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− | ==PRO96 Vs. BC250D==
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− | Added: June 22nd 2004<br>
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− | Reviewer: Kieran O'Hagan<br>
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− | Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | Hits: 1912<br>
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− | OK, I just purchased the Radio Shack Pro 96. I have owned a BC250D for a little more than a year. There have been
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− | many questions about which radio to buy, and being single (heh heh), I decided to get both of them. Both radios are
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− | excellent, and each one has something over the other. The BC250 has plenty of room for alpha tagging; it will display
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− | both the bank tag and channel tag. During trunking, it will display ID list plus Talkgroup Tag. The Pro 96 will not
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− | show you the bank tag if you are running CTCSS or DCS; instead of the bank tag, it displays the tone information.
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− | The Pro 96 does not have ID list tags. The Pro 96 DOES have auto gain for the digital transmissions, and I swear the
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− | digital is much clearer on the Pro than on the Uniden. In fact, in my opinion, the Pro 96 digital transmissions
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− | almost sound like analog; they are clear, with little digitizing. The Uniden does LTR, EDACS SCAT, and EDACS Narrow.
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− | I do have an LTR System nearby, so the Uniden comes in handy for that. I commute between two metro areas, Poughkeepsie
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− | and White Plains; I visit my family in Pennsylvania, and a friend in Albany. With the Uniden, I have to reprogram it
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− | for different trips (no biggie, since I have ARC 250). With the Pro 96, I just call up a new V Scanner folder, and
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− | I'm ready to go. Uniden battery life...the pits. Pro 96? Throw in 4 AA batteries and I'm good to go, plus keep either
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− | NiMH or regular batteries in the spare holder. Uniden...military UHF aero. Pro 96, you have to get Win96. Here's
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− | the bottom line...both radios are good at what they were built for. If you need to listen to UHF aero, have an LTR
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− | trunking system or EDACS SCAT, then get the Uniden. If you just like listening to plain ole shoot em up or burn em
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− | down Motorola and EDACS public safety, get the Pro 96. Or, if you can, get them both. Above all...have fun! That's
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− | what the hobby is all about.
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− | Posted by Anonymous on 2005-06-05 23:56:29<br>
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− | My Score: 5 Stars<br><br>
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− | One other big benefit to the PRO-96...
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− | Its ready for the 800Mhz Rebanding.
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− | The Win96 program is not needed to
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− | program the User-Table to whatever
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− | might be used locally. The Win96
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− | program will be required to program
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− | the user Multi-Table, though.
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− | To-date, the PRO-96 is the only scanner
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− | on the whole market that allows manually
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− | configuring 800Mhz Channel-Number tables.
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− | With, or without the Win96 program.
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− | Soon alot of Trunk Scanners are going to
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− | loose their ability to track correctly
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− | Motorola Trunk Systems in the 800Mhz band.
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− | EDACS & LTR scanning will not be affected.
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− | PRO-96 owners, rejoice...
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− | Posted by jimlawrence on 2004-06-27 12:04:03<br>
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− | My Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | Kieran makes some excellent points and he has written an excellent review comparing the two. Let me add just a few
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− | additional thoughts based on my experience using both radios. If your goal is to monitor UHF milair (225-400 MHz),
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− | I think the Uniden radio is the one for you. While it is true that using Don Starr's excellent Win96 program will
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− | open the UHF milair band on the Pro-96, the performance over some of this spectrum has been highly disappointing to
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− | me. For instance, I prefer monitoring Boston center on 282.2. My Pro-96 is deaf totally on that freq regardless of
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− | which antenna I use on the radio. However, I have discovered that the Pro-96 does a pretty good job on the milair
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− | band between 137-144 MHz. So if your listening targets are in that range, you'll be happy with either unit. All my
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− | local fighter squadrons make use of this range as do some of the tankers. As mentioned before, if your target is an
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− | LTR system, Uniden is your choice. I've been using my 250D to monitor LTR and once you get the channels figured out
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− | (no easy task!), the 250D does a fine job on them. If your target is a P-25 digital voice system, I think the
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− | Pro-96 is the way to go. Its digital decoding feature is far superior to the 250D's. No fidding with voice quality.
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− | When I want to listen to New Hampshire law enforcement (largely conventional) or federal land mobile, my Pro-96 is
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− | my choice everytime. And it did a great job for me on the Ohio MARCS, Indiana SAFE-T and other digital trunked systems.
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− | I'm still working on getting my Pro-96 to track the OPP system (VHF trunked) but this is a liveware problem and not a
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− | problem with the unit itself. For the record, I've had problems tracking this system with my 250D too but it's
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− | entirely me and not the hardware. One thing I find totally funky about the Pro-96 is its default and unchangable
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− | step size between frequencies. It's totally weird to me to see 165.6900 rather than 165.6875 for instance. GRE,
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− | get hip on this one, please. Yeah yeah...picky picky, I know. It almost makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong??????
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− | Both radios offer control channel only Motorola system monitoring. I like that a lot. It's a breeze to use when
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− | traveling in states like Ohio, Indiana and Massachusetts. I find the Pro-96 is a little easier to set up for this
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− | feature. My thanks to my buddy Ken Windyka for turning me on to that feature. I find my 250D offers superior harmonic
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− | and image rejection compared to the Pro-96. This may be a factor if you live in a hot RF environment. Don't get me wrong, the Pro-96 isn't bad but the 250D hardly suffers from this at all.
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− | I think the 250D is a vastly superior search tool to the Pro-96. I love the ability to chain together up to
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− | 10 search ranges and hunt. The Pro-96 offers just one range at time as far as I can tell. I'm one of those who's
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− | always relentlessly searching for new active freqs and I think the 250D is much better at that. I've found the Pro-96's
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− | users manual to be a little more coherent than the 250D's. Not that many of us actually read the things...isn't that
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− | what the internet is for? Hope that helps. Corrections and advice always appreciated.
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− | ==PRO-96 User Reviews==
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− | Added: September 10th 2003<br>
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− | Reviewer: Everette Carman<br>
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− | Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | Hits: 7148<br>
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− | I bought a pro-96 on Monday 9/8/03 and received it on 9/9/03 i have been able to listen to apco-25 police frequencys
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− | in the chicagoland area and it is great listening to all the county trunked police frequencys of both Lake and Cook
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− | countys .It works great out of the box as long as you load the frequncys correctly.to those hesitant of putting out
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− | the money it is worth it also being able to decode the cttcs tones.I like having a combination of both the pro-92 and
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− | pro-93 in one radio.Everette Carman Waukegan,ill Taxicab driver
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− | Posted by techs on 2004-03-06 06:26:57<br>
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− | My Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | I've had my PRO-96 for about a week now, and so far, it's proving to be well worth the
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− | money.
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− | For the most part, RadioShack and GRE got it right with this scanner, compared with the others that I use. Particularly:
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− | * It runs on actual AA batteries. When your rechargables die out at an inopprotune time, you can replace them quickly. Alkaline batteries also don't have a current leak problem that normally results in a dead battery in a dormant scanner.
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− | * 5500 Channels?! My God, Man! I actually think that's too many, since I have other scanners available for other purposes. The V-Scanner trick that gives us 11 500-channel scanners approximately 30 seconds away from each other is a nice feature, though. It's certainly enough to set up the basic sets of frequencies that you listen to in a particular area or task.
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− | * It mixes analog, trunked, and digital trunked systems all at the same time; no more fumbling in and out of trunked mode like some other scanners I own!
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− | * The open bank vs. closed bank thing is handy.
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− | * The priority weather scanning is a very nice feature.
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− | However.... There are some things that arn't very nice about this radio. For starters,
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− | there's the typical RS ergonomics: The text input mode was designed by an absolute
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− | sadist, the volume knob goes from Extremely Loud to Very Loud to Loud to Mute
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− | with little control over Moderate and Soft, the cheap plastic belt clip scares me,
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− | the shiny plastic window over the display is perfectly designed to reflect all available
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− | ambient light directly into your eyes so you can't read the screen, and the typical
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− | chinzty case feel does not inspire the operator at all (especially when contrasted with
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− | radios with good ergonomics like the Alinco DJ-X2000).
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− | Additionally, the V-Scanner bank layout isn't sufficient for a mostly-digital scanner.
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− | With 500 channels available, it really needs to have 20 banks of 25 channels
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− | instead of 10 banks of 50 channels. Controlling which systems we're listening to with
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− | bank-toggling is actually what we want!
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− | Futhermore, the talkgroup ID lists are totally inadequate for a major metropolitan area
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− | APCO P-25 system. Having only five lists of 30 ID's each is entirely not enough,
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− | especially if you wish to toggle lists on and off like frequency banks to select which
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− | services you're listening to. With just one more keypress, we could have lists 00
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− | through 99, with 10-20 ID's per list; resulting in absolute control over which portions of
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− | the system you're interested in at any particular moment. (For example, changing
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− | systems while travelling across town, or following a tactical event as different branches
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− | of service respond.)
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− | And while we're on the subject; why can't I define a particular talkgroup ID (or list of
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− | ID's) as a priority scan? Yes, I want to scan the fire and police units that operate
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− | near my home far more often than the rest of the ID's. Honest!
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− | It's a good scanner, though... Here's hoping they make a better one.
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− | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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− | Added: October 10th 2003<br>
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− | Reviewer: 2Robert4<br>
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− | Score: 3.5 stars<br>
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− | Hits: 4446<br>
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− | PRO-96 Update Colorado Springs, CO.( 9600 baud Project-25 systems). First impression it meets expectations
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− | Still looks like a toy and the sound is poor. After being in the dark for all most two years I was ready to try
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− | anything under $500. Lots of bells and whistles and it will take time to try them all out. But was scanning 15 Min
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− | after I got it home. If your area is not in the preload your in for some pain. Ordered the PRO-96 from RadioShack
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− | Monday (Store on E. Fillmore, the other stores didn’t have a clue!!). It arrived Thursday. The radio is not in
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− | the stores like the RadioShack WEB site said. CO-Colorado Springs/El Paso County (9600 baud Project-25 systems)
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− | is one of the preloaded data (V-Scanner #3, Bank 4). A list of preloads is in an Addendum that comes with the scanner.
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− | Instructions are in the Addendum on how to load the V-Scanner folder you need. After I read the instruction I still
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− | had problems loading the folder (user error). But after I figured it out and turned off the unwanted Banks it worked!!
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− | PROS and CONS (CON) The radio still has poor sound (speaker in the radio) like all of the other RadioShack scanners,
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− | WILL THEY EVER LEARN HOW TO DO IT LIKE UNIDEN!! The only other issue I have is with the volume, its almost OFF or MAX??
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− | (PRO) The V-Scanner preload. If your area is loaded!! The bells and whistles Bottom Line, I think most everyone
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− | will be happy with the radio. There are always things you like or dislike and this will never change. I’m happy
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− | with the radio and will just plug in a headset and bypass the built in speaker.
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− | Posted by Anonymous on 2004-12-31 14:48:28<br>
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− | My Score: 4.5 stars<br>
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− | I was really relunctant to shell out 500 dollars for a radio that had the Radio Shack name on it. I have been
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− | very content with only Uniden products up to this point. But with the many praises that i had read on the performance
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− | of this unit, i went ahead and purchased one of the Pro-96s. I have nothing but to say i am was and still impressed
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− | and overjoyed by the performance of this radio. This radio has been very good at tracking the conversation of my local
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− | emergency agencies with no problem. The unit to me was very user friendly. I was also very pleased to see that continous
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− | improvements can be made indefitely to the its DSP filmware by an internet download. This can only mean better listening
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− | opprotunities in the future and one does not have to pay a cent more. As for the speaker, what can one expect from a
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− | mobile unit. Yeah the sound of the speaker sounds cheap, but how can one get a good sound out of a little speaker.
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− | Bearcat scanners have the same problem in my view. With the digital technology the cheap sound becomes less annoying.
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− | One also has the option of ASG on/off that can help with the background noise that is generated out of the user's
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− | radios of the system being monitored, If one cannot tell, i am berry happy with this radio and recommend it to all ...
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− | Have a pleasant day or night and sunrises.
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− | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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− | Posted by AEMTKieran on 2004-12-21 09:49:13<br>
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− | My Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | I have to disagree as far as the sound is concerned. I used the Pro 96 when I went to Colorado Springs last
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− | September, and it decoded the CSP quite nicely. Maybe you got a bad radio, I don't know, but it sounded great
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− | out in Colorado Springs!
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