PSR-800...so far, not impressed.

[ratboy]

Well, my PSR-800 is in GRE's hands now. All I can do is wait and hope not to see "We couldn't find any problems" in a response to the ticket I have open. I played with a friend's 800 yesterday and it seemed to be pretty much equal to my 500 in RF performance, so there is definitely a problem with mine. The last time I had a problem with a scanner, I sent it to RS service 3 times before they finally found the problem, a defective capacitor that made it almost totally deaf. I still think the HP-1 is a better scanner by far, in the "ease of use" department. There are a couple of "what were you thinking?" things that Uniden missed on, like making the one side flat so it can stand up, like a handheld, and why can't the display orient itself vertically like any cellphone can do when you turn it sideways, but all in all, they did a decent job with it. I know a couple of people who love their HP-1's, just because it's so easy to use for the most part.

Maybe it will impress me if it comes back and works ok.

 

[BoboPinky]

My personal disappointment is with battery life. Even while using new, freshly charged, and high mah batteries, the PSR simply hogs too much power.

I agree 100%, holy cow. Brand new (about 5 charge / discharge cycles) Powerex 2700 NiMH batts (yes, I have two sets of these) only let the scanner run (no light) for about 5 hrs. Not sure what I'm going to do, but returning it is a thought. If this thing can't run for 8+ hrs, then it is of little use to me.

Again, just like Amateur gear, the manufactures are afraid to make their radios just a little bit bigger, and to put a few more batteries (and bigger speaker) in them.

Hummmmmmmmmm.

 

[ratboy]

Well, it came back today, and just like I was afraid of, the paper inside says it "meets specs". I put batteries in it, and put the stock antenna from my PSR-500 on it. It's still down on VHF, not as bad as before, so something was apparently done to it. Odd, if it "met specs", why is it a little better now? I can get two WX stations on it, and three if I put my better antenna on it. The 500 gets four with either antenna, and with the better one, one is full quieting, one is nearly so, and the other two are hissy, but OK. On the 800, only one is really good, one of the others is hissy but OK, and the third is chopped by the squelch a lot. 800 digital is still a lot worse than on the 500 or my Pro-197 with the same antenna on them. I think it's going on Ebay. Too bad.Worst scanner I've had in a long time. Looks like I will pick up a 106 or 500 on sale or used.

 

[zzdiesel]

I got my 800 Monday, and I'm not too impressed either. I have it sitting here beside my Pro-197 & BCD996XT. The 800 will sit here and miss a lot of conversations that the other 2 get fine. I've tried both ATT & Global ATT on/off. I hate having to turn it off every time I want to update and it is slow transferring from EZ Scan. I do like the size & etc of it. If I had it to do over; I'd probably buy a new PSR-500 instead.

 

[detroit780]

Psr800

If you take out the SD card and use the PC's reader it it way faster copying your V-folders.

Are you using the stock Antenna (Or should I say attenuator?) If so try the Radio Shack 800 antenna. When I first brought my 800 home I had the same problem my 500 was active but the 800 was dead. I'm in the country and when I picked up the 800 in the city it was fine. My 500 has the Radio Shack antenna so I installed it on my 800 and 800 antenna on the 500 and presto! The 500 was deaf and the 800 was busy.

By the way the Radio Shack 800 MHz antenna works pretty well on VHF and UHF too. The 800MHz antenna GRE sells with the hinged BNC connector kills VHF and UHF but the antenna they market as Radio Shack is fine.



QUOTE=zzdiesel;1679531]I got my 800 Monday, and I'm not too impressed either. I have it sitting here beside my Pro-197 & BCD996XT. The 800 will sit here and miss a lot of conversations that the other 2 get fine. I've tried both ATT & Global ATT on/off. I hate having to turn it off every time I want to update and it is slow transferring from EZ Scan. I do like the size & etc of it. If I had it to do over; I'd probably buy a new PSR-500 instead.[/QUOTE]

 

[zzdiesel]

This is on my outdoor antenna that the other 2 are also hooked to. One thing I've noticed is that the 800 scans slower than the Pro-197.

 

[ratboy]

Well, something odd happened. I was about ready to take the pics to put it on Ebay, and I decided to wipe it and reload everything. I messed something up and redid it. And then I remembered a new system and added it in, and reset it again. I set it down and started the scan and I heard a lot of weaker VHF signals I hadn't heard before. I put the stock antennas from a PSR-500 (I have a couple), and started searching railband, and it's a LOT better than it was. It's not quite equal to the PSR-500, but it's close enough. 800 digital is still not too good, a lot of that drowning type of audio on the 800, where the 500 is clear. Even when the 800 is understandable, it's never as good as the 500 is (Both are set to stock settings on the advanced menu, and both are up to date on firmware). The odd thing is, my Uniden HP-1 went deaf on 800 soon after I got it, and multiple resets pretty much fixed it too. I guess I'm going to keep it, for a while anyway, at least it's useful for something now, and not just a $400 paperweight.

 

[ratboy]

To kind of put a cap on this thread, after a bunch of reformats of the micro SD card and reloading everything, the PSR-800 worked "Okay", not great, but not horrible. I still didn't like the display or the operation of it, so I sold it on ebay for a small loss, and bought a nice Pro-106 for $245 that side by side with my PSR-500, is as close a match RF wise as two scanners could be. All it needed was a CPU upgrade. It's a tossup as to which radio has better sounding audio.

 

[GrumpyAeroGuy]

I got it yesterday, and ..

Take it back to the vendor and KINDLY request consideration to try another 800 (exchange it).

I realize there may be something in the scanner set-up that is hosing things up, but, as it is a day or two old, hit up the vendor. If they are reputable, and, given the fact that these things are NOT exactly $19.99 :roll:, ask to try another 800 unit side-by-side with the one you went home with.

I guess if it was mail-order, that is somehwat problematic.

These are expensive products. I insist on the same vendor support that I do for any other $400-$500+ product.

 

[ratboy]

It's gone, sold on ebay for almost what I paid for it. A friend's doesn't work any better, so I won't miss it. The 106 I got for over $150+ less works a lot better anyway.