JerryNone said:
Will it Trunk Track the following: MOTO, MOTO Multi-Site, EDACS, EDACS Multi-Site, and LTR?
Yes. In fact, pretty much the only formats that the PSR-500 will *not* trunk-track are as follows:
1) MPT-1327 based systems (there really is not a huge demand for MPT-based trunktracking here in the US, as it is very uncommon here; if GRE sells localised versions for the European and Australian markets, we may soon see a quadruple trunk-track radio there as MPT is a lot more common across the pond)
2) AEGIS (standard is quite new, may have similar issues to LTR Passport and EDACS ProVoice as to implementation in a scanner)
3) EDACS ProVoice (patent encumbered, digital trunking so "clean room" decoding falls under DMCA regs here in the US, MA/Com unwilling to license to scanner manufacturers)
4) LTR Passport and LTR Multinet (LTR Multinet patent encumbered, LTR Passport falls under possible licensing (not patent) terms, companies manufacturing radios unwilling to license to scanner manufacturers; as minor aside, LTR Passport may be most likely to end up in a scanner as protocol has been reverse engineered by hobbyists)
5) iDEN (used in some Nextel SMR systems, Nextel unwilling to license, may be in practice impossible to implement because of DMCA provisions and use in Nextel cellular "walkie-talkie" systems)
And in regards to those five, it's very unlikely we'll *ever* see any of those in US scanners (with the possible exceptions of MPT-1327 and LTR Passport, and the latter only if a company can successfully work around intellectual-property issues that have so far prevented an LTR Passport capable scanner from coming to market). In fact, with three of those (EDACS ProVoice, AEGIS, and iDEN) it may legally be
impossible for scanner manufacturers to even research
how to incorporate them in a "clean room" environment (the DMCA prohibits almost all reverse engineering of a digital format if it is advertised as a security measure; all three formats are explicitly sold to agencies as unmonitorable systems).
Incidentially, the PSR-500 also solves a major shortcoming of GRE trunktracking radios--specifically, it does include I-Calls as monitorable.
Will it Trunk Track 150 - 160, 380 - 400, 406 - 420, 420 - 430, 500, 700, 800, 900?
Per all reports, it should trunk-track these frequencies, at least from UHF on up (I'm not 100% sure on VHF trunking, so I'm not going to claim it can do that, but if need be it can have that capability added via a CPU firmware upgrade just like the '996)
Does it have 216 - 400 for Militay Aviation?
Yes, the thing does milair. :3 (As it is, milair and the combo of APCO-25 and LTR was what attracted this to me. :3)
In other words, how close is it to the Uniden BCD996T?
Quite comparable in features, with a few additional features that are
not included in the '996:
a) NAC decoding--NAC is the equivalent to PL and DPL decoding for APCO-25 capable systems. (To my knowledge, the PSR-500 is the first scanner on the market to include this; this is quite handy in monitoring conventional (non-trunked) APCO-25 systems such as exist in Kentucky.)
b) Colour-coding of an alert LED based on monitored agency/group (i.e. you can group all police agencies in a trunktracking group to alert with a blue LED when they broadcast).
c) Ability to customise service searches (this is a feature that *was* in the old Pro-92/Pro-2067 but which has been dearly missed since then)
d) Increased channels and talkgroups (effectively, if V-Scanner banks are included, the PSR-500 is effectively a 36,000 channel scanner with capacity of up to 15,000 talkgroups per system).
e) Approximately $25-50 or more cheaper :3
f) The ability to actively trunk-track a system if its control channel is found in a search (I'm not sure the '996 can do this without assistance of an outside PC yet--if so, feel free to correct me on this)
(I can't legitimately count the AGC control of the '996 against it, because it seems like Uniden finally took a clue out of GRE's book and allowed automatic adjustment; a lot of people seem to prefer how the GRE radios sound versus Unidens, though, so your mileage may vary. This is what we call a Subjective Thing.
)
Things that *have* been fixed in comparison with older GRE kit:
a) I-Calls (finally!)
b) Ability to customise fire/utils/etc. banks (there was a feature to lock out frequencies in these banks, but the Pro-92/Pro-2067 allowed one to replace these search banks with one's own search ranges and it appears the PSR-500 will also allow multiple customised search ranges)
c) Computer control is now a reality (not just computer control, but actively using the scanner and appropriate computer software to "map out" a system without the use of a discriminator; we had a taste of this with PRO96COM and the PSR-500 expands this to pretty much all the different trunking systems one can listen to with this radio).
d) Allowing CPU as well as DSP firmware upgrades. (This will be good when rebanding finally hits.)
e) Yes, GRE, we really *do* want LTR and APCO-25 in the same radio. Some areas (cough cough ahem Louisville cough ahem) actually have as their primary trunking systems Motorola and LTR and agencies on *conventional, non-trunked* APCO-25 (cough cough ahem KYSP cough ahem) and big APCO-25 systems listenable or in the works (cough cough SAFE-T cough cough MetroSafe cough ahem).
Things Uniden seems to have learned from GRE with the '996:
a) AGC for digital trunking systems not requiring fine tuning with a knob is a Good Thing.
b) V-Scanner-like ability is also good (the "memory backup" in the '996 sounds suspiciously similar to how V-Scanners have worked with the Pro-96).
I really do NOT care if it does or does NOT do GPS.
This is a Good Thing, then. :3 (Pretty much the only features that the '996 does have that the PSR-500 doesn't are fire code tones (which in my experience aren't used so much on trunking systems anyways--mostly conventional fire frequencies; not a huge deal in my case because conventional fire frequencies that *use* fire tone codes will likely be going away in my area within the next 2-4 years anyways), the ability to transmit frequencies "over the air" to other scanners (I like having the V-Scanners and/or using the USB cable myself, I can hook up a 1/8" stereo cable if someone needs to clone off mine) and the ability to use it with a GPS (no, the GPS is not included; I presume it either uses Bluetooth or a serial cable to talk with GPS devices).)
How many differernt colours, for the screen, can one choose? I always thought that Blue or Green looks really cool man.
As I understood it (and I could well be mistaken here--those of you who've been fortunate enough to play with the radio, let me know), the PSR-500 doesn't change screen colours but rather has an 8-colour LED that flashes when it picks up frequencies from a certain user or group. (So the answer to this is: a) One (the one it ships with), b) the LED is more of the blinkenlights variety of LED, and c) you can set up to eight colours of distinct blinkenlights.)
(Again, those of you who've played with this--if it changes screen colour rather than operates as a multicoloured blinkenlight, let me know and feel free to correct this.)
Of course, a lot of this is also detailed in the Wiki, too :3
