel it was worth it for a first time buyer. And I used the "Start Here" book just to make sure I didn't do any damage to the programming on the scanner.
I also found out that I can scan or "Play" playlists from different counties at once. I live in a tri-county area and can pick up signals from all 3 counties at same time by selecting those 3 playlists. Thought that was pretty cool as I only expected to pick up local stuff.
Also the Manual seems to be pretty straight forward in how to set things up but can be a bit confusing on some things, but as a new user I am not completely familiar with all the terminology used in the manual, yet. Haven't tried the software just yet either but will post how that goes when I do.

To jpunix, I think the "Flash Pattern" can be set up so you can see different light patterns from a distance as opposed to reading what traffic you are getting. eg: Local PD = 5 flashes and FD = 3 flashes. Not real sure about this as I will probably not use that feature, but good luck.

I am wondering how to download the current RR DB from here. Is this for paying members only? I just want to keep my DB current. I have figured out how to do manually but would be nice to just DL it and transfer to my SD card.

Thanks for any help!
 

DaveIN

Founders Curmudgen
Database Admin
Joined
Jan 5, 2003
Messages
6,515
Location
West Michigan
No, I checked, that's the incomplete preliminary manual from the FCC site. I'd like to see the "Start Here" and owners manual and see what the import and operation is like. I see the light pattern settings that Don described in the preliminary manual however.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
Ok. I have several talkgroups set up to do flashing like now. Of course luck would have it that things are quiet right now. Woah! One just hit! The flashing lights are cool! I used Example 3 from page 51 of the manual using A8A8A8A8A with on set to 10 and off set to 50. It looks like the emergency flashing lights on police vehicles. Example 3 on page 51 does have 2 typos though. It says to set the on/off timers to 1 and 5 but the minimum they can be set to is 10 so I went with 10 and 50. I'll do alarms next and see what happens.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
Ok. I have several talkgroups set up to do flashing like now. Of course luck would have it that things are quiet right now. Woah! One just hit! The flashing lights are cool! I used Example 3 from page 51 of the manual using A8A8A8A8A with on set to 10 and off set to 50. It looks like the emergency flashing lights on police vehicles. Example 3 on page 51 does have 2 typos though. It says to set the on/off timers to 1 and 5 but the minimum they can be set to is 10 so I went with 10 and 50. I'll do alarms next and see what happens.

Ok. I did some alarms too. In a nutshell you can set up your favorite frequencies/talkgroups to use many different combinations of flashing lights and alarm sounds so you can tell what you are listening to with just a glance and/or listening to the preceding alarm. Very cool for those that listen to their scanner from across the room!
 

DaveIN

Founders Curmudgen
Database Admin
Joined
Jan 5, 2003
Messages
6,515
Location
West Michigan
I am wondering how to download the current RR DB from here. Is this for paying members only? I just want to keep my DB current. I have figured out how to do manually but would be nice to just DL it and transfer to my SD card.

I think Don mentioned that it should be about every 7 days or so, but that it was still in the testing phase. You sould be able to keep the database current without the premium subscription, but your going to need to take the SD card out of the radio and put it into a SD card reader and use the software to do the update.
 

DonS

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2003
Messages
4,102
Location
Franktown, CO
Ok. I have several talkgroups set up to do flashing like now. Of course luck would have it that things are quiet right now. Woah! One just hit! The flashing lights are cool! I used Example 3 from page 51 of the manual using A8A8A8A8A with on set to 10 and off set to 50. It looks like the emergency flashing lights on police vehicles. Example 3 on page 51 does have 2 typos though. It says to set the on/off timers to 1 and 5 but the minimum they can be set to is 10 so I went with 10 and 50. I'll do alarms next and see what happens.

For my local PD's dispatch talkgroup, I have the pattern set to A8EEE2A0, On Time = Off Time = 10. (Need a couple more 'zero bits' at the end to make it 'official').
 

gmclam

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
6,375
Location
Fair Oaks, CA
Every "selectable" item had an empty square (a "checkbox") to its left. Pressing the SEL key would've selected ("checked") that item and everything below it in the hierarchy (e.g. for a trunked system, it would've selected every site and every talkgroup).
I remember seeing the checkbox on some items, but not all. I wonder if the text was too long for the display and that scrolled the box off to the left.

Pressing the "Play / Pause / SELect" key would've toggled the selection state of the current item. That merely "selects" the item for import.
This is the action I took as no other keys made sense to be a select key. I did not see a change on the display.

You then need to either a) press the MENU key to bring up a menu from which you can continue the import process or b) left-arrow out until you're presented with that same menu.
I tried both. The MENU button took me back to the point of selecting a state. The Right arrow also took me back. Pressing PLAY still yielded the same result. It was as if I never selected anything. I tried this several times, same results.

I am a manual geek and read manuals on everything I get before I take the item out of the box. I hadn't read this manual because I never intend to purchase one. But since it was the ONLY scanner on display, and supposed to be "so easy" to use, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Knowing I could be overthinking it, I handed it to my GF (who is a very average consumer) and her experience was the same.

If GRE/RS expects this to be sooooo user friendly that even my parents can use it, they need a lot more work on screen prompts and/or whatever else necessary to make it go.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
For my local PD's dispatch talkgroup, I have the pattern set to A8EEE2A0, On Time = Off Time = 10. (Need a couple more 'zero bits' at the end to make it 'official').

How did you set the on time to off? I can only get it to go to 10. Did you do it through the scanner itself or did you use the software? I'm using the software.
 

DonS

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2003
Messages
4,102
Location
Franktown, CO
How did you set the on time to off? I can only get it to go to 10. Did you do it through the scanner itself or did you use the software? I'm using the software.

My "On Time = Off Time = 10" means "On Time = 10 and Off Time = 10". I did it in the radio.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
For my local PD's dispatch talkgroup, I have the pattern set to A8EEE2A0, On Time = Off Time = 10. (Need a couple more 'zero bits' at the end to make it 'official').

Hah!! I slowed it down a little because I suspected it was Morse code. I was right! Interestingly enough I was working on a version of SOS earlier today.
 

DonS

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2003
Messages
4,102
Location
Franktown, CO
I don't know what went wrong in your import process below, but here's a little video I captured:
* starts with "empty scanner"
* selects PD and FD talkgroups, plus one (the only) site, in my local trunked system
* looks at talkgroups selected in "Police" category
* imports selected site/groups into 1 playlist
* changes playlist tag
* starts "playing"

It's a 2-minute WMV file that a) requires Windows Media Player (version 9 or greater, I think) and b) should start playing as soon as a few seconds are buffered.
http://www.starrsoft.com/iScan_0001-1.wmv

I remember seeing the checkbox on some items, but not all. I wonder if the text was too long for the display and that scrolled the box off to the left.

This is the action I took as no other keys made sense to e a select key. I did not see a change on the display.

I tried both. The MENU button took me back to the point of selecting a state. The Right arrow also took me back. Pressing PLAY still yielded the same result. It was as if I never selected anything. I tried this several times, same results.

I am a manual geek and read manuals on everything I get before I take the item out of the box. I hadn't read this manual because I never intend to purchase one. But since it was the ONLY scanner on display, and supposed to be "so easy" to use, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Knowing I could be overthinking it, I handed it to my GF (who is a very average consumer) and her experience was the same.

If GRE/RS expects this to be sooooo user friendly that even my parents can use it, they need a lot more work on screen prompts and/or whatever else necessary to make it go.
 

jpunix

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
72
Location
Dickinson, TX
Pro-107 Library Version 5 is available!

For those of you that have a Pro-107 version 5 of the RR Database library in now available! You can download it via the Updates->Check for Library Update tab in the included Pro-107 software. It was updated Nov 30 2009.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top