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Special Report

The RadioShack PRO106 Digital Scanner

Features, Operation and Competition

A Scanner Master Ultimate Review

Introduction

GRE has produced scanners for the US market for decades, but they are a new name in the industry here.

How’s that? Well, remember the Radio Shack PRO2004, PRO2005 or PRO2006? How about the PRO96 or

its mobile brother PRO2096? These were all built by GRE and sold by Radio Shack. While some scanners

sold by Radio Shack were built by Uniden, most of the big sellers were GRE built.

At the 2007 Dayton Hamvention GRE snuck in a couple of their rumored new line of scanners for direct

sales in the USA. A privileged few (including the author) got to check them out for a few minutes each. It

was apparent immediately that GRE had produced a winner, or better yet, several winners.

What GRE did was introduce three lines of scanners, each line consisting of a handheld and a base/mobile

version. Radios within each line are electronically identical, even to the extent that they can clone to each

other.

After the GRE line of scanners were unveiled to the public and readied for sale Radio Shack announced a

new line of scanners that mysteriously mirrored the specs of some of the GRE’s. The Radio Shack PRO106

turned out to be a GRE PSR500 with a rearranged front panel. The Radio Shack PRO197 was a clone of the

PSR600 base/mobile. The PSR300 and 400 radios are closely related to Radio Shacks PRO97, 2055, 163

and 164 scanners.

The three lines are:

Basic GRE PSR100 Handheld and PSR200 Desktop

Advanced GRE PSR300 Handheld and PSR400 Base/Mobile,

Radio Shack PRO164 Handhelds and PRO163 Base/Mobiles

Digital GRE PSR500 Handheld and PSR600 Base/Mobile

Radio Shack PRO106 Handheld and PRO197 Base/Mobile

While the Radio Shack and GRE versions of the various scanners are visually and electronically similar in

most respects there is one difference that one must remember, and that is that the firmware updates are not

interchangeable between Radio Shack and GRE versions. Programming files are interchangeable, which

makes sharing files easier.

While the Basic and Advanced lines use conventional programming methods such as defined banks and

channel arrangements, the Digital line uses an entirely different structure called “Object Oriented User

Interface” or more succinctly, “Scannable Objects”. Basically what this means is that you program things

(Objects) into your radio and then select the things you want to scan (Scannable Objects). These Scannable

Objects could be regular frequencies, talkgroups on a trunked system or one of several types of searches.

The Advanced line of scanners are fine for many areas if you do not need to monitor digital

communications but want more memory and features than the Basic line provides. The Basic Line is fine if

you only need to monitor a few conventional channels such as aircraft, railroads or local public safety

channels and don’t need any advanced features of the Advanced or Digital lines.

Both the Advanced and Digital lines provide large channel capacity, support for several methods of

trunking and PL/DPL capability. Both lines support the 800 MHz Rebanding.

(You can read a great deal more about Rebanding elsewhere on the web but, in short, in order to separate

certain NEXTEL/cellular radio channels from public safety channels as a means to limit interference

Summary of content (18 pages)

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Special Report The RadioShack PRO106 Digital Scanner Features, Operation and Competition A Scanner Master Ultimate Review Copyright 2009, Richard Carlson/Scanner Master Corporation Introduction GRE has produced scanners for the US market for decades, but they are a new name in the industry here. How’s that? Well, remember the Radio Shack PRO2004, PRO2005 or PRO2006? How about the PRO96 or its mobile brother PRO2096? These were all built by GRE and sold by Radio Shack.
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between the two, many public safety agencies operating on 800 MHz radio systems are being compensated to move to new 700/800 MHz frequencies. For Motorola trunking radio systems this requires a change to the data structure of the system and therefore newer trunking scanners require a firmware upgrade to be able to continue to properly “trunk.” Older trunking scanners, such as the Bearcat 780XLT and many RadioShack models, are not upgradeable and therefore need to be replaced.
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Below the label is the battery door. If you remove the door and battery holder you will see that there are three battery holder contacts. Next look at the contacts on the yellow and black battery holders. You will see that they are slightly different. This is how the radio knows if you are using rechargeable batteries or not. Only use the yellow holder for rechargeable cells, if you use the black one they will not be charged in the radio. Conversely, only use the black holder for alkaline cells.
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use Text labels, and other parameters. With the 21 available V-Scanners this works out to over 37,000 available memories. Will you be able to program 37,000 channels? Probably not, but you might if you try hard enough! If you want to see how much memory you have used or have left you can press “0” twice during the startup screen. V-Scanners The RadioShack (as well as GRE) digital radios have a feature called V-Scanners.
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Some of the Search Options include limit searches (checking each frequency between an upper and lower limit), Service Searches or Signal Stalker. You can add any of these search types to a Scan List and run the searches while scanning other channels or talkgroups. As far as the radio is concerned it is just another Scannable Object, it really doesn’t care what type of Object it is. Keyboard The Keyboard of the radio is how you program the radio manually and control most of its actions.
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interesting 72-76 MHz band. It also does not pick up most of the frequencies assigned to domestic television broadcast. Even though the new Digital TV mode can not be decoded on any scanners, there are many wireless mics and occasionally other unusual operations found here. The PRO106 can hear communications in the AM, FM, NFM and P25 modes as well as decode PL (CTCSS), DPL (DCS) and NAC (Network Access Codes, used on P25 digital channels).
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further parameters, such as base channels, offsets or other technical details. For EDACS and LTR systems each of the frequencies used as well as the order in which they are programmed are needed. Most of the information needed for individual trunked systems is freely available on the RadioReference.com website, paid members can even program the systems directly into their radios using software such as ARC500.
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While the new channels are almost always going to be using the NFM mode, older channels could use either, at least for now. Unless you know for sure you may have to try both methods and see which works best. If you select FM now, your local agency might switch over any time, requiring you to adjust your programming. If you chose the wrong mode you will still hear the communication, but at a reduced volume or with distortion.
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OK, you have convinced me to use a CTCSS, DCS or NAC code. How do I figure out what codes are used in my area? Well, there are a couple ways. You can find them yourself by using the Tone Search feature on your scanner, you could look them up on RadioReference or another source, or you could ask the users if they could tell you. Chances are the third option would be laughed at by the local users, if they had any idea what you were talking about so the first two options are more realistic.
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favorite channel comes up. You can even set it to stay on indefinitely after activation, so if a rarely used channel pops up you will know that it was active, even if you weren’t around to hear it. There are so many settings for the Alert System (LED and audible) that as you use the radio you can add different combinations as you learn the radio. While it seems daunting at first, it can come in handy eventually.
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The PRO106 comes with a standard rubber coated spring type antenna, commonly referred to as a “Rubber Duck”. It connects onto the BNC connector on top of the radio. You can also use this to connect another antenna, either directly or with coaxial cable. You can use an antenna geared toward a specific band or one more generalized over the range of frequencies.
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conventional radio channels first. The learn how to add names (called Tags) to these channels. Then learn how to create Scan Lists. Finally learn how to program Trunked Systems and talkgroups into Scan Lists. Along the way you can take side trips and learn how to program limit searches and Signal Stalker events as well as adding these and Service Searches to Scan Lists.
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systems not only need all the channels used by the system but they have to be in the correct order or position number. The Expert Menu for trunked systems have a few different options, such as “Narrow FM” in case your system uses NFM on a band that is defaulted to regular FM, “Dwell” which controls how long the scanner waits for activity, the “MultiSite” feature for networked trunked systems and the ability to set custom tables and fleet maps as needed.
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channel will stay locked out until you unlock it specifically. You can still set a channel to a permanent Lockout by pressing the Func key then Lockout. To unlock a channel just press Manual and scroll to or use the Find feature to get to the Object and press the Lockout key to unlock it. Search & Talkgroup Lockouts: During Search or when scanning a trunked system events one of the Soft Keys will display L/Out and you can use this button to lock out a frequency or talkgroup.
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The PRO106 allows you to add text Tags to just about everything, from conventional channels to trunked talkgroups and systems to search types. If you have had high-end GRE-made scanners like the Pro96 in the past the PRO106 method will be easy to learn. After you have entered the frequency, talkgroup or whatever scroll until you see the “Tag” menu option. Select the Tag menu and scroll to the character you want to change.
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Firmware Updates The PRO106, in common with most high-end scanners these days, allows you to download and update the Firmware version in the radio. The Firmware is the basic operational language and user interface of the radio, kind of like what “Windows” is to a computer. With such a complicated system there are bound to be bugs, mistakes, or changes to be made. These updates are free from the RadioShack website and are applied with a Windows computer using the regular RadioShack/GRE USB programming cable.
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appears to be less sturdy that the Uniden. I would also have created a quick reference card to allow explanations of the basic features that fit on a pocket or wallet. The BCD396XT is smaller than the PRO106 and seems to reject strong signal interference better. Operations on large networked trunked systems using the Roaming feature on the PRO106 is pretty good but I think Uniden’s method of individual defined sites is better, especially on larger systems that have more than 28 control channels altogether.
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Many of the accessories for the other GRE and Radio Shack scanners will work for the PRO106 as well. Here are a few that you might be interested in: Cases: Spend this much on a radio and you will want to protect it from scratches, drops and dings. Nylon and soft leather cases are available. Since GRE does not provide a car charger for these radios you can use this Scanner Master power adaptor. Lose your AC adapter/charger? Want a second one to keep for travel? Use this adapter from Scanner Master.