TRX-1: TRX-1 Review

[gmclam]

This opinion is solely that of the author.

WHISTLER TRX-1 OVERVIEW
The TRX-1 has been designed as a small, lightweight receiver with minimal controls. If you plan to use the RR DB with little or no editing and monitor digital systems which do not have simulcast sites, it can be good. The TRX-1 can do well on conventional P25 but has low audio volume on analog (trunked or conventional) channels.

If you want a scanner that you can program in a custom manner as you’ve done with other scanners, the TRX-1 and its programming software EZ Scan presently won’t cut it. If the system you want to monitor has multiple sites on the same frequency, the TRX-1 won’t cut it. If you’re monitoring a lot of analog stuff, trunked or not, the audio output level from the TRX-1 is disappointing at best. Don’t let the high MSRP make you think this is a better design than other cheaper or less expensive models.

Below is a short list of good and bad things about the TRX-1.

GOOD
● Can hold entire RR DB
● Alert LED can be up to 4 (flash) states
● Can be powered from 4 AA batteries or USB
● Supports micro SD card up to 32G
BAD
● Extreme limitations on user configuration
● No reasonable means to tune LED color balance
● No battery holder, cumbersome to swap batteries
● Why not 64G which are presently more common?
● Battery life is about half of PSR-500/etc.
● Trunking control channels lack analyze function
● Trunking sites not individually enabled/disabled
● Audio volume typically low on analog channels
● Can’t do full import/export in EZ Scan
● Can’t sort channels as desired in EZ Scan/TRX-1
● MSRP ~$649.95

EXPLANATION
The TRX-1 comes with a pre-programmed 4G micro-SD card but supports up to 32G. This is apparently enough to hold the entire RR DB which facilitates providing the user with the channels of their choice after entering a zip code and answering a few simple prompts. If this is what you’re looking for, you can be up and scanning in just a few minutes after taking it out of the box.

For those who like organizing their channels in a specific order, such as having multiple receivers programmed in a similar fashion, the TRX-1 and its programming software EZ Scan presently don’t cut it. EZ Scan will not let the user organize neither conventional channels nor talkgroups. Conventional channels stay in the order entered and talkgroups are sorted by their talkgroup ID value.

Presently EZ Scan does not allow the user to export the programming, regardless of its source, whether to a file or the clipboard. Interestingly a user can import conventional channels or talkgroups via file and/or clipboard, but no means is provided to import trunking sites, band plans or any other setting needed to make trunking work. You can only paste in a single trunking frequency at a time, but no more than one in a single paste. It can be very time consuming to enter all sites and frequencies for just one system.

A feature that GRE brought out on its scanners with dynamic memory is the alert LED. In GRE models the user can assign one of 8 LED colors (0-7) to each channel, with or without flashing. Each of the 8 colors can then be programmed with one of 16.7 million colors. In the TRX-1, the channel is directly programmed with up to 4 colors (each can be one of 16.7 million colors) each with a separate flash rate & pattern. This is very nice in theory.

The alert LED is actually 3 LEDs in the same housing; one red, one green, one blue. To produce a white color, the 3 individual LEDs must have the same strength. Since this is rarely a reality, there must be a means to “tune” each LED to achieve balance. In the GRE models this is done by (re)programming the 8 individual colors. No means is provided in the TRX-1 to tune the LEDs and the only workaround is for the user to hand-edit the colors of each affected channel.

Below is a comparison of changes between the GRE-made PSR-500 and the Whistler TRX-1.
PSR-500
● Several choices for programming software
● Orange backlit LCD display
● P25 Phase I only
● Alert LED programmable to 8 colors optional flash
● Full function keypad and 3 soft keys
● Fixed amount of internal memory
● Battery holder (4 AA batteries)
● Volume control potentiometer
● Standard 1/8” external power connection
● Same case size as most GRE models
TRX-1
● Only choice for programming software is EZ Scan
● Same display as PSR-310 with white backlight
● P25 Phase I or II
● Alert LED programmable up to 4 colors/flash rates
● Minimal buttons on the keypad & no soft-keys
● Supports Micro SD card up to 32G
● No battery holder
● Volume control via digital control
● External power via USB connector
● Smaller case with optional add-on “frame”

COMPARING MANY MODELS
Many different models where compared for this review. Clockwise in the picture below starting from the lower left, the models are: GRE PSR-400 (base), Uniden BCD996P2 (base), GRE PSR-300 (blue holder), Radio Shack PRO-95 (red holder), Radio Shack PRO-97 (red holder), GRE PSR-500 (red holder), Radio Shack PRO-92 (green holder), GRE PSR-310 (no holder) and Whistler TRX-1 (no holder). Because of its low audio volume, the TRX-1 is connected to the Uniden amplified external speaker.

 

[gmclam]

BACKGROUND

EZ SCAN
Before even making a purchase I decided to download EZ Scan from the Whistler web site. I've got PCs running each XP PRO, Windows 7, Windows 10 and more. Each of those PCs has more than one brand of browser, and while not the absolute latest version, something reasonably recent. The only browser that would download EZ Scan was Google Chrome. My thought on that is if I was selling something, I want to reach the largest audience possible. That doesn't mean using the most popular browser, it means something that works with most, if not all of them.

To start, I decided to "copy" programming I have for my PSR-500 (in WIN500) into EZ Scan. EZ Scan lets you import from a file or from the clipboard, but the importing is very limited. The documentation shows how to import conventional channels and talkgroups, but no means is provided for importing (trunked) systems, sites and settings. There are also "quirknesses" when trying to do certain things such as importing conventional channels. I went into WIN500 and selected some number of channels, copied them to the clipboard, then clicked on "Clipboard" in EZ Scan. It would always ignore at least the first channel.

If you only cut a single channel, it would not import it. Seems it was expecting a header line as the first line. Funny though, it would import a single talkgroup when cut and pasted in the same manner.

QUICK IF NOT CUSTOM
A good thing about the TRX-1 is that it uses a micro SSD card as its memory. Mine came with a 4G card. I powered on the TRX-1 "out of the box", followed a few on-screen prompts and selected stuff to listen to in my area.

I didn't see the LED light up and the Alpha Tags displayed were very tough for me to understand. But it does seem this is the way it is expected to be used. Since the listening library is dynamic and constantly changing, Whistler has provided EZ Scan to "import" the RR library and save that to the memory card. If that's how you're planning to operate your TRX-1, the rest of this review probably doesn't pertain to you. Then again if you want to make tweaks to the downloaded channels, you might find some of this interesting.

NO EXPORTS, NO CUSTOM ORDERING
The functionality of EZ Scan is one way. EZ Scan does not save to any other file format (such as CSV) and it won't even let you make selections and copy to the clipboard. Additionally, the order that conventional channels that are imported or entered cannot be changed. You cannot organize them after they are in EZ Scan. TalkGroups are force sorted by the TG ID. Regardless of what order you put your TalkGroup list in, EZ Scan will sort it by the TalkGroup ID and it cannot be changed. UGHH!!!!

ALERT LED
Pages 41 to 45 of the User's Manual has a detailed write-up about the (tri-colored) Alert LED. This was one of the most visual features GRE ever added. Whistler has taken it another step and provides the means for you to change the flash rate, flash pattern and have up to 4 different colors for EACH channel (or TalkGroup). The EZ Scan software comes with a dozen or so "presets" and you can create your own. Strobe lights, Christmas trees and simple flash to name a few. This feature is clearly a selling point, but I wonder how widely it is used if people simply download and use the RR DB.

MANAGE DATA OUTSIDE OF EZ SCAN
Because of all the limitations in EZ Scan, the approach I decided to take is to build my entire profile in Excel, manage it there, and import into EZ Scan. One tab contains all the Conventional Channels and I created a tab for TalkGroups of EACH system I want to monitor. In a single separate tab I listed the Trunked systems, the type (P25, MOT, etc.) and the sites with their frequencies. All of this information will have to be hand entered into EZ Scan as there is no means to import it from your custom data. You can only import Conventional Channels and TalkGroups which each have headers to make the importing "automatic".

LED LIMITATIONS
As of EZ Scan v3.26 there is NO WAY to assign LED information to the channel (or TalkGroup) via the import, regardless of from a file or the clipboard. After you've done the import you must go back and hand enter the LED settings. Each color has Red, Green & Blue with 256 levels each (just like the GRE models). At the least the user needs to specify Off, On, Flash for each channel; then add a color pattern. LED programming was added in subsequent versions.

If this is not bad enough, then there is reality. The tri-colored LEDs are not perfect. If they were, an equal amount of Red, Green & Blue would produce a White color. In my case the Red was weak. The GRE models have a single place that you can "tune" your LED to get the 8 colors you want. The only way you can do this in EZ Scan is programming each LED color on a channel by channel basis. I was able to mitigate the pain of this by creating presets of the mixed colors (see right). This all might work today but I doubt that LED is going to have the exact same tuning levels in a year or two. Each of the GRE scanners I have with this feature are all tuned differently and need tweaking every so often.

SSD CARD
After I finished figuring out the programming data in Excel, I created a new profile in EZ Scan. Make sure to deselect "Set Location" in the General Settings tab otherwise you won't be able to name Channel Lists 150 to 200. Next I Imported Conventional Channels and TalkGroups, hand entered trunk system site information including the frequencies. Hand entered the Scan List names. Went through all the global settings such as the welcome text. Save this profile to an archive.

There's a selection under File in EZ Scan to copy this profile to a V folder, do that. In my case I had installed a brand new blank 32G micro SSD card, and it had to be formatted. The last step is to copy files to the card. If you write to the SSD card in the scanner, you'll have the scanner powered off. The SSD card will show up as a drive (eventually).

NO ANALYZE FUNCTION
EZ Scan provides controls to set multi-site thresholds but it does not provide a function similar to Analyze found in GRE made scanners.

In the manual: On trunked systems with multiple transmitter sites, your scanner will search for the best site using the
settings in this area. The Data Decode Threshold settings are used to control the selection of the best site.

I see no way to determine what the actual present decode rate is with the TRX-1.

NO STORE FUNCTION

When scanning trunked systems, you can program a wildcard to either let you hear everything without programming individual talkgroup IDs or help you find new talkgroups. When a new talkgroup ID is received this way in GRE made scanners, a Store function is provided to add that ID to the scanner’s memory. The TRX-1 has no such function. If you use a wildcard to find new IDs on the TRX-1, be ready to write down what it finds.

NO HIT COUNTERS
If you have the option enabled, every time a signal is received on a channel (conventional or talkgroup ID), comparable GRE made scanners would increment a “hit counter”. This is a great way to determine if a channel is “working” and which sites/channels have the most traffic. The TRX-1 has no such feature.

OPERATION
I find it comical that the TRX-1 displays a digital clock when it is powered off. When you first press the power button to turn on the TRX-1, the backlight for the display is not lit (regardless of settings). It can take minutes to “boot” depending on your profile.

Once the TRX-1 is scanning, let’s say you want to simply toggle a scan list (on or off). Doing so will stop the scanning, kill the audio and may take several seconds before it resumes scanning. None of my other scanners perform like this, which is a good thing because it is not good.

I recently took a trip to the Pacific Northwest where I ran a PSR-500 and a TRX-1 side by side. Each scanner had its own antenna. Each was powered by 4 Eneloop AA batteries. I connected the audio from the TRX-1 to an external amplified speaker because it was otherwise too low to hear on analog channels and even many digital channels. The backlights were on on both scanners.

Batteries in the TRX-1 lasted about 5 hours where as in the PSR-500 they lasted between 10 and 12 hours, depending on radio traffic (keep in mind the batteries are powering the audio too). Changing batteries in the PSR-500 was done as a “hot swap” with another holder of freshly charged batteries. It wasn’t so easy in the TRX-1 as there is no battery holder.

For a time I was stationary and listening to local traffic on a BCD996P2 and the TRX-1. The TRX-1 missed a LOT of calls. I believe this is its deficiency with simulcast sites. And since it has no Analyze function I wasn’t even able to see which site of several I should enable for the best decode rate. They all gave me great signal strength.

Let’s see….. it needs to boot (which is slow), it takes too long to toggle a scan list, the audio is low on many channels (but booms in on others), I can’t save TG IDs found when using a wildcard, it doesn’t count channel hits, you can’t just “swap” batteries, it clearly misses traffic on some systems, the battery life is quite short, … Then there are the software and programming limitations.

 

[gmclam]

EZ SCAN SUGGESTIONS
- EZ Scan software needs a major update. Any/all settings, channels, frequencies, etc. must be importable and exportable via file and/or clipboard. It’s OK to exclude data obtained from RR DB.

- The user must be able to edit/sort all conventional channels, talkgroups, frequencies or sites in any order.

- Use the same numbering scheme / radix when labeling. Presently some are in decimal and some in hexadecimal. Some lists start with zero and some with one. I suggest all lists be decimal starting with 1 so it works with LTR and similar systems.

- Allow columns to be sized or hidden. For example; there are several columns related to NXDN programming. There’s no need to display them when programming other types of channels. We should be able to use our screen space as desired.

- Pre-select “contexts” when possible. For example, if you select a system with the sites tab selected, it should not ignore me when I select a frequency (blank or not) to copy or paste.

- The user should be able to use the shift and control keys to group selections. Selecting something already selected should de-select it.

- Don’t allow a user to enter a text tag that will later be truncated. If the user tries to label a channel with 17 characters that can only be 16 maximum, disallow character 17.

- Every key should do something logical; up, down, pg up, pg down, etc. Compare EZ Scan to other scanner programming software. Make it user friendly as this is often a user’s first experience with the product.

AUTHOR BACKGROUND
I've been listening to Public Service Radio since about 1967. Circa 1980 I replaced the stock scanning circuitry of two Radio Shack crystal controlled models with microprocessors. I've been a consumer product developer, designing hardware, firmware and software. My monitoring activities really took off in late 2003 when Trunking was just taking hold. I own virtually every GRE designed programmable scanner (I don't have the PRO-96) and have several running 24/7/365. Interestingly, I don't usually have 2 of the same model running.

Presently for northern California, my go to scanner is the PSR-310. I like it because of the larger LCD display with a white backlight. It is also has object oriented programming, rather than fixed-length banks. I travel the west coast a lot anywhere from Los Angeles to Seattle or Reno to San Francisco. Once outside of the Sacramento area I bring at least two scanners, typically the PSR-310 and a PSR-500. I like the 310 better for CHP because it has a (CT/DC) tone decoder chip, whereas the 500 does not; and the nicer display. But the V folders of the 500 means I can switch profiles on the spot.

 

[eyes00only]

Your price on the TRX-1 is way off, however everything else is spot on.

 

[JD21960]

I'd comment but they'll just delete it. So ... good job everyone!!! thumbs up!! high-fives! ... guuuuhhhh!

 

[sibbley]

NO STORE FUNCTION

When scanning trunked systems, you can program a wildcard to either let you hear everything without programming individual talkgroup IDs or help you find new talkgroups. When a new talkgroup ID is received this way in GRE made scanners, a Store function is provided to add that ID to the scanner’s memory. The TRX-1 has no such function. If you use a wildcard to find new IDs on the TRX-1, be ready to write down what it finds.

The TRX series does have a store function. When you find a new talk group using a wildcard, hit menu to store the new found talk group.

 

[JD21960]

Yes, they added that back during the WS1080-1088 days. When I do get the scanner to work and set up for Wildcard on a SYSTEM, you press MENU real fast and it asks you to store it. Yes.

 

[Nasby]

Title should read: "Why I hate the TRX 1"

 

[gmclam]

Your price on the TRX-1 is way off, however everything else is spot on.

I am quoting MSRP not what it sells for on the street. Do a search to buy one and look at everyone's "regular price". For example, check out ScannerMaster.

 

[gmclam]

The TRX series does have a store function. When you find a new talk group using a wildcard, hit menu to store the new found talk group.

I just searched the users manual using several terms and can't find this information. I'm not sure how a user is supposed to know this. Thanks. I wonder if it was not in the original firmware and was added.

 

[YoShep69]

I quit reading this overview after the first two or three obvious errors.

Greg

 

[Wackyracer]

I just searched the users manual using several terms and can't find this information. I'm not sure how a user is supposed to know this. Thanks. I wonder if it was not in the original firmware and was added.

The manual has not been update even though dozens of improvements have been since the TRX-1 release in 2016. The serious Whistler Trx users know this.

 

[gmclam]

The manual has not been update even though dozens of improvements have been since the TRX-1 release in 2016. The serious Whistler Trx users know this.

Great. Can you please tell me how to get to the Analyze function or hit counters? Thanks

 

[eyes00only]

I am quoting MSRP not what it sells for on the street. Do a search to buy one and look at everyone's "regular price". For example, check out ScannerMaster.

Scanner Master's REGULAR PRICE is $489.95 (Not the STREET PRICE). I doubt that anyone paid $649.95 for one.

 

[sibbley]

I just searched the users manual using several terms and can't find this information. I'm not sure how a user is supposed to know this. Thanks. I wonder if it was not in the original firmware and was added.

As far as I remember, it's been available in the TRX series from the release. It was there on the PSR-800 too if memory serves me right.

 

[gmclam]

As far as I remember, it's been available in the TRX series from the release. It was there on the PSR-800 too if memory serves me right.

While my review is extensive, I did not write out every little negative detail I ran into. Lots of bugs in EZ Scan and their manual are two of them. Seems like there's a lot of things either not in the manual or not up to date. Thanks.

 

[sibbley]

Great. Can you please tell me how to get to the Analyze function or hit counters? Thanks

GRE dropped these features when they designed the PSR-800. They don't exist on the the Whistler clones. I believe the PSR-500 and RS equivalent were the last to include these features, and the Whistler clones of course.

 

[cherubim]

In my view the battery life is no worse than my PSR-500. You must be using some dodgy AA's or you're monitoring a weird mixture of systems and frequencies. I also find the analog audio to be just fine with audioboost on and a comfortable volume setting.

The OP's postings are just another "I hate Whistler" rant. Such negativity appears to have taken over this site.

 

[gmclam]

In my view the battery life is no worse than my PSR-500. You must be using some dodgy AA's or you're monitoring a weird mixture of systems and frequencies.

The SAME batteries were used in each, new sets of Eneloop AAs. This battery usage is not just based on a single cycle, this is consistent. I'll repeat here; each the TRX-1 and PSR-500 had their backlights on; PSR-500 batteries also provided audio; I used an external amplified speaker on the TRX-1.

Since being back home I've been running the external amplified speaker on my PSR-500 or PSR-310 and it makes a huge difference with battery life extending it to well over 10 hours per charge.

I also find the analog audio to be just fine with audioboost on and a comfortable volume setting.

Oh yeah there are channels where the audio from the TRX-1 is VERY LOUD (even without the audio boost option). But that's not the case for anything I monitor here in northern California.

My findings are not isolated. And as I wrote, for a few people, the TRX-1 will do just fine.

 

[buddrousa]

In my view the battery life is no worse than my PSR-500. You must be using some dodgy AA's or you're monitoring a weird mixture of systems and frequencies. I also find the analog audio to be just fine with audioboost on and a comfortable volume setting.

The OP's postings are just another "I hate Whistler" rant. Such negativity appears to have taken over this site.

It is very funny you call out the OP as a hater ranter when HE OWNS ALL GRE/WHISTLER BUILT SCANNERS. I only use 2 GRE/WHISTLER built scanners now because my UNIDENS out perform the WHISTLERS as I have sold off or give away all of my GRE/WHISTLER built scanners except my TRX's which are not in frontline use as of now.