Halfpint
Member
This last week whilst I was confined at home with a MAJOR case of the `Crud' that had been brought home from school by my son I decided that I was finally going to `bite-the-bullet' and go through and make certain that all of my assorted `up-date-able?' scanners were, of course, up-to-date. I proceeded to setup an `assembly line' in what passes for my `shack' and went to work. Everything *seemed* to be going `tickety boo' and I finished up in what seemed to be a remarkably `reasonable' time and cleaned up the resultant `mess' cables and with a great sigh leaned back and went back to scanning the Colorado FRCC system. To my initial relief my PSR-500s in the bedroom were working and the PSR-600s in the `shack' were also doing their usual yeomanly best. The PSR-700s, which are mainly used for `foaming' (Train chasing), picked up what little BNSF and UP traffic there was `hearable' at the time given that the traffic was usually fairly sparse at that particular time of day. (I was slightly surprised that I did manage to catch the GW crew out doing some switching given that they usually don't do all that many night time moves close enough for me to catch them at home.)
Unfortunately, due to the lateness and the `crud' finally catching up with me I decided that it was probably `the better part of valour' on my part to stop at that point and I `medicated' myself and went and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head and quickly passed out. About 12 or so hours I was awakened by SWMBO shaking me awake and asking if I was still going, or was even able to go, to the last performance of the High School play that our son was performing in. But, after finally dragging myself into the bathroom and attempting to make myself somewhat presentable, I gave up and went and crawled back into bed again. When I finally was able to next get up it was late afternoon / early evening and the phone next to the bed was ringing. SWMBO was calling to ask me if I wanted them to bring home something from the `wrap party'. {GRIMACE!} I told her to bring home whatever she thought I might want and immediately went, or at least tried, to go back to sleep.
When they finally made it home I realized that I was actually hungry, ate a lot more that I was expecting, and discovering that I was now wide awake decided to finish up checking out my updates and went and fired up my PSR-800s. Say what!? I'm receiving the FRCC system on my PSR-500s and 600s but got nary a peep out of any of the PSR-800s! After checking all my programming, reloading the programming to the MicroSDs, re-installing un-installing and re-installing them, making certain I had clean contacts, ETC I decided to repeat the upgrades I *thought* I'd done. Just to make certain I was doing everything right I printed out the instructions and very carefully followed them to the letter. Still `no joy in Muddville'! I then decided that I'd try updating the USB driver but still the scanners didn't scan. I finally dug out another PSR-800 cable tried it. Yes! there was finally `joy in Muddville'! The scanners finally started scanning! I've since carefully tested the first cable using various assorted tests and testers and still do not know just what the problem might have been and figure that it was a case of `operator headspace' or the PSR-800s were just having fun with me, being finnicky, good old FM was being FM and decided to take a holiday!? I'll admit that whatever it was was pretty scarey because even my NIB `backup' PSR-800s also had the same problem and with all the questions about where to get repair work done on GRE PSR-800s VS the Whistler versions I was worried about ending up with *4* `doorstops' *and* waiting for the Whistler versions to finally be available.
Even if Whistler brings out their version of the PSR-900 the PSR-800s have become my mobile unit(s) of choice. Mainly not only because of their size and overall performance but also because they use a basically `vanilla' USB cable for power that can work with a simple `lighter/USB' adapter or the pretty much standard in the newer vehicles USB power port. (Basically all I have to carry with me is a pair of cables [I use `retractable' USB cables.], and a tiny adapter instead of either worrying about hiding an installed dedicated mobile unit or carrying a bulky/extremely long cabled adapter `mess'. (Don't get me wrong... I still like my PSR-500s but, with both the PSR-700s and PSR-800s basically using an easily acquireable USB cable if something, perchance something dies or goes AWOL, I like my PSR-700/800s a tad bit more these days.)
Unfortunately, due to the lateness and the `crud' finally catching up with me I decided that it was probably `the better part of valour' on my part to stop at that point and I `medicated' myself and went and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head and quickly passed out. About 12 or so hours I was awakened by SWMBO shaking me awake and asking if I was still going, or was even able to go, to the last performance of the High School play that our son was performing in. But, after finally dragging myself into the bathroom and attempting to make myself somewhat presentable, I gave up and went and crawled back into bed again. When I finally was able to next get up it was late afternoon / early evening and the phone next to the bed was ringing. SWMBO was calling to ask me if I wanted them to bring home something from the `wrap party'. {GRIMACE!} I told her to bring home whatever she thought I might want and immediately went, or at least tried, to go back to sleep.
When they finally made it home I realized that I was actually hungry, ate a lot more that I was expecting, and discovering that I was now wide awake decided to finish up checking out my updates and went and fired up my PSR-800s. Say what!? I'm receiving the FRCC system on my PSR-500s and 600s but got nary a peep out of any of the PSR-800s! After checking all my programming, reloading the programming to the MicroSDs, re-installing un-installing and re-installing them, making certain I had clean contacts, ETC I decided to repeat the upgrades I *thought* I'd done. Just to make certain I was doing everything right I printed out the instructions and very carefully followed them to the letter. Still `no joy in Muddville'! I then decided that I'd try updating the USB driver but still the scanners didn't scan. I finally dug out another PSR-800 cable tried it. Yes! there was finally `joy in Muddville'! The scanners finally started scanning! I've since carefully tested the first cable using various assorted tests and testers and still do not know just what the problem might have been and figure that it was a case of `operator headspace' or the PSR-800s were just having fun with me, being finnicky, good old FM was being FM and decided to take a holiday!? I'll admit that whatever it was was pretty scarey because even my NIB `backup' PSR-800s also had the same problem and with all the questions about where to get repair work done on GRE PSR-800s VS the Whistler versions I was worried about ending up with *4* `doorstops' *and* waiting for the Whistler versions to finally be available.
Even if Whistler brings out their version of the PSR-900 the PSR-800s have become my mobile unit(s) of choice. Mainly not only because of their size and overall performance but also because they use a basically `vanilla' USB cable for power that can work with a simple `lighter/USB' adapter or the pretty much standard in the newer vehicles USB power port. (Basically all I have to carry with me is a pair of cables [I use `retractable' USB cables.], and a tiny adapter instead of either worrying about hiding an installed dedicated mobile unit or carrying a bulky/extremely long cabled adapter `mess'. (Don't get me wrong... I still like my PSR-500s but, with both the PSR-700s and PSR-800s basically using an easily acquireable USB cable if something, perchance something dies or goes AWOL, I like my PSR-700/800s a tad bit more these days.)
