Pro 197 Issues

[robj749840]

Hey guys, I am having some issues receiving on my RS Pro 197. I have had the scanner, and an antenna/mount on my truck for several years, but since moving to Illinois I have not really used it much. Well I got back into scanning and programmed it using Don Starr's software, which works pretty darn good.

Anyways I also have an older Pro 96 handheld scanner with the RS 800mhz antenna. I programmed both my 197 and 96 with the Starcom 21 P25 system and about 40 talkgroups for my area. Upon doing a little compare and contrast my old tired Pro 96 is picking up the talkgroups better and they are not going digital like on the 197. Sometimes the 197 misses transmissions completely. Here is a list of my equipment and what I have tried.

http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/larsen-nmok-avantpf-3663.html
My antenna mount and coax on the truck. The coax where I had the scanner mounted got bent pretty far as the back of the scanner didn't have much room so the rg-58 got bent to the point some damage may have been caused.

http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/maxrad-bmax8375s-6584.html
The new antenna I purchased this week , I only scan the 800 band so I thought this would be a good antenna with 5db gain.

The odd:

I took the scanner out of the center console to put the 800mhz hand held antenna on it , and it seemed to pick up the signals better, even though with the antenna and mount I had on the pro 197 showed 3 to 4 bars signal , but it still seems to miss conversations.

The pro 96 and 197 are programmed exactly the same with only one bank at a time scanning to try and create a similar scanning situation. The only thing different is the trunking on the 197 is on roaming where the pro 96 cant do that. I turned it off on the 197 and no difference anyways.

Both scanners have the latest firmware.

Based on my tests I think it is the coax, but cannot be sure because when I was moving the coax around I moved it to one spot where I got full signal strength and did not fluctuate , but soon lost it.

Also I am not sure about interference in the scanner or rg-58 , but when I have it in the console there are other 12v power wires in the console that seemed to interfere with it, when i had the scanner out of the console it picked up better that when it was inserted in the console.

My first step is the replacement of the BNC male connector and cut off about 6 inches of the coax. If the replacement end does not fix it the next step will be replacing the entire rg-58 cable. Any other suggestions? Could there be an issue in the scanner? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[hiegtx]

Hey guys, I am having some issues receiving on my RS Pro 197. I have had the scanner, and an antenna/mount on my truck for several years, but since moving to Illinois I have not really used it much. Well I got back into scanning and programmed it using Don Starr's software, which works pretty darn good.

Anyways I also have an older Pro 96 handheld scanner with the RS 800mhz antenna. I programmed both my 197 and 96 with the Starcom 21 P25 system and about 40 talkgroups for my area. Upon doing a little compare and contrast my old tired Pro 96 is picking up the talkgroups better and they are not going digital like on the 197. Sometimes the 197 misses transmissions completely. Here is a list of my equipment and what I have tried.

http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/larsen-nmok-avantpf-3663.html
My antenna mount and coax on the truck. The coax where I had the scanner mounted got bent pretty far as the back of the scanner didn't have much room so the rg-58 got bent to the point some damage may have been caused.

http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/maxrad-bmax8375s-6584.html
The new antenna I purchased this week , I only scan the 800 band so I thought this would be a good antenna with 5db gain.

The odd:

I took the scanner out of the center console to put the 800mhz hand held antenna on it , and it seemed to pick up the signals better, even though with the antenna and mount I had on the pro 197 showed 3 to 4 bars signal , but it still seems to miss conversations.

The pro 96 and 197 are programmed exactly the same with only one bank at a time scanning to try and create a similar scanning situation. The only thing different is the trunking on the 197 is on roaming where the pro 96 cant do that. I turned it off on the 197 and no difference anyways.

Both scanners have the latest firmware.

Based on my tests I think it is the coax, but cannot be sure because when I was moving the coax around I moved it to one spot where I got full signal strength and did not fluctuate , but soon lost it.

Also I am not sure about interference in the scanner or rg-58 , but when I have it in the console there are other 12v power wires in the console that seemed to interfere with it, when i had the scanner out of the console it picked up better that when it was inserted in the console.

My first step is the replacement of the BNC male connector and cut off about 6 inches of the coax. If the replacement end does not fix it the next step will be replacing the entire rg-58 cable. Any other suggestions? Could there be an issue in the scanner? Any help would be appreciated.

I suspect your answer may be in the section I marked in blue above.

The Pro-197 is the same (internally) as the Pro-106, and the GRE versions, PSR-600 & PSR-500 respectively. These are very sensitive scanners. However, they are also prone to overloading with too much signal. While you may have a great antenna on your vehicle, delivering a strong signal to the scanner, it may be too strong. This causes it to desense, in effect losing reception capability. That may be why it performed better "out of the console, with just the handheld antenna". Remember that the overload may be coming, not from the system your want to hear, but from other sources, such as cell towers or SMR systems (business band trunked systems).

That's not to say there may, or may not, be a coax issue as well, but at 3-4 bars, if it was picking up the actual system, it should be receiving it. However, the 3-4 bars only indicating it is receiving something, not necessarily your target agency.

Since you are using software, try this: Go into your file, and create a duplicate scanlist of the system you are trying to hear. Leave one as it is. On it's twin, turn on the attenuator in the TSYS object. Download to the scanner & see if there is any difference. (Of course, you could turn attenuation on/off on the scanner as well.)

I found with my PSR-500, with the overabundance of cell towers both near my residence, and along my commute, I heard much less on it, from the 800MHz trunks, than I did with my old 396T, also with the same antenna, sitting next to it. The 396 was less bothered by the cell towers than the 500. My solution was to switch the PSR-500 back to the original duck antenna. That works well, paired with the overall sensitivity of the PSR-500. Of course, I live in a dense metro area. YMMV.

 

[robj749840]

Thanks for the help Steve. The reason I went for the 5db gain antenna is because I was about 15 miles from the site I wanted to listen to, but I did not think about the other frequencies that may be over powering it. I tried what you said and ran the bank with attenuation turned on , and comparing it to the pro 96 with that on it missed about 90 percent of the traffic. It just picked up a few short transmissions.

I was able to borrow a friends ham radio antenna ( mag mount ) and the threaded connection was the same for my 800mhz antenna, so I unscrewed his and put mine on there and threw it on the roof of the truck. I hooked it up to the 197 and it did pick up signals better but still not quite as good as the ole 96. I did notice though that the signal meter bounces around alot from one to 4 , 2 to 5 , and just is all over the place, it stops once and a while when it is picking up a channel but I did a little research and watched a few videos and it seems like other peoples scanners seem to keep a steady signal while mine was bouncing around all over the place, even with the RS 800 antenna I used on the pro 96.

I also put a new end on the rg-58 that was on my main antenna for the scanner with little to no difference. I did also hook up my pro 96 to my buddys antenna with my whip on it and seemed to pick up a little better than the RS 800mhz antenna that is usually on in.

So after trying three antennas , the signal meter moving around a lot , and moving it around in the truck and still having issues I think something may be wrong with the scanner. I can listen to conventional frequencies pretty decent from what few I could pick up, but the trunked 800mhz P25 doesnt work very well.

The only thing left to try is maybe program all the voice channels in there as well as the control channel and see if it helps having those in there, otherwise I might have to try and find a place to send it for repair or try and do some diagnostics on it. I am at a loss with this thing.

 

[recon20]

Don't know if this will help, but a couple of things I've noticed with my pro 197.

I select the "check all CC's every pass" option, otherwise sometimes I miss some traffic.
If the squelch is turned all the way down on a trunked system, it scans slower.
If you are scanning more than one system, you will get variations in the signal strength as you scan.

 

[Mojaveflyer]

Pro-197 - PSR-600 Issues

One thing I discovered when I bought my PSR-600 (same as the Radio Shack Pro-197) is that broadcast FM seemed to have some effect on my receiving radio traffic.I bought a Radio Shack FM Trap that I put connectors on and it seemed to make a difference in the amount of intermod I had to deal with...

This was mostly on the north side of the Denver Metro area and was intermittent but really annoying when it occurred.

 

[LarrySC]

Use "Boost" on the P25. Try turning off AGC. IF "S" Meter shows full bars while scanning it's overloaded and nees ATT or G.

 

[robj749840]

I have tried all types of multisite mode, no luck with any of them.

I did some research into the filters and from what I saw in the forums they are mostly used for VHF and blocking out radio stations, I didn't find anything relating to digital 800mhz. Not sure if they would help that or not.

I did a little testing brought both scanners into the house, used the same antenna and had them in the same spot. I have to control channels programmed, and I did the F2 and then F3 i read to get into manual mode on the 197 and both the control channels are on 99 percent signal, while in the same spot the pro 96 varied between 75 and 90 percent with it fluctuating around. Maybe its possible another signal is overloading the front end of the 197 and making act up like that.

Larry I will try that . Thanks.

 

[robj749840]

Well I took the scanner with about 45 miles north and tried it on their site, which is 700 mhz so I cant compare the pro 96, but seemed to be picking up decently. I did some more looking around and the systems I have at home are both simulcast systems , which it looks like these scanners have troubles with.

My next troubleshooting test will be getting another 800mhz RS rubber duck antenna and compare the two scanners in the house and go from there.

Does anyone know where I could send the scanner to get some diagnostics run on it and maybe repaired if need be?

 

[robj749840]

Compared the two scanners with each other in multiple locations with the same antenna and same programming. Pro 197 is missing traffic still, I decided to go to the local radio shack and have them send it in to the repair shop. This scanner has been bouncing in the truck for 2 years so I decided to have it looked at. Hopefully they find something to fix.

 

[N1BHH]

When mounting a radio in a vehicle you should always have a few adapters around. In the case of this installation a right hand BNC does the trick to avoid any torture of coaxial cable. The bending of coaxial cable so close to the connector can cause loss of all signals by breaking the center conductor if it is a solid conductor. Try straightening out the cable and reinforce it a bit with some tight wrapping of electrical tape and use a right angle BNC on the scanner.

You must remember that the Pro-197 has far more objects to scan than the number of frequencies that the Pro-96 scans, so it'll take some time to 'pick-up' signals.