Update July 2019:
I tried to use it again – I should have known better. This thing is a piece of crap. The designer of the user interface was either under orders and prevented from making a useful product or was a complete moron. As a device that you should be able to pick up occasionally and use, it completely fails. The most valuable part of this product are the two AA batteries – at least you can take them out and put them into something else.
Into the rubbish.
Original Comment:
This is one of the most annoying gadgets I have ever bought. It sort of works once you get it programmed but it’s one of the most difficult things to program I’ve ever used. It’s something I could use more but due to the programming it’s not worth picking up. I can never remember how to program it. The keys and labeling are of little help and far from intuitive. The instruction book sort of helps, once you’ve read the whole thing three times, and it’s incomplete. I think there are important things missing, like details about the lockout feature; once locked out how long does it last, how do you clear it etc.
Questions:
Can you simply enter a frequency to monitor as a one-off without programming a memory or scanning a range ?
Instructions:
To program a memory with a frequency
press HOLD, enter the memory number, press FUNC then PGM, enter the frequency, press E
Hello Dylan. If the hissing is loud enough it probably means the audio amplifier and speaker are OK. Is the antenna and it’s connector OK; possibly a very weak signal. I’ve dropped mine a couple of times on its antenna. There could be a problem with tuning calibration or maybe corrupted settings. I guess there are calibration settings stored in there somewhere; like the eeprom settings in the PCR-1000.
Apparently you can do a master reset by turning the scanner off, holding down keys 2,9 and HOLD and turning the scanner on. It takes about 3 seconds before it displays CLEAr.
I’ve never done this and it will clear all your settings and saved channels.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Hi there, would you be able to help me with the problem im having? the scanner used to work but now it just hisses and you can only faintly hear people talking if you put your ear to the speaker.
I also have a ICOM PCR-1000 PC controlled receiver that could do almost anything if the software was not so limited. There is a much better program called Talk-PCR but it’s mo longer supported and the author put a very annoying pop-up into it that makes it unusable with other programs after a short time.
The relatively low data rate RS-232 control interface may limit the function of the receiver but I don’t think ICOM ever released the full control protocol, so who knows.
Supposedly these US companies make a better product than Asia. I’m not seeing it.
If the PCR-1000 protocol had been released in full early on, there would be at least a few really good control programs for it now. But that may limit sales of their next version.
Not that I know of. It only has a headphone jack.
Another problem with it is that it assumes AM or FM based on the band or frequency. I cannot receive AM on 433MHz because it defaults to FM. My tracker operates on AM.
Isn’t there a computer interface for that model? What software exists to allow programming?