[ScanIndiana] Problems with the Pro-96

[Mark Meece]

I thought I had better pass this along to the list
before too many of these units make it to the public.

Several of our MONIX club members here in the
Cincinnati area managed to get the Pro-96 shipped
to them last week only to find out that the unit will not work
on multisite systems that are simulcasting such as the
new Hamilton County (Ohio) system that went fully
on line here in July. It is a Motorola Astro 9600 baud system
that is running from six transmitter sites. They are also simulcasting
to VHF Low band because they have not found a way to tone out
(Page) departments using the system. Many fire members throughout
Hamilton County still use Plectrons to tone out to. Multisite systems that
simulcast are using the QPSK-C modulation and because of that the
Pro-96 will not work with those systems. The first half of the first word
of a conversation is briefly heard and then fades to nothing.

The Pro-96 will not work on Phase II systems either.

The Phase II system is not out yet and uses 6.25 kHz bandwidth (maybe
voice over IP version down the pike). there are no Phase II systems on the
air within the USA as of yet. However, systems like the Ohio MARCS which is
currently being installed will eventually become Phase II.


Hopefully this is firmware fixable and Radio Shack will get on the
all with GRE to correct it.

Otherwise the radio works great. We got a demonstration of it
at our meeting this past Saturday evening. We were all impressed
with the Virtual Memory feature will take scanning to a higher level.
Also the CTCSS/DCS capture is the fastest yet. Far better than the
pitifully slow 780/785D/250D.

Bottom line is - if you do not have a 9600 baud system that is multisite/
simulcast then you have nothing to worry about and the radio will 
perform fine.
If you are near or want to listen to a system that is 
multisite/simulcast then I
suggest waiting for an updated version of the Pro-96.



Mark - N8ICW
MONIX HQ
http://www.siscom.net/~mmeece/monix.html