The Pro-97 is awesome!

[Gilligan]

First I want to say that I wrote this post to be a help to others. So please let's not get argumentative about anything. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

I do not use the CTCSS functions, even though I am in a metro area. I want to receive as much as I can, not limit someone because they have the wrong tone.

In a metro area, the tones actually are of greater importance due to the frequencies being overcrowded. The "wrong" idea honestly doesn't make much sense to me, as businesses and users are separated from hearing each other by setting different tones. They distinguish between the different users on a freq. Not "limiting who you can hear" by not using tone decode is like turning on a bunch of tv channels at once so you don't miss anything. Most of us just pick and choose who we want to listen to. You might want to do a little background research on PL and DPL tones and see how they are used and you might find that they can be to your advantage as a scanner listener.

 

[gmclam]

FM or CT mode

....Most of us just pick and choose who we want to listen to. You might want to do a little background research on PL and DPL tones and see how they are used and you might find that they can be to your advantage as a scanner listener.

PL = Motorola's Private Line
DPL = Digital Private Line
The purpose of the tones is to create a semi-private channel out of a crowded channel. Telling your scanner to only stop on a freq only when that specific tone is used limits what you hear.

My specific situation is that I want to hear FIRE channels. I don't care if it is the station down the street or an agency 100 miles away (and yes I pick them up at that distance). The agency down the street uses one PL freq and the distant agency uses another tone. If I am listening on a PRO-97 I'll set the channel freq to CT and leave it open. The display then shows me the channel freq and the CT freq.

I do not have a case in my area where one CT freq is for something I want like a fire dept and another CT freq is for something I don't want like a garbage collector. I know that may be the case for others as well as the fact that many people only want to hear what is in their local neighborhood, not something 100 miles away.

We should all be happy that scanners are so programmable and we can make them pretty much hear what we want and only what we want. It would not be good if we were all subjected to the same "listening rules".

 

[Grog]

I think the SSID feature is one of teh best on the 97/2055. When you are searching out new systems, it's priceless.