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Saturday, January 25, 2003
Radio Shack/GRE Digital Scanner In Works [Source: StrongSignals] The following is from an interview by the good folks at StrongSignals (www.strongsignals.net) of a program manager working on a new digital radio scanner for Radio Shack and GRE. I work with a team of engineers who is assisting Radio Shack and GRE with the development of Radio Shack's first digital trunked scanning receiver. We are very excited about this radio and thought your readers might be interested in knowing a little bit about it. The user interface and receiver are built around the very successful PRO-93/95 radios, with some significant enhancements: - The radio has 500 channels in 10 banks of 50 each - There are 150 trunked IDs per bank, in 5 ID sub banks of 30 each - Users can perform "open mode lockout" - lock out undesired new or existing IDs while in open mode, a great tool for catching new talkgroups! - It is now possible to perform manual ID hold without waiting for the talkgroup to become active - The radio will track UHF and 800 MHz Project 25 9600 BPS Control Channel systems! - The radio will track all Motorola 800 MHz splinter system types - Users can now edit the Welcome screen, just like the PRO-92 - Full FIPS/SAME NOAA weather radio capability, with 10 FIPS code slots - A new FRS/GMRS/MURS search range - A temperature controlled crystal oscillator (TCXO) is used to ensure frequency stability at all temperature ranges - very important for digital! - There is a revolutionary, patented scanner memory management system - you'll have to wait for details but trust me, it will be a very popular feature! - There are some control channel analysis tools that users will find very beneficial, again, you'll have to wait for full details! - The radio will be a handheld scanner similar in size to a PRO-93 or PRO-92 One of the most exciting things about this radio is the digital DSP decoder system! - The radio is fully digital ready - there are no add on cards to purchase - The radio will decode any digital system that is compliant with Project 25 Phase 1 - essentially this means no VSELP, but all ASTRO IMBE and P25 digital modulation types are supported - There is a really cool DSP feature that I can't give details on just yet - but you will know it when you see it in the manual! - No special quality settings are needed for different digital system types - you can scan different systems in the same or different bands simultaneously without changing digital quality settings - The cost is expected to be in the $499 range, and the radio is expected in stores around November 2003. |