My new Pro-160

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Chaos703

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So, I found a Pro-160 on eBay with a Discone, 50ft of coax and the BNC connector. The entire package showed up literally "like new." Every single wrapper on every single part wrapped in the original packaging — including the static film that protects the display screen. Total package price? Buy It Now price of $110! I thought that was a pretty good deal.

I'm very curious about why Radio Shack gave up on the 160 so quickly. It seems like a great little scanner. But what really makes me wonder is why they went back to the smaller display with the little text on the 163. The display is why I was looking for a 160.

Vastly inferior to the BCT15 in all ways with the glorious exception of manually entering text tags. Much, much easier on the 160.
 

xerb1962

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Chaos703

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I knew that if I bragged about the price, I would regret it. Well, if you figure in the $80 antenna, the 50ft of cable and the stupid little connector that RS charges $20 for, it was still a really good deal.

Text tags are easy, you just push PGM > TEXT and then the number with the corresponding letter. Works just like the PRO-92 and 94. I don't like the BCT15 because you have to dial up the letters. To me, it's just easier to push the button.
 

xerb1962

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Oh you got a dood deal for sure. All I am saying is the programing on these radios is getting pretty hard. I will have to go back and have a look at my Pro 160 manual. I still haven't mastered the BCT15X by any means HAHA!
 

plaws

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... the 50ft of cable and the stupid little connector that RS charges $20 for, it was still a really good deal.

Not disputing the goodness of the deal, but what kind of cable?

RG58 has high loss at 850 MHz - 50' of it would cost you 7 dB.

If you think that's "not bad", that's 80% of your signal!

OTOH, the loss isn't bad at all at HF - 18% loss at CB freqs, 7% at 75-m freqs.


See this for a Coax Calculator
 

xerb1962

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I hear you plaws, thing is I am thinking the loss they are talking about is more important when transmitting not just monitoring?

Always buy good coax for monitoring but don't go way overboard and buy the high dollar Belden line when you can get by with something that is much cheaper?
 

n5bew1

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I hear you plaws, thing is I am thinking the loss they are talking about is more important when transmitting not just monitoring?

Always buy good coax for monitoring but don't go way overboard and buy the high dollar Belden line when you can get by with something that is much cheaper?

The loss pretty much goes both ways affecting receive and transmit.
 

xerb1962

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All I am saying is there is not as much loss as you may think. I have used everything from the junk RG58 stuff to Belden 9913. I never ran what could be considered "scientific" experiments but, I can tell you that dx'ing NWS broadcast on one type of radio and on an antenna (5/8 gp) mounted the same place on a tower, the only thing changed was the coax, you may be in for a surprise :p. Try it and tell me what sort of results you get?
 

n5bew1

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All I am saying is there is not as much loss as you may think. I have used everything from the junk RG58 stuff to Belden 9913. I never ran what could be considered "scientific" experiments but, I can tell you that dx'ing NWS broadcast on one type of radio and on an antenna (5/8 gp) mounted the same place on a tower, the only thing changed was the coax, you may be in for a surprise :p. Try it and tell me what sort of results you get?
Old RG-58 is not a total deal breaker in the receive mode..It depends on the frequency you listen to most.
DXing WX radio on 162 Mhz is not as critical as say 860 Mhz trunking. However the very high power these transmitters use can take a lot of the slack out of any receive system weaknesses. Where is gets dicey is when you want to say hear a weaker trunking site that is kind of on the edge.. Coax loss can drop that signal below your squelch level.
RG-58 can be losing you 3 S units or more at 800 Mhz maybe only 1 S unit at 162 Mhz. By all means use what you got and enjoy it as this is a hobby. Just knowing the possible options for improvements are out there will give one a goal to shoot for. If Chaos stated what kind of coax he had I don't remember but if you got it try it and have fun.
 

dshank1947

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Great deal

Yesterday I bought a new PRO-260 off the shelf at Radio Shack for $65.00! I agree, it is hard to program, so I am taking it back to the store for them to do it.
 

dshank1947

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They couldn't figure out the trunk freqs, but I took it home and figured it out for myself. Don't ask me how I did it, I just played with it and it happened to work.
 
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