used radio shack and uniden scanners on digicircle

[KT4HX]

The Pro-651 scanner has very good audio and dead simple to program. One of them going to keep. Doubt RadioShack will keep up with the firmware updates, with current track record. They don't even have a suitable link for the software needed on the SD card for the Pro-668. So if you don't have a backup, or erase the card by mistake, or gets corrupted, You have to hope someone else have a backup and put a link for download, if you didn't do a backup. What kills me is they are still asking retail for it with pretty much no support? You figure they would dump the rest of them at a reasonable discount and just do away with it and call it discontinued?

Yeah, I wasn't able to load the software from the SD card in the Pro-668 I got. I found a link for the program and drivers in the forums and used that to download them to the laptop. Once I did that I was able to get things working. I have a copy of my SD contents on both another SD card and on my laptop.

If RS doesn't plan to provide support for their branded scanners then they might as well do all a favor and close out what stock they have and just get out of the scanner business.

 

[KT4HX]

The Pro-651 scanner has very good audio and dead simple to program. One of them going to keep. Doubt RadioShack will keep up with the firmware updates, with current track record. They don't even have a suitable link for the software needed on the SD card for the Pro-668. So if you don't have a backup, or erase the card by mistake, or gets corrupted, You have to hope someone else have a backup and put a link for download, if you didn't do a backup. What kills me is they are still asking retail for it with pretty much no support? You figure they would dump the rest of them at a reasonable discount and just do away with it and call it discontinued?

I wound up ordering a used Pro-651 from them this weekend. For about $123 shipped I felt it was a good deal - provided it is in good shape and fully functional per their description. I used to have a Pro-106 and was quite happy with it, so expect this to be just as good, if not slightly improved. I like the fact that they leave the V-folders blank rather than load them up, as I would rather drop my own programming in there for recall as I travel rather have the generic area programming they used to use (which I deleted anyway).

 

[RaleighGuy]

I wound up ordering a used Pro-651 from them this weekend. For about $123 shipped I felt it was a good deal - provided it is in good shape and fully functional per their description. I used to have a Pro-106 and was quite happy with it, so expect this to be just as good, if not slightly improved. I like the fact that they leave the V-folders blank rather than load them up, as I would rather drop my own programming in there for recall as I travel rather have the generic area programming they used to use (which I deleted anyway).

Got mine from the about a month ago, very happy with the speed of shipping and scanner was in excellent shape, even came with two of the black battery holders along with a yellow one, but no manual (with RR why do we need one). Hope you have good results too.

 

[KT4HX]

Got mine from the about a month ago, very happy with the speed of shipping and scanner was in excellent shape, even came with two of the black battery holders along with a yellow one, but no manual (with RR why do we need one). Hope you have good results too.

Got my 651 this morning and had it up and running in about one minute. Using WIN500 just pushed my PSR-600 programming into it and away it went.

As for condition, given it was listed as "used" and in "very good" condition, I was pleased to find it easily better than very good. Not pristine mind you, but for $123 shipped I am quite pleased as compared to the current Radio Shack sale for the 651 at $300. Sure its not factory fresh, but its just as functional as the new one.

 

[RaleighGuy]

That's awesome KT4HX glad to hear the good news

Sent from my LGLS740 using Tapatalk

 

[KT4HX]

That's awesome KT4HX glad to hear the good news

Sent from my LGLS740 using Tapatalk

Thanks Glenn. I have been playing with it some more and found out a few more things. One is the firmware is V2.8 (I know some were V2.6), the date code is Sept 2014 and I had the known "disappearing signal strength bars" issue. I found, as some others before me have, that after programming was uploaded (using WIN500 in my case, though some reported it using ARC500 as well), the signal strength bars disappeared from the display even though signals were being received at the same levels as before. I verified this by doing a reset and checking my local NOAA station (5 bars), then pushing my programming back to the scanner again, then doing a re-check of the NOAA station. It was received now with either 0 or at best 1 bar but the signal was still equally strong otherwise.

So following the guidance in the below linked thread, I went into the Global Settings to the RSSI Sig Cal settings and changed them as below and saved. Once that was done, my signal bars were back to normal. Something weird about some of the 651s and 652s that was causing this to happen after uploading programming, even though the actual reception was never compromised. Such things keep life interesting I reckon!

Here is what I did:

PGM-FUNC-GLOB
Scroll to RSSI Sig Cal
I reset each bar setting as below to restore my signal strength bars

Bar 1: 370 (changed to 190)
Bar 2: 450 (changed to 230)
Bar 3: 520 (changed to 260)
Bar 4: 610 (changed to 290)
Bar 5: 680 (changed to 320)

Here is the thread where this issue is discussed for anyone who runs into this problem.

http://forums.radioreference.com/radio-shack-scanners/304374-pro652.html