Newbie needs some help please !!

[Eyesell]

Hello, my name is Frank, I live in the Detroit metropolitian area. I pretty new to the Scanning hobby, I purchased a new Hand Held scanner to listen to when I plow snow. It gets pretty lonely in the truck between the hours of 1 and 6 AM. I'm looking forward to spending sometime on this site and getting the details on how to best operate my new PRO-106.

Anyhow I hate to date myself but I have a few very old hand helds I'm not sure what to do with, and this is where I need your help.

My first scanner was a Cobra Model SR12, I then went to a UNIDEN/Bearcat 2500XLT, and as I mentioned I just bought a Radio Shack PRO-106. I still have the other two scanners and would like to unload them. They both work great, the BC I have the manual, soft case, and two batteries. It really is in nice shape, the COBRA all I have is the unit and the power supply. It took rechargeable batteries but I tossed those as they were pretty old and didn't hold a charge.

Are these things worth anything or should I just toss them...

Anyhow, your help is greatly appreciated !

 

[ka3jjz]

Well if memory serves a lot of the Michigan area is on the digital statewide system. However, there are other things besides that - how about any conventional Detroit freqs (are there any? Look in the database), or aircraft, marine, milcom.....you could also, for example, devote those radios to decoding things like ACARS or (with a discriminator tap) AIS, among others.

You didn't mention anything about your interests,,,,best regards...Mike

[edit] Here's our Michigan forum where like minded folks can be found (anything blue is a link)

Michigan Discussion Forum

and as for our wiki...

Michigan - the RR Wiki

Wayne County Michigan - the RR Wiki

 

[eagleswings01]

I can't offer any advice about the value of your older scanners, but I did want to welcome you to RR! Hope you enjoy the wealth of knowledge here.

 

[ST-Bob]

A Pro-106 is NOT an easy scanner to hand-program. I strongly suggest you get the Radio Shack or GRE programming cable for your scanner and sign up for a subscription to RadioReference.com.

While you CAN program a digital trunking scanner by hand, you'll lose a lot of sleep, hair and learn a few new swear words doing-so. Programming using software and a subscription data source makes the most sense in my opinion. Either that or find someone local who can program it for you via a cable and software.

 

[Eyesell]

Bob, you are absolutely right on programming. I was kinda in a rush to get a new scanner and RS was so close to me I jumped it and bought from them. If I was smart I would of looked here first, got some advise from the experts and gone from there.

Good thing was, they programmed it for me, they programmed:
-Police ( local )
-State Police
-Fire
-EMS
- And a few other things.

I've been reluctant to try anything else in fear of eracing what they already put in. I have to figure out how to load a pic of myself and you'll see my wife and kids already casued all my hair to up and leave, so no additional losses there...lol

I would like to get some addtional information on this cable that will hook into my scanner and allow additional programing via software. I live close to Detroit Metropolitian Airport and would like to figure out how I can progam to catch some converstions there as well.

Best Regards,
Frank

 

[ST-Bob]

Well the Radio Shack cable is 20-546 and includes a trial version of the Butel ARC software suite and a couple of free download sessions from RadioReference.com for about $35. If you practice with the software and don't use up your free downloads you might be OK but I believe supporting Gommert at Butel and Lindsay Blanton at RadioReference.com is in all our best interests so you might as well get the paid versions ASAP.

You can enter new frequencies like your local aircraft stuff without the RR subscription if you can find them online (pretty easy to do, really). The concept of Object-Oriented-Scanning is a tough one for some but it basically is a way of associating frequencies, talkgroups or other objects with each other and with certain "scan-lists" (which replace the concept of "banks"). For example, you could associate your aircraft frequencies with scanlist 1, your local police trunked system with scanlist 2 and your local fire with scanlist 3. Then you could take only certain of these already-defined objects and associate some of them with another scanlist. Maybe you'd want the tower and approach frequencies plus the main fire and police dispatch in a scanlist but not everything from those other scanlists. It's an incredibly powerful concept.

I programmed my Pro-106 with different LED colors for each type of service - blue for police, red for fire, yellow for DPW, green for ambulance, white for aircraft etc... It's a very powerful visual indicator of what's going on when you're aross the room and can't see the display well - that LED really sticks out.

 

[Nasby]

I would keep the PRO-106 and learn how to use it. Its an awesome scanner once you get the hang of it. As for the older scanners you have, if you don't use em' you might consider selling them on Ebay and then use the cash from the sales to buy cook stuff for your PRO-106 (software, programming cable, batteries, antenna, etc.).
Good Luck and enjoy!!!

 

[ST-Bob]

Or even better, hook one up through your computer and provide a feed of something in your area. This gets you free access to the RR data from your program.