Popular Software for Radio Shack Scanners

When you are a newcomer, and want to use software to program and/or back up the contents of your scanner, the natural question is 'which is the best'? While it's always true that the 'best' software is in the eye of the user, generally speaking there are some packages that are much more popular than others.

Scancat Lite Plus has been visible for awhile now, and it's used in some RS stores to program scanners they sell. However, as documented on several occasions in the various RR forums, it's not the best choice, in most cases. This article lists the most popular packages, by scanner, in use by RR members. In general, the most popular choices tend to support connecting to the RadioReference database and downloading data directly. To enable this function you must have a premium subscription which you can read about in the link.

Those packages that have this ability are shown in bold. If no other packages exist to support this scanner, there will be no entry. Be sure to read the notes at the bottom of each section.

Note that with the exception of the PRO-2052, PRO-106, PRO-197, PRO-651 and PRO-652, virtual control, logging and audio recording during scanning is not possible due to firmware limitations. Only up/download operations are supported.

There are no Mac-native solutions for programming. See this article from Scanner Master for alternatives.

Handhelds

Scanner	Software
Pro-18⁵
Pro-83		ARC83 ³	Load83
Pro-84	Pro83 Manager	ARC83 ³	Load83
Pro-89	ProLink
Pro-92⁷	Win92
Pro-93⁷	Win93
Pro-94⁴
Pro-95⁷	Win95
Pro-96	Win96	ARC96³
Pro-97¹
Pro-99	Win99
Pro-106²
Pro-107⁵
Pro-135	ARC135³
Pro-136	ARC135³
Pro-137	ARC137³
Pro-164¹
Pro-404	ARC404³	PSREdit100
Pro-528	ARC433³
Pro-649	ARC404³	PSREdit100
Pro-651²

Base/Mobiles

Scanner	Software
Pro-160	ARC160³
Pro-162	ARC160³
Pro-163¹
Pro-197²
Pro-405	ARC404³	PSREdit100
Pro-433	ARC433³
Pro-650	ARC404³	PSREdit100
Pro-652²
Pro-2051	ARC433³
Pro-2052⁷	Scan Control	IDTracker⁶	Scancat Gold for Windows
Pro-2053⁷	Win93
Pro-2054
Pro-2055¹
Pro-2067⁷	Win92
Pro-2096	Win96	ARC96³

Notes

See the PSR-300/400 Software and USB Support article for these scanners.
See the Object Oriented Scanner Software article for more information.
BuTel (ARCxxx) software can be purchased through a Special RadioReference/RS Licensing agreement.
1. See the Radio Shack Programming Software Free Trial article for RRDB Download instructions during the trial period.
2. See the Radio Shack Scanner Programming Software Support article for instructions on installation and registering the software
Only the B version of the PRO-94 can be programmed. The only package known to support this radio is Scancat Lite Plus
See the GRE/RS PC Object Oriented FAQ article for more information for more information on these scanners. The software they use is proprietary.
Only the original version of IDTracker supports this radio. Support is limited.
No app for using the RadioReference web import exists. Winxx Data Converter will allow you to feed data into the Pro-9x series; the Excel app should work regardless of the radio used.
1. Excel Copy/Paste Special to Software
2. Winxx Data Converter
3. Note: The Starrsoft website has been up and down numerous times in the last year. The status of the author/owner (Don Starr) is unknown

ScanStar Products

The following packages support the Pro-92, 93, 95. 96, 2053, 2067, 2096 and PRO-2052. Note that any audio recorded with these products cannot be played back by a standard .wav player

Handheld/Base Cross Reference

Handheld	Base/Mobile
Pro-64	Pro-2041
Pro-76	Pro-2016
Pro-79	Pro-2017
Pro-82	Pro-2018
Pro-92	Pro-2067
Pro-93¹	Pro-2053
Pro-95	Pro-2053
Pro-96	Pro-2096
Pro-97	Pro-2055
Pro-162	Pro-160
Pro-164	Pro-163
Pro-528	Pro-433
Pro-404	Pro-405
Pro-106	Pro-197

Notes

The Pro-93 uses the same protocol as the Pro-2053 but has only 300 channels

Mailing Lists, Threads and Social

Support for ProScan, ARCxx (BuTel software) and others can be found here
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