RadioShack PRO-70 - Manual

7 CONTENTS Preparation .................................................................. 9 Power Sources ...................................................... 9 Using Batteries ............................................... 9Using Standard AC Power ............................ 11Using Vehicle Bat...

9 PREPARATION POWER SOURCES You can power your scanner from any of three sources: • Internal batteries or a rechargeable scanner battery pack (not supplied — see “Using Batteries”) • Standard AC power (with an optional AC adapter — see “Using Standard AC Power” on Page 11) • Vehicle battery power (w...

11 4. Slide the battery holder or battery pack into the com- partment. Caution: The battery holder or battery pack fits onlyone way inside the battery compartment. Do notforce it. 5. Replace the cover. If BATT flashes on the display, immediately replace all six non-rechargeable batteries, remove and...

12 Warning: Do not use an AC adapter’s polarized plug withan extension cord, receptacle, or other outlet unless theblades can be fully inserted to prevent blade exposure. Cautions: • You must use an AC adapter that supplies 9 volts and delivers at least 300 milliamps. Its center tipmust be set to ne...

13 1. Connect the DC adapter’s orange barrel plug to the adapter’s cable, with the tip set to – (negative). 2. Set the adapter’s voltage switch to 9V. 3. Insert the barrel plug into the scanner’s PWR/DC 9V jack. 4. Plug the other end of the adapter into your vehicle’s cigarette-lighter socket. Note:...

14 Note: A rechargeable battery pack lasts longer and deliv-ers more power if you occasionally let it fully discharge. Todo this, simply use the scanner until BATT appears on the display. Then fully charge the battery pack. Important! At the end of a rechargeable battery pack’suseful life, it must b...

15 Connecting an Optional Antenna The antenna connector on your scanner makes it easy touse the scanner with a variety of antennas. Instead of thesupplied antenna, you can attach a different one, such asan external mobile antenna or outdoor base station anten-na. Your local RadioShack store sells a ...

16 CONNECTING AN EARPHONE/HEADPHONES For private listening, you can plug an earphone or monoheadphones (such as Cat. No. 33-175 or 20-210) into the jack on top of your scanner. This automatically dis- connects the internal speaker. Listening Safely To protect your hearing, follow these guidelines wh...

17 Even though some earphones and headphones let youhear some outside sounds when you listen at normal lev-els, they still can present a traffic hazard. CONNECTING AN EXTENSION SPEAKER In a noisy area, an extension speaker (such as Cat. No.21-549) or an amplified speaker (such as Cat. No. 21-541), p...

18 UNDERSTANDING THE PRO-70 A LOOK AT THE KEYPAD Your scanner’s keys might seem confusing at first, but thisinformation should help you understand each key’s func-tion. WX — scans through the 10 preprogrammed weatherchannels. BAND — selects a prepro- grammed search band. SCAN — scans through the pro...

19 A LOOK AT THE DISPLAY The display has indicators that show the scanner’s currentoperation. A quick look at the display will help you under-stand how to operate your scanner. MAN — appears when you manually select a channel. SCAN — appears when you scan channels. WX — appears when you scan or manu...

21 OPERATION TURNING ON THE SCANNER AND SETTING SQUELCH 1. Turn SQUELCH fully counterclockwise before you turn on the scanner. 2. Turn VOLUME clockwise until you hear a hissing sound. 3. Turn SQUELCH clockwise, just until the hissing sound stops. Note: To listen to a weak or distant station, turn SQ...

22 SEARCHING FOR AND STORING ACTIVE FREQUENCIES Your scanner can store up to 51 frequencies. Each fre-quency can be stored in either a memory called a channel,or the temporary memory called a monitor. This scannerhas 50 channels and one monitor memory. You can store frequencies using any of these me...

23 Storing Frequencies Follow these steps to store frequencies into your scan-ner’s channels. 1. Press PGM . PGM appears on the display to indicate the scanner is in the programming mode. 2. Use the number keys to enter the channel number (1-50) where you want to store the frequency, thenpress PGM a...

25 Using Band Search If you do not know of a frequency to store, you can searchyour scanner’s preprogrammed search bands for activefrequencies, then store any that you find into your scan-ner’s channels. Follow these steps to search for and store active frequen-cies using band search. 1. Press BAND ...

27 Using Direct Search During a direct search, the scanner searches upward ordownward, starting from a frequency you specify. Followthese steps to use direct search. 1. Press MANUAL or PGM , then enter the frequency you want to use as a starting point for the search. Note: To start from a frequency ...

28 USING THE MONITOR MEMORY After you store a frequency in the scanner’s monitor mem-ory during a direct search, you can recall it and move it toone of your scanner’s channel memories. Listening to the Monitor Memory To recall a frequency stored in the monitor memory, sim-ply press MANUAL then 0/MON...

29 SCANNING THE STORED CHANNELS To set the scanner to continuously scan through all chan-nels with stored frequencies, simply press SCAN . SCAN and appear on the display, and the scanner begins torapidly scan upward until it finds an active frequency. If the scanner finds an active frequency, it sto...

30 MONITORING A STORED CHANNEL You can continuously monitor a specific channel withoutscanning. This is useful if you hear an emergency broad-cast on a channel and do not want to miss any details —even though there might be periods of silence — or if yousimply want to monitor that channel. Follow th...

31 CLEARING A STORED CHANNEL If you no longer want a frequency stored in a channel(and you do not want to replace that frequency with a dif-ferent one), follow these steps to clear the stored fre-quency. 1. Select the channel that you want to clear. 2. Press PGM . PGM appears on the display. 3. Pres...

32 SPECIAL FEATURES USING THE KEYLOCK Once you program your scanner, you can protect it fromaccidental program changes by turning on the keylockfeature. When the keypad is locked, the only controls thatoperate are LIGHT (see “Using the Display Backlight” on Page 34), VOLUME , and SQUELCH . Note: The...

33 To remove the lock-out from a channel, select that chan-nel again, then press E/L-OUT so L/O disappears from the display. Notes: • You can manually select locked-out channels. • Your scanner automatically locks out empty chan- nels. USING A 2-SECOND DELAY Many agencies use a two-way radio system ...

34 • If the scanner is in the search mode, press ./DLY while the scanner is searching. DELAY appears on the display and the scanner automatically adds a 2-second delay to every transmission it stops on. To turn off the 2-second delay, press ./DLY while the scan- ner is monitoring the channel or freq...

35 To hear your local forecast and regional weather informa-tion, simply press WX . Your scanner begins to scan through the weather band, and and WX appear on the display. To reverse the scanning direction, press or . Your scanner should stop within a few seconds on your lo-cal weather broadcast. If...

36 A GENERAL SCANNING GUIDE Reception of the frequencies covered by your scanner ismainly “line-of-sight.” This means you usually cannot hearstations that are beyond the horizon. GUIDE TO FREQUENCIES National Weather Frequencies *Not preprogrammed in this scanner, but you can manual-ly program it. H...

37 Birdie Frequencies Every scanner has birdie frequencies. Birdies are signalscreated inside the scanner’s receiver. These operatingfrequencies might interfere with broadcasts on the samefrequencies. If you program one of these frequencies, youhear only noise on that frequency. If the interference ...

38 Typical Band Usage Primary Usage As a general rule, most of the radio activity is concentratedon the following frequencies: VHF Band HF Band (3.00–30.0 MHz) 10-Meter Amateur 29.00–29.70 MHz High Range 29.70–29.90 MHz VHF Band (30.00–300.0 MHz) Low Range 30.00–50.00 MHz 6-Meter Amateur 50.00–54.00...

39 UHF Band Note: Remote control stations and mobile units operate at5 MHz higher than their associated base stations and re-lay repeater units. Specified Intervals Frequencies in different bands are accessible only at spe-cific intervals. For example: Note: Your scanner automatically rounds the ent...

40 BAND ALLOCATION To help decide which frequency ranges to scan, use thefollowing listing of the typical services that use the fre-quencies your scanner receives. These frequencies aresubject to change, and might vary from area to area. Fora more complete listing, refer to Police Call Radio Guide I...

45 AVOIDING IMAGE FREQUENCIES You might discover one of your regular stations on anoth-er frequency that is not listed. This might be what is knownas an image frequency. For example, you might find a ser-vice that regularly uses a frequency of 453.275 also on474.675. To see if it is an image, do a l...

46 FREQUENCY CONVERSION The tuning location of a station can be expressed in fre-quency (kHz or MHz) or in wavelength (meters). The fol-lowing information can help you make the necessaryconversions. 1 MHz (million) = 1,000 kHz (thousand) To convert MHz to kHz, multiply the number of MHz by1,000: 30....

47 TROUBLESHOOTING If your scanner is not working as it should, these sugges-tions might help you eliminate the problem. If the scannerstill does not operate properly, take it to your local Ra-dioShack store for assistance. PROBLEM POSSIBLE CAUSES REMEDIES Scanner is totally inop-erative. The batter...

49 RESETTING/INITIALIZING THE SCANNER If the scanner’s display locks up or does not work properlyafter you connect a power source, you might need to resetor initialize the scanner. IMPORTANT! If you have problems, first try to reset thescanner (see “Resetting the Scanner”). If that does notwork, you...

50 Initializing the Scanner Caution: This procedure clears all information you storedin the scanner’s memory. Initialize the scanner only whenyou are sure the scanner is not working properly. 1. Turn off the scanner, then turn it on again. 2. Press and hold CLEAR . 3. While holding down CLEAR , inse...

51 CARE AND MAINTENANCE To enjoy your RadioShack PRO-70 50-Channel PortableScanner for a long time: Keep the scanner dry. If it gets wet, wipe it dryimmediately. Liquids can contain minerals thatcan corrode the electronic circuits. Use only fresh batteries of the recommendedsize and type. Always rem...

52 SPECIFICATIONS Frequency Coverage: Ham ............................... 29–30 MHz (5.0 kHz steps)VHF Lo .......................... 30–50 MHz (5.0 kHz steps)Ham ............................... 50–54 MHz (5.0 kHz steps)Government ............... 137–144 MHz (5.0 kHz steps)Ham ..........................

54 NOTES 20-310.fm Page 54 Wednesday, August 4, 1999 10:49 AM

RadioShack A Division of Tandy Corporation Fort Worth, Texas 76102 GE-95D-1652 5A7 Printed in Hong Kong Limited One-Year Warranty This product is warranted by RadioShack against manufacturing defects inmaterial and workmanship under normal use for one (1) year from the date ofpurchase from RadioShac...