RadioShack Pro92 Radio Scanner sale (-$100)

[TheLost]

RadioShack has their Pro-92 Multi-Trunking scanner ($349.99) on sale for $249.99. That's -$100 off! From what I hear it is one of the best handheld trunking scanners. I'm not sure how much longer the sale is for. I just bought a Bearcat 245XLT....but if I would have known that the pro92 was on sale I would have bought it.

Here is the link!
http://www.radioshack.com/ProductCatalog/ProductDetail/Index/1,2098,CTLG_1_2000522,00.html

 

[403Forbidden]

so does thing let me listen to my neighbors phone calls?

 

[TheLost]

Wouldn't wanna do that...you could go to jail. Jails bad. But you can get police, fire, and some aircraft. Plus lots of other interesting things.

 

[403Forbidden]

why would i go to jail...anything that passes through the air is public property...cordless phone waves travel throught the air...so as long as I can catch the waves, It's not illegal

 

[WATERBUFFALO]

The only way you can go to jail is if you tape record the convesations and then turn yourself in to the authorities. Like the people who intercepted Newt Gingrich's cell phone conversation which helped ruin his miserable career with his "contract on americans" and them turned it over to the media. even then, they didn't go to jail, but that %$#@ Linda Tripp should be in prison right now. I don't understand why that bozo Lewinsky hasn't sued her for violating her constitutional rights.

 

[WATERBUFFALO]

the sale ends july 29th. by the way, thank you ever so much for posting this, i was going to pay full price for one in a couple of weeks and you saved me $100, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TheLost]

Listening to wireless communications became restricted in the United
States in 1994. I mean if you doing it in your own home and you don't go braging it around chances are you won't get cought. BUT it is still a FEDERAL OFFENCE to listen to any cordless or cellphone coversations. Doesn't matter if they are in "public airspace" or not.

 

[TheLost]

Hey. No problem Waterbuffalo. I'm still kinda ticked I payed for the Bearcat 245XLT when I could have bought this bad boy. Oh well. Maybe next time.

 

[gwbaker]

I know a bit about scanning, and the experts and everyone that I know who are REAL buffs poopoo the ratshack scanner. A lot of complaints. If you want a scanner that does the same thing (but no alpha tagging ;(), go for the Uniden Bearcat 245. They are regular price of $250, and you can get refirbs from their site for around $170. Does everything the ratshack does better.

 

[djjazz]

What's alpha tagging? What kind of filters are in the Uniden Bearcat? Where if any are the frequency holes/do you know of any scanners that you can buy without these holes or do we have to make them ourselves now? Know of any transmitters that can transmit on a wide range of frequencies?

 

[TheLost]

GW- I have the Bearcat 245...ya it's great but you can't listen to trucked and standard at the sametime....radioshack can....bearcat has 300 chanells....radioshack has 500...from the people i've talked to the Radioshack Pro92 just rocks...but then again I've never used it.

DJJAZZ- Most of the Trunking scanners have LOTSA holes...it's like...get a scannner with very few holes and no trunking...or get a scanner with trunking and lots of holes...I have RadioShack Pro26 from back in the day...it has everything from 25mhz to 1.3Ghz...except cell freqs...they pop up on auction site sometimes....look around....check out http://www.strongsignals.net/ they have reviews of ALL scanners and tell you the pros and cons of everything about them...including the freqs holes.

 

[TheLost]

ya..thats supposed to be channels not chanells.....doh!

 

[joykiller]

403: yes, this'll let you listen to your neighbors portable phone calls. as to the legality it differs from state to state. Federal law says it is illegal to:

Reveal to any other person, not a party to the transmissions, the content of those transmissions

Use any information heard to aid in comitting a crime

Use any information heard for personal gain

Intentionally intercept remote radio-tv broadcast pickups, scrambled, encrypted, or coded transmissions, and mobile telephone conversations


This scanner doesnt have very good frequency coverage... I have a pro-60 and a pro-2046, neither is trunking but the pro-60 has great coverage... my next scanner will probably be an aor ar8000, now thats a nice scanner.. too bad its about 500 - 600$

 

[403Forbidden]

i have a few questions:

what is "trunking"

what do you guys use the scanner for? any interesting
uses? I figure listening to telephone calls gets
boring fast

 

[TheLost]

403- I use my Bearcat 235XLT scanner for my local police and fire department. When I go to airshows and out, to Nevada to check up on Uncle Sam and his airforce, I use my Realistic Pro26. It picks up military aircraft and such. It's by far my fav scanner I have ever owned. You can hear anything from those motorola talk abouts to airplanes to the repair man for A/C's. They are really fun to get into. If you buy a more expensive scanner, the right equipment and little knowledge you could pick you weather satellites. As far as explaining what Trunking is...I dont know..its hard to explain on such a small board...you really need to understand conventional scanning before you can understand Trunking. One thing you might wanna look into is if your local police, fire, or hospitals are going to be or are using trunking systems. If they aren't then there is really no reason to buy a scanner that has trunking. Like I said before, no one makes a handheld scanner that trunks and has a GREAT range, some base models have a ok range. Either you buy a scanner for trunking or buy one for its range. You could do what I did.....buy one for trunking and one for everyday scanning.

 

[WATERBUFFALO]

Radio Shack lets you used the machine for 30 days and will refund your money if you aren't happy. From what I understand, either Uniden or Motorola makes the Radio Shack device, but who knows, it seems like everything is being made in that rathole China with slavery. Even BMW and Mercedes have parts made there if you can believe that.

 

[TheLost]

The Pro92 is made by GRE....not sure who they are....but from what I'm reading its good. Its made in Japan not China.

 

[WATERBUFFALO]

Thanks for the tip, Japan is OK, but I feel bad when I buy anything from China, knowing they are using slave labor.

They have very "Hot Deals" in China. If you need a new heart or any other organ, go over and you can get them cheap. They just grab somone off the street and cut it out for you.

 

[gwbaker]

Yeah, explaining trunking would take pages, but at the basic level, truning is a group of frequencies (say 15)... On one freq is a data channel and the rest are voice. When police dispatch talks on a freq it could be on 1 with a dtmf code of 118.8 (sub channel per se). The next time someone talks it will be on a different freq with a diff dtmf code. So if listening with a non trunking scanner you may hear them one minute, but then not the next because the trunking radios use the data channel to jump around and seemlessly not change at all. A trunking scanner is capable of following this and seemingly not change either (continous monitoring).

Alpha tagging is the ability to assign a text name to each "channel". So instead of freq 8XX.XXX group 1123 being displayed, you can enter Hicksville PD... When the scanner stops on that channel it will display Hicksville PD, rather than the freq info.

 

[wonko99]

<< The only way you can go to jail is if you tape record the convesations and then turn yourself in to the authorities. Like the people who intercepted Newt Gingrich's cell phone conversation which helped ruin his miserable career with his &quot;contract on americans&quot; and them turned it over to the media. even then, they didn't go to jail, but that %$#@ Linda Tripp should be in prison right now. I don't understand why that bozo Lewinsky hasn't sued her for violating her constitutional rights. >>



Hmm.. must be a steenkin democrat... damn hippy tree huggers.

 

[Gomez]

The reason its going on sale is that the Pro-92A is coming out in August!

Not sure of the changes/updates though.

 

[joykiller]

my 2046 is made by uniden and my pro-60 is made by GRE i beleive. GRE makes good stuff, i have a GRE Superconverter 2 (takes the 800mhz range and lets the scanner pick it up on 400mhz, works real nice). I think the preamp i have is also GRE but im not sure.
I have a url in my bookmarks at home that lists all the rs scanners and who they are made by.. ill post it later when im home.

403: acctually listening to phone vcalls never seems to get boring but there are a lot of other interesting things you can listen to.. fast food restaurants (its always funny listening to people fight about the prices at the drive-through at mcdonalds), voice paging, utilities (phone company, power company, etc), mall security or any security for that matter, bus drivers, news paper deliverers, schools... most of all its fun listening to your local police and to hear whats going on in your town.

i have no need for a trunking scanner cause i live out in the boonies, but if you live in a big city you'd probably want a trunk-tracker.

 

[TheLost]

JOYKILLER: Supercoverter huh? So its just a down conversion so that u can pick up cells in the 400's huh? I put a MOD on my Pro-26 to do that....but I didn't have to buy a Supercoverter....i'm curious as to what a Supercoverter looks like.....have a picture of it someplace? And does it work on most scanners?

 

[joykiller]

The page that lists the mfg's of rs scanners is http://w5gb.nmsu.edu/kc5kto/mods.html

TheLost: yes, the superconverter is just a down converter... takes 810 - 912 and puts it in 410 - 512. there are no mods for the pro-60 to unlock the 800 range so a down converter was my only option. its a small black box that sits between the antenna and the scanner and theres a switch for on and bypass. its about 2 1/2&quot; x 1 1/2&quot; x 1 1/2&quot;
i got it through scannerworld a couple years ago but they don't sell em anymore. ive only seen the diy kits lately. i cant find a picture on scannerworld.com but i might have one on one of my hds.. ill check.
it'll work on any scanner that receives 410 - 512.