PRO-160 and PRO-93 Computer Connection Redux

[w2lpa]

I had an earlier thread on my futile efforts to homebrew program the PRO-160 and PRO-93. After utter defeat, and lacking a few parts to build the proper cable despite having a huge amount of Radio Shack clearance electronic parts and junk here at my QTH, I broke down and bought a cable.

First, the PRO-160. After hours of failed connections and about to blame the cable and return it, I got it to work: the trick is to turn the scanner on THEN plug into the PC/IF jack on the scanner. It doesn't work with the cable in and then powering the scanner up. The mono adapter is used.
After connecting, I bought the ARC-160 software as it was $20. After earlier hand-keying all of the tags and freqs on the scanner, it was REALLY nice to make some changes like tagging the banks and downloading them! (I think that many of us of a certain ... vintage.. are used to hand-entering frequencies, typing in BASIC programs from magazines, and other laborious efforts.)

On to the PRO-93. Also uses the mono adapter. The cable's documentation was wrong. I was able to connect but the Win93 software on Win 10 crashed immediately after. Tried running it in an XP virtual machine. It worked once, but crashed thereafter. Some research shows that I'm not alone in having this issue.

Tried the Scancat demo. I know that many dish on this software.. but it worked. I would buy it but it seems that the developer is a SK and that's not possible.

I couldn't find any other software for the PRO-93 so unless someone knows of an alternative, the only avenue I see at present is to try to reverse-engineer the undocumented PRO93 serial protocol and roll something of my own.

What I want to do ultimately, is have a master Excel of my frequencies with derived worksheet for each of my scanners (they have different banks, limitations on tags, etc) and be able to load them via computer. I have 5 computer interfaceable scanners PRO-160, PRO-93, PRO-2052, PRO-2041 and PRO-64, and I can now do that with 4 out of the 5.

 

[hanlonmi06]

I have been able to program a Pro-2053 and a Pro-93 successfully in the past with Win93 and a home brew programing cable. I have the Win93 running on two different windows 10 machines, a laptop with a native serial port and my office tower with I believe a native serial port. Last I knew this all worked, but its been a minute or 3 since using any of this.

I can try this weekend and see how it goes connecting and downloading and providing an update if you'd like. I also more than likely have the information on the homebrew cable I use.

 

[w2lpa]

I have been able to program a Pro-2053 and a Pro-93 successfully in the past with Win93 and a home brew programing cable. I have the Win93 running on two different windows 10 machines, a laptop with a native serial port and my office tower with I believe a native serial port. Last I knew this all worked, but its been a minute or 3 since using any of this.

I can try this weekend and see how it goes connecting and downloading and providing an update if you'd like. I also more than likely have the information on the homebrew cable I use.

Yes please!

I did think of trying out Win93 on a Win98 virtual machine, next.

Thanks
-w2lpa
Andy W2LPA 2014-
Walter Scheffe Sr. (grandpa) W2LPA 1937-2006 (SK)

 

[hanlonmi06]

Sure thing! Gives me a good excuse to 'play radios' this weekend.

When you say Win93 crashed, were there any errors, or did it just freeze up?

 

[w2lpa]

On Win 10 it ended. On Virtual XP it threw an error but I didn't save what it was. I'm going to play with it a little more on XP, tweak the VM a little.

 

[gmclam]

I am able to run all of the WINXX programs on all the operating systems (XP Pro, Win7, Win10, Win11). There's a few things that can go wrong. One is the serial port, usually via an FTDI driver. Make sure you have the correct version of driver installed, and it looks healthy in Device Manager. On one system (W10/11) I had to use WIN500_com.exe because the original exe couldn't find the COM port.

I have old enough stuff that I have an original scanner cable that goes to an old-fashioned COM port (not via USB). If your computer has one of those ports, I find it more reliable. That cable will work on the PRO-93 but not most newer models. Now if you need to use a USB-COM adapter to get a COM port, then it is a different story.

The next most significant thing I find that causes the WINXX programs to fail is the programming file (.p93 ?). When the code first loads, it has some "safe" file that it loads. Once you start to edit/etc., any perceived issue with the new file causes the crash. MS has added some "protection" mechanisms into the newer versions of Windows that pretend to protect you from "bad data". There are other threads here on RR that discuss this. Essentially you have to inform Windows that your data file is safe.

 

[w2lpa]

Meanwhile.. I found GitHub - jimktrains/pro93-talk: Talk to RadioShack/GRE Pro93 Scanners (RS Cat No 20-523). and I was able to read the data from my PRO-93 using its dump Python program.

 

[w2lpa]

I got WIN93 working. The above was a good hint, I just needed to put its datafile in a different directory.
It took a few tries to program the scanner, I think the jack might be a little loose. Thanks for all your help!

-w2lpa
Andy W2LPA holds 2014-present
Walter Scheffe Sr. (grandpa, SK) W2LPA held 1937-2006

 

[hanlonmi06]

interesting...I'm glad you got it to work. I wound up having all sorts of fits and starts between 3 different computers. It seems I can download to the radios, but cannot upload from them. I will have to dig into this some more because this all used to work.

I will say that the office PC uses the actual serial port and a home brew serial converter I built a long time ago to interface to the 2053 and 93. On the laptops I was using an original USB radio shack cable to download to the 93.

 

[tvengr]

interesting...I'm glad you got it to work. I wound up having all sorts of fits and starts between 3 different computers. It seems I can download to the radios, but cannot upload from them. I will have to dig into this some more because this all used to work.
I will say that the office PC uses the actual serial port and a home brew serial converter I built a long time ago to interface to the 2053 and 93. On the laptops I was using an original USB radio shack cable to download to the 93.

Are you using the mono adapter? Semantics: You Upload to and Download from the scanner.

 

[w2lpa]

Thank you all for your help. Yes, Mono adapter. Cable doc incorrectly says Stereo for the Pro-93, but it won't go into Clone mode without Mono.
It works most of the time: again, I suspect the PC/IF jack in the radio, I may open it up and touch the solder points.
I almost bought a Pro-94 at a Hamfest which is pretty much the same radio but with 1,000 channels.. these days, we're hard pressed to fill even the 300 channels that the Pro-93 has.

 

[hanlonmi06]

No kidding, legacy vhf/uhf is dwindling.

As for semantics, lol...in my work life, I "download to the device" and "upload from device" so I always have to pause and double check when I'm messing with a radio. Suffice to say, I seem to be able to go from the PC to the scanner, "upload to" but could not download from last night. It was late and I was kind of in a rush thinking it all still worked so I will retrace my steps with the adapters, settings, and different pc/radio combo's. At the end of the day, I'm glad w2lpa got what he needed!