Official PRO-83 Discussion Thread

[baybum]

Stress-free way to save stalk captures

Let's all slow down a bit and try this. It works for me.

When you get a "found", hit a key, then immediately turn the squelch full counter-clockwise. With the squelch open, you can sit there until the batteries go dead before you have to FUNC+E+E to save it.
Or write it down and put it in another scanner.

On a related subject; Very seldom will you get just one very brief hit from a transmitting radio.

Remember, for most of us seasoned scannist, this is just another toy, albeit inexpensive and a great performer.
Have fun,

Mike

 

[eyes00only]

Re: Stress-free way to save stalk captures

Remember, for most of us seasoned scannist, this is just another toy, albeit inexpensive and a great performer.
Have fun,

Mike

Heck, I've had $60 worth of fun with my new toy in the last 36 hours :wink: :lol:

Jerry

 

[eyes00only]

I purchased one early Friday morning. I am just goint to add it to the collection and not whine about selling it back. Who can just listen to one scanner anyway? You miss out on so much if you do that. I just bought one for the Signal Stalker feature anyway. I noticed it mentioned that the radio should have the first 150 frequencies pre-programmed. Funny thing is that mine had no pre-programmed frequencies all the channels are blanked out. What is the deal with that?

Have you discovered that the preprogrammed freqs are there, but only come up in certain functions? At least that what I discovered.

Jerry

 

[INDY72]

The PRO-95 also does CB.... And with Win95, it makes it easier to load all 40 chans.... Anyway,.. I was listening to the CB's on my 83 yesterday, SKIP was amazinggggggggggggggggggggg,... there were at least three guys here in MS talking to a guy in MA, CT, FL, and one in Peurto Rico,.. and then before I started playing with the search features, caught one from Cuba. This thing works great with my RS magmount,.. and the Tropo Ducting tonight is incredible,.. I am listening to most of the VHF in MS, and LA.

 

[INDY72]

The original 150,... CB 9, CB 19, RFS/GMRS, some PS, mostly the common Fire/LE,... the common 800 PS,... Business UHF, and MURS, VHF Gaurd in aviation, 123.450, 122.750. A few others... will go look again if I decide to do the auto reload sequence..

I auto blanked mine on purpose so I could program from scratch. I like the power up/down tones,... As of right now, there is NO tone off trick,.. though someone will figure it out and tell us,.. I have not DL'ed software yet....

 

[INDY72]

Also the instant SkyWarn feature is very cool.. program your local net freq in ch 200,.. and bingo instant SkyWarn with Function+SkyWarn.

 

[viciouspossum]

I'm going to program another one tomorrow, by hand. I sure had to lock out a lot of frequencies doing chain and service searches. I hope that after 50 it's not overwriting the first ones I threw out. Got a stalker hit from a NOAA channel and some trunking noise from riding by the air force base on another one. Almost thought about ScanCat Lite Plus, the local RS used it to program a whopping 60 non-trunked/non-text tagged freqs in my -95 (another RS gave me 300 of the same in another county). Thinking it would only be worth it if the memory went blank like my -95 did last year about this time. Uses the same cable. Still wondering about those preprogrammed service searches. Why does AIR start at 118? my other scanner starts at 108, and we have a 113.4 at the Oly airport. Maybe mine is messed up. I'll reset my friend's first before I change things around like mine. Hmm, maybe I should just hand him a printout of what I recommend he put in. Or should I even bother to type descriptions along with the numbers I typed on the spreadsheet....Two hundred isn't that bad compared to the 1,000 I've done manually before. :lol: Does RS still program it for you? If I gave the spreadsheet file to the store guy....

 

[K5MAR]

I found last night that the stock antenna was better then I thought, in certain sections of certain bands, for instance the 160 MHz and 460 MHz area. The 150 MHz and 450 MHz area is lacking. As might be expected, VHF-Lo and below, as well as the Air band, suck. Not enough 800 MHz in my area to evaluate.

Milf, I gotta disgaree with you, I hate the On/Off tones! In fact, I hate the whole soft key power switch thing. I now have two ham HTs and this scanner that have that feature, and only the Alinco DR-610 works decently. They need to put the On/Off switch back on the volume control.

And I consider the Skywarn button to be essentially a toy. First off, the 83's reception in the 2m band leaves a lot to be desired. I can barely hear the local 2m repeater, which is on a tower about 10 miles from my home, at an antenna height of 320 feet. This repeater is a wide-area/no tone machine that can be worked mobile from over 50 miles away, so it's not the repeater. (In fact, I can work the repeater from my house with a 200 mw HT, no problem.) I've tried 2 Pro-83s, and it's the same on both. Secondly, I have at least 8 freqs I need to monitor during severe wx, one channel just doesnt cut it. What good is a two button keypress to get one channel, when I can use one button keypress to activate an entire bank of EM/spotter freqs (always Bank 2 in all my scanners). I may put the local NWS transmitter in it, or some non-essential freq.

VisciousP complained about the Air Band search starting at 118 instead of 108 MHz. Remember, you can reprogram the starting and ending point of the Search Banks. See Program Band Select Mode starting at the bottom of pg. 41 and continuing on pg. 42.

Haven't really had a chance to try out the Signal Stalker function, which is the main reason I bought it. It goes nuts in my truck and starts giving me false hits in the 406 MHz range, too much interference from all my other radios I expect.

But I still plan on keeping it, 60 bucks for a 200 ch. scanner is still a good deal in my book. I eagerly await the mod to turn off the bleeping keypad beep!

Mark S.

 

[INDY72]

LOL well ok,.. the fix for the only one chan for severe weather is simple too... just fill a bank with the stuff you need, and shut it off when not needed.. its a simple press of a number to turn the bank back on. The 83 is a good lil scanner when combined with a mobile ant,... or even a perm ant... Also you can easily put another ant on it with the BNC.... say a RS 800 improved ducky... or even a VHF one.... That should help out on its reception while handheld or belted. I highly recommend to anyone with one too auto blank it, and program it manually with what you want/need.... As for the soft touch power on/off, its almost identical to that Uniden HH... still not sure why on the Uniden its got one knob taller,..

But for areas like I live in where the only SkyWarn that is dependable, is the one repeater near to where I live, as reception from the other one sucks, one chan is ok.... I have mine set up with the EOC's all in one bank for easy access, and the banks devided into State PS, Local law, Local Fire/EMS, then EOC's, two banks for CB right now just playing around with it.. then Air/Rail, then HAM. Sitting beside the 83 is my PRO-28, PRO-92 B (second one), and charging in its drop in, my HT1250, and unplugged and just sitting for in case I ever have need of it again, my XTS3000-R. (Still trying to decide if I want to cash up and get it reprogrammed for VHF for when the Railroad I work for goes digital, or for an extra HT for my VFD usage)

 

[K5MAR]

LOL well ok,.. the fix for the only one chan for severe weather is simple too... just fill a bank with the stuff you need, and shut it off when not needed.. its a simple press of a number to turn the bank back on. The 83 is a good lil scanner when combined with a mobile ant,... or even a perm ant... Also you can easily put another ant on it with the BNC.... say a RS 800 improved ducky... or even a VHF one.... That should help out on its reception while handheld or belted. I highly recommend to anyone with one too auto blank it, and program it manually with what you want/need.... As for the soft touch power on/off, its almost identical to that Uniden HH... still not sure why on the Uniden its got one knob taller,..

But for areas like I live in where the only SkyWarn that is dependable, is the one repeater near to where I live, as reception from the other one sucks, one chan is ok.... I have mine set up with the EOC's all in one bank for easy access, and the banks devided into State PS, Local law, Local Fire/EMS, then EOC's, two banks for CB right now just playing around with it.. then Air/Rail, then HAM.

Umm, Milf, that's what I said:

What good is a two button keypress to get one channel, when I can use one button keypress to activate an entire bank of EM/spotter freqs (always Bank 2 in all my scanners).

In Oklahoma, almost every town with more than 2,000 residents has some kind of emergency management/spotter operation, usually on a dedicated radio freq. My Red Cross duties cover two counties, so I've got a fistfull of freqs to monitor. I still see the two button-push Skywarn select as essentially a non-feature. There are other things that would have been more useful.

As for the antenna, I was just pointing out that it isn't completely a rubber dummy load like so many other scanner antennas. It works pretty well in certain areas of certain bands. Thought that might be of interest to some users. I've got probably a dozen or more scanner/HT antennas sitting around, not counting the ones already installed on radios. The only handheld scanner I've got that has it's original antenna on it is my trusty old BC245XLT. That scanner, along with my SC150 and my classic BC200XLT, are my only Uniden-made handheld scanners until now. If the soft power key is now standard on Uniden handhelds, then I've got another reason to stick to GRE-made models.

Mark S.

 

[Voyager]

Also the instant SkyWarn feature is very cool.. program your local net freq in ch 200,.. and bingo instant SkyWarn with Function+SkyWarn.

Also don't forget that you can use that channel for ANY single frequency that is important to you. It doesn't have to be a Skywarn frequency!

Joe M.

 

[INDY72]

Good point, so actually that makes 11 Priority chans lol.

 

[mancow]

I just wondered into my local shack and they still had the sale price tag up. They guy gave it to me at the sale price since they forgot to take it down.

So far I'm real impressed with the stalker function. I've heard all kinds of stuff just in the couple of hours I've had it.


mancow

 

[viciouspossum]

FUNC + 3{SVC} (preprogrammed service search p.28) is not changeable, FUNC + SCAN{SRCH} (chain search p.41,42) is. I have all those changed. And the Skywarn is different than a WX alert priority, it's not like a priority channel unless you have that bank 0 scanning with channel 200 set as priority, correct? It's funny that the POL/FIRE service search does go thru 155.82, [my college campus security], unlike the Pro-95 with it's different steps in the preprogrammed unalterable police/fire search band. I've already gone thru two sets of 2100mah NiMH batteries! Also, I'm considering putting the RS telescopic on to see if it is any different...Nice having another scanner with no bad 'squelch tails' like my Pro-25 and Pro-46, and this one picked up 155.37 LERN (interagency thing in WA. state) while for some reason my Pro-95 won't! (there was some spike stripping on I-5 right down the road last nite) :twisted:

 

[mancow]

I did some quick testing today with an IFR service monitor.

It appears that the radio turns on an attenuator in the SS mode. Once it locks on to a signal the attenuator is dropped.

I would crank up just enough power to get it to lock. Then I would slowly turn it down until the signal was weak but still being held by the radio. If I enabled the SS function again it wouldn't stop until I returned it to the original level that first tripped it.

I tried turning off bands and timing the signal aqquisition time but it didn't seem to make much difference. Each time it was aroung a second to second and a half at most.

It also appears that the squelch positon doesn't really effect the sensitivity of the SS mode either.


mancow

 

[Voyager]

I did some quick testing today with an IFR service monitor.

It appears that the radio turns on an attenuator in the SS mode. Once it locks on to a signal the attenuator is dropped.

I would crank up just enough power to get it to lock. Then I would slowly turn it down until the signal was weak but still being held by the radio. If I enabled the SS function again it wouldn't stop until I returned it to the original level that first tripped it.

I tried turning off bands and timing the signal aqquisition time but it didn't seem to make much difference. Each time it was aroung a second to second and a half at most.

It also appears that the squelch positon doesn't really effect the sensitivity of the SS mode either.


mancow

You need to learn how a nearfield receiver works.

There is no attenuator being turned on. The signal has to be 10-20 dB stronger than the 'noise floor'. For the purposes of this discussion, the noise floor is ANY OTHER signal it can hear. That means if it is picking up two signals, and they are only 9 dB apart, it doesn't matter how strong the signals are - CC/SS won't read them.

The nearfield is a signal strength that is much greater than that required to monitor a signal with a scanner. It's not simply a 'really fast search'.

BTW, your test was testing CC/SS sensitivity under IDEAL conditions - essentially no other signals present whatsoever. In the real world, that is almost never the case, so there is usually a much higher threshold to trigger a capture.

Joe M.

 

[K5MAR]

FUNC + 3{SVC} (preprogrammed service search p.28) is not changeable, FUNC + SCAN{SRCH} (chain search p.41,42) is.

You're right, I didn't pay enough attention. Thought chain search was chaining together the various searches, just organized by band instead of service. Service search is a feature I don't use much since the FCC has dropped their old practice of issuing licenses by service. These days, any public safety frequency is pretty much available to any public safety organization (subject to certain restrictions). So you're likely to hear a PD on what used to be a FD-allocated frequency, or vice-versa. If I'm trying to track down a frequency for a user that I don't know, I just try to eyeball the antenna to determine the band, then start scanning that band a chunk at a time. Hopefully, with the Signal Stalker, I won't be doing this as much. :lol:

Mark S.

Rereading this prior to posting, I guess it doesn't apply to the air band as much as Public Safety. But the aviation frequencies are (or have been) fairly easily available, so I've always programmed the freqs active for my area, or the area I'm in.

 

[nyscan00]

I bought my Pro 83 on Fri when it was $60 and i have to say for the price its not a bad deal at all. I'm basicly using mine as a freq counter.
I have a question reguarding the signal stalker function on this radio.....

When you are in the signal stalker function and " ---- ---- " is displayed, if you hit the SCAN button while in this mode and dont select a specific band, will the signal stalker function search all the bands at once? (Air, Hi, 800, UHf and Low)? or must you specify one band to search while in this mode (by pressing HOLD ....then either UHf Hi LOw etc is displayed to the left of " ---- ----" ) ?


Basicly just wondering if I can search all the bands at once while in signal stalker mode not just one specific freq range.
thanks

 

[Dubbin]

Basicly just wondering if I can search all the bands at once while in signal stalker mode not just one specific freq range.
thanks

Yes. All you do is turn them all on in the setup.

 

[mancow]

I did some quick testing today with an IFR service monitor.

It appears that the radio turns on an attenuator in the SS mode. Once it locks on to a signal the attenuator is dropped.

I would crank up just enough power to get it to lock. Then I would slowly turn it down until the signal was weak but still being held by the radio. If I enabled the SS function again it wouldn't stop until I returned it to the original level that first tripped it.

I tried turning off bands and timing the signal aqquisition time but it didn't seem to make much difference. Each time it was aroung a second to second and a half at most.

It also appears that the squelch positon doesn't really effect the sensitivity of the SS mode either.


mancow

You need to learn how a nearfield receiver works.

There is no attenuator being turned on. The signal has to be 10-20 dB stronger than the 'noise floor'. For the purposes of this discussion, the noise floor is ANY OTHER signal it can hear. That means if it is picking up two signals, and they are only 9 dB apart, it doesn't matter how strong the signals are - CC/SS won't read them.

The nearfield is a signal strength that is much greater than that required to monitor a signal with a scanner. It's not simply a 'really fast search'.

BTW, your test was testing CC/SS sensitivity under IDEAL conditions - essentially no other signals present whatsoever. In the real world, that is almost never the case, so there is usually a much higher threshold to trigger a capture.

Joe M.

So, how does it work?

I understand what you are saying about the noise floor but how does the circuit pin piont it down to such an accurate spot in the spectrum?

mancow