Ok, so custom tables are only used for the rebanded areas?
That is one use for them, but that isn't why they were created.
I had heard that the pro97 won't support rebanding.
That is correct.
Does that mean that when the Puget Sound rebands all it's radios, my scanner will stop working altogether, or will it just need to have the custom freq tables programmed?
I'll try and summarize rebanding very quickly:
This applies
only to trunked systems in the 800 range. Everything else you listen to will not change (although there is the push of going to ultranarrowband, but that's another topic).
After a user keys up and the controller has assigned a frequency pair, the controller sends out a message on the control channel saying "Hey, everyone listening to talkgroup 16 switch to channel 01". Everyone's radios and your scanner then switches. They all switch to 851.0125 or whatever channel 01 is (I'm pretty sure I'm correct though). Now after rebanding, the channels are different. Channel 17 may have been 851.2375, but now maybe it's 851.1875. (The specific channels aren't important in this example). All of the radios that belong on the system can be reprogrammed (actually some can't, and they'll be surplussed) to know that channel 17 is now different, but your 97 can't. It'll still go to 851.2375, hear nothing (or hear another transmission), and then keep searching.
So no, your 97 won't be a brick, it just won't be able to monitor the 800 trunked systems after they get rebanded. When that actually happens though depends a lot on our
floppy-headed friends to the north.
