Just purchased a new PRE-500 and am absolutely new at this. Tried to program several frequencies and have created a mess! How do I clear what I have entered? When I hit the scan button, only one frequency shows.I did not use software to program. Help!!!
Welcome to RadioReference, Jack. You have not indicated your location, or the frequencies (or systems) you're trying to enter, so please please provide that information so that we can get a better idea of what you're to enter into the scanner.
fxdscon has provided (above) the steps to clear out what's currently in the scanner, and has also provided a link to the "Easier to Read Manual" (as has N0WEF). For programming, you might find the programming
shortcuts from the Wiki to be of assistance.
For more general information on the Object Oriented Scanners (that's the programming system used by your scanner), see this
page.
Well, this would be a good place to start:
Easier to Read Pro-106/197/PSR500/600 Digital Scanner Manual It sounds like you want to program conventional frequencies, so look for the heading: "Creating (Programming) Objects", then it will be the first subheading after that.
I would also recommend using the software, it makes it a lot easier. You have three choices; Win500
Win500: PSR-500, PSR-600, PRO-106, PRO-197, PSR-310, PSR-410 Scanner Software for Data Management, Monitoring, and Control ARC500
GRE GRECOM RadioShack PRO-106 PRO106 PRO-197 PRO197 PSR-500 PSR-600 PRO-106 PRO106 PRO-197 PRO197 PSR500 PSR600 Software (Both of those offer free trials) and PSREdit.
In lieu to the individual software links, I would suggest starting with this
page. This will give you an overview of using software, and a little more general information about each of the available software pages. Note that
PSREdit500 also has a 30-day free trial.
In programming the PSR-500, or any 'object oriented scanner', you're creating 'conventional objects' when entering conventional frequencies. For trunked systems, you have to create "TSYS" objects for the system information: system type (Motorola? P25? EDACS?), system frequencies, and band plans (if needed), among other possibilities. Then once that's done, you need to enter the talkgroups, by creating "TGRP" objects.
All of this
can be done by hand, through the keyboard, but it's much quicker and easier to do this via software, especially for a new user. Not only can you use the computer keyboard to quickly enter your information, especially text tags for the conventional objects and talkgroup objects, but you can also see all of the channel data at one time instead of only a few pieces of the puzzle. This makes it much easier to spot and correct errors and omissions in the data entry before you load it into the scanner. Later on, as you get more comfortable with your new scanner, you can use keyboard entry to add a new channel or modify an existing one.
One other advantage of software is that you can introduce yourself in your state's forum, or perhaps in a Yahoo group covering your area. You may find someone near you, willing to share a file to get you going. The running start will get you up & scanning, and you can use the software to review how a given agency looks as programmed in software compared to the database information here.