RadioShack PRO-90 - Manual

6 CONTENTS Preparation ................................................................ 8 Power Sources ..................................................... 8 Using the Rechargeable Battery Pack .......... 8Using Standard AC Power ............................ 9Using Vehicle Battery Power .............

8 PREPARATION POWER SOURCES You can power your scanner from any of three sources: • Built-in rechargeable battery pack • Standard AC power using the supplied AC adapter/ charger • Vehicle battery power using an optional DC ciga- rette-lighter power cable Using the Rechargeable Battery Pack You must ...

9 1. Press down on the battery compartment cover and slide the cover in the direction of the arrow toremove it. 2. Disconnect the battery pack’s connector from the scanner’s connector. Then remove the battery packfrom the battery compartment. 3. Attach the new battery pack's connector to the bat- te...

10 Warning: Do not use the AC adapter/charger's polarizedplug with an extension cord, receptacle, or other outletunless the blades can be fully inserted to prevent bladeexposure. Caution: Use only the supplied AC adapter/charger. It isspecifically designed for this scanner. Using Vehicle Battery Pow...

11 When you finish using the DC cigarette-lighter power ca-ble, disconnect it from the cigarette-lighter socket, thendisconnect it from your scanner. Note: If the scanner does not operate properly when youconnect a DC cigarette-lighter power cable, unplug thepower cable from the cigarette-lighter so...

12 Connecting an Optional Antenna The scanner’s antenna jack makes it easy to use thescanner with a variety of antennas. Instead of the sup-plied antenna, you can attach a different one, such as anexternal mobile antenna or outdoor base station anten-na. Your local RadioShack store sells a variety o...

13 CONNECTING AN EARPHONE/HEADPHONES For private listening, you can plug an earphone or head-phones with a 1 / 8 -inch mini-plug (such as Cat. No. 33- 175 or 20-210) into the jack on top of your scanner. This automatically disconnects the internal speaker. Listening Safely To protect your hearing, f...

14 CONNECTING AN EXTENSION SPEAKER In a noisy area, an extension speaker (such as Cat. No.21-549), positioned in the right place, might providemore comfortable listening. Plug the speaker cable’s 1 / 8 - inch mini-plug into your scanner’s jack. ATTACHING THE BELT CLIP You can attach the supplied bel...

17 A LOOK AT THE DISPLAY The display has indicators that show the scanner’s cur-rent operating status. A good look at the display will helpyou understand how your scanner operates. BANK — appears with numbers (1–10). Numbers with a bar under them show which channel-storage banks areturned on for sca...

19 UNDERSTANDING BANKS Channel Storage Banks To make it easier to identify and select the channels youwant to listen to, channels are divided into 10 banks of30 channels each. Use each channel-storage bank togroup frequencies, such as the police department, firedepartment, ambulance services, or air...

20 OPERATION TURNING ON THE SCANNERAND SETTING SQUELCH Note: Make sure the scanner's antenna is connectedbefore you turn it on. 1. Turn SQUELCH fully clockwise. 2. Turn VOLUME/OFF clockwise until it clicks and you hear a hissing sound. 3. Press MANUAL and turn SQUELCH counterclockwise, then leave it...

22 3. Press E to store the frequency into the channel. Notes: • If you made a mistake in Step 2, Error appears and the scanner beeps when you press E . Simply start again from Step 2. • Your scanner automatically rounds the entered frequency to the nearest valid frequency. Forexample, if you enter a...

23 4. Use the number keys and • to enter the frequency that is the upper limit of the range you want tosearch. 5. Press LIMIT , then press SRCH . The scanner begins to search from the lower limit to the upper limit. 6. When the scanner stops on a transmission, quickly press either: • E to store the ...

25 SCANNING THE STORED CHANNELS To begin scanning channels, press SCAN . The scanner scans through all non-locked channels in the activatedbanks. When the scanner finds a transmission, it stopson it. When the transmission ends, the scanner resumesscanning. Note: To scan in the trunk tracking mode, s...

26 SPECIAL FEATURES DELAY Many agencies use a two-way radio system that mighthave a period of 2 or more seconds between a queryand a reply. To keep from missing a reply, you can pro-gram a 2-second delay into any channel or frequency.The scanner continues to monitor the frequency for 2seconds after ...

27 TURNING CHANNEL-STORAGE BANKS ON AND OFF You can turn each channel-storage bank on and off.When you turn off a bank, the scanner does not scanany of the 30 channels in that bank. While scanning, press the number key that correspondsto the bank you want to turn on or off. If the bar under thebank ...

28 Note: You can still manually select locked-out channels. To remove the lockout from a channel, manually selectthe channel and hold down L/O until L/O disappears from the display. To unlock all channels in the banks that are turned on,press MANUAL to stop scanning, then hold down L/O until the sca...

29 The scanner automatically designates each bank's firstchannel as its priority channel. Follow these steps to se-lect a different channel as the priority channel for a bank. 1. Press MANUAL . 2. Enter the channel number you want to select as the priority channel, then press MANUAL again. 3. Hold d...

30 USING THE KEYLOCK Once you program your scanner, you can protect it fromaccidental program changes by turning on the keylockfeature. When locked, the only controls that operate are SCAN , MANUAL , LOCK/ , VOLUME/OFF , and SQUELCH . Note: The keylock does not prevent the scanner fromscanning chann...

31 To switch between normal and HyperSearch speeds,during a limit search, press SPEED/PRI . SRCH flashes dur- ing hypersearch. Note: You can use HyperSearch only in the 5 kHz stepbands (29–54 MHz and 137–174 MHz). BATTERY SAVE To save battery power when a channel is manually se-lected, the scanner’s...

32 TRUNK TRACKING Your scanner is designed to track transmissions on Mo-torola Type I, Type II, and hybrid analog trunking sys-tems, which are extensively used in 800 MHzcommunications. Remember these important pointswhen tracking transmissions: • Your scanner monitors Type II systems by default. Ho...

33 The fleets might be the police department, the fire de-partment, utilities, and city administration. The policemight decide to further divide its fleet into subfleets suchas dispatch, tactical operations, detectives, north, south,east and west side patrols, and supervisors. All the avail-able pol...

35 1. Hold down TRUNK until the scanner beeps twice. BANK , TRUNK , and the bank numbers flash. 2. Select the bank you want to store the trunked sys- tem’s frequencies in by pressing a number key. Thescanner automatically selects the first channel in thebank when you select the bank. 3. Use the numb...

36 5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until all frequencies have been entered. 6. Press SRCH to begin searching for the trunk’s data channel (thechannel that controls the trunk). SRCH flashes as the scanner searches for the data channel. While the scanner looks throughthe frequencies, you see themon the displa...

37 Note: To review the bank currently in use, press DATA while in the trunk tracking mode. The bar for the selected bank flashes at the top of the displayfor about 5 seconds. 3. To return to non-trunked scanning, press TRUNK again. Hint: While scanning, you will not know exactly who theID's are assi...

38 Locking Out IDs As with conventional scanning, it is possible to lock outunwanted traffic. This is particularly important in trunkedsystems because signals you cannot listen to (such aswater meters, door alarms, traffic signals, and encryptedsignals) are assigned IDs just like other users. You ca...

39 Using Trunk Tracking Scan Delay Many trunked systems have a period of 2 or more sec-onds between a query and a reply. You can program a5-second delay to hold on an ID for 5 seconds to wait fora reply. The scanner continues to monitor the frequencyfor 5 seconds after the transmission stops before ...

40 CHANNEL ACTIVITY INDICATORS Your scanner has 20 channel activity indicators (bars)which show the activity taking place on a trunked sys-tem. You can see how many frequencies are being usedand generally monitor how much communication trafficis occurring. Each frequency you store in a trunking bank...

41 SCAN LISTS When you program trunked frequencies into a bank (see“Programming Trunked Frequencies” on Page 34), yourscanner sets up 5 scan lists into which you can storeyour favorite IDs. Each list can contain up to 10 IDs, soyou can store a total of 50 IDs for each trunk trackingbank (500 IDs if ...

42 4. Enter the Type II ID you want to store, then press E . Or, to enter a Type I ID: a. Use the number keys to enter the block numberand the fleet number, then press • . b. Enter the subfleet number, then press E . Note: To clear a mistake while entering an ID, press • twice, then start over at St...

43 2. Press SRCH to resume searching. Deleting a Stored ID 1. Repeatedly press s or t to select the scan list loca- tion (shown at the top of the display) you want todelete. 2. Press 0 then E . SCANNING THE SCAN LISTS Press SCAN to begin scanning the lists you have pro- grammed. Note: If you haven't...

45 When you set up your scanner to track a Type I system,you must choose a size code for each block. When youhave chosen a size code for all 8 blocks, you will have duplicated the fleet map for the system you are tracking. If you have chosen correctly, you will be able to tracktransmissions in that ...

48 Selecting a Preset Fleet Map 1. Select the bank where you want to store the preset fleet map by pressing a number key. 5 S0 5 S0 5 S0 6 S4 6 S0 6 S0 7 S4 7 S0 7 S4 E1P13 E1P14 E1P15 Block SizeCode Block SizeCode Block SizeCode 0 S3 0 S4 0 S4 1 S3 1 S3 1 S4 2 S11 2 S10 2 S4 3 S4 3 S4 3 S11 4 S4 4 ...

49 2. Press DATA . 3. Repeatedly press s or t to select E1 , then press DATA again.- 4. Repeatedly press s or t to select the name of the map you want (such as P7 ), then press E . The scanner then searches for transmissions using thepreset map you chose. Note: When the scanner searches for transmis...

50 6. Repeatedly press s or t to select the size code for the first block, then press E .- The next available block appears. 7. Repeat Step 6 until you have selected a size code for each block you want to work with. 8. Press SRCH . The scanner exits the trunking pro- gramming mode, tunes the data ch...

51 A GENERAL GUIDE TO SCANNING Reception of the frequencies covered by your scanner ismainly “line-of-sight.” That means you usually cannothear stations that are beyond the horizon. GUIDE TO FREQUENCIES National Weather Frequencies Canadian Weather Frequencies Note: These frequencies are not pre-pro...

52 GUIDE TO THE ACTION BANDS Typical Band Usage Primary Usage As a general rule, most of the radio activity is concentrat-ed on the following frequencies: VHF Band VHF Band Low Range 29.00–50.00 MHz 6-Meter Amateur 50.00–54.00 MHz U.S. Government 137.00–144.00 MHz 2-Meter Amateur 144.00–148.00 MHz H...

53 UHF Band Note: Remote control stations and mobile units operateat 5 MHz higher than their associated base stations andrelay repeater units. BAND ALLOCATION To help decide which frequency ranges to scan, use thefollowing listing of the typical services that use the fre-quencies your scanner receiv...

57 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 mega-hertz by 1,...

58 TROUBLESHOOTING If you have problems, here are some suggestions thatmight help. If the y d o n ot, ta ke y our scan ner to y ourl ocal RadioShack store for assistance. PROBLEM POSSIBLE CAUSE REMEDY Scanner is on but will not scan. SQUELCH is not correctly adjusted. Adjust SQUELCH counterclockwise...

61 CARE AND MAINTENANCE Your RadioShack PRO-90 300-Channel TrunkTrackerScanner is an example of superior design and crafts-manship. The following suggestions will help you carefor your scanner so you can enjoy it for years. Keep the scanner dry. If it gets wet, wipe itdry immediately. Liquids can co...

62 SPECIFICATIONS Frequency Coverage: ........ 29–54 MHz (in 5 kHz steps) 108–136.9875 MHz (in 12.5 kHz steps) 137–174 MHz (in 5 kHz steps) 406–512 MHz (in 12.5 kHz steps) 806.0000–823.9875 MHz (in 12.5 kHz steps)849.0125–868.9875 MHz (in 12.5 kHz steps)894.0125–956.0000 MHz (in 12.5 kHz steps) Chan...

RadioShack A Division of Tandy Corporation Fort Worth, Texas 76102 UBZZ01271ZZ 8A7 Printed in the Philippines Limited One-Year Warranty This product is warranted by RadioShack against manufacturing de-fects in material and workmanship under normal use for one (1) yearfrom the date of purchase from R...