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Reviews For: Radio Shack PRO-99

Category: Receivers: Scanners

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Review Summary For : Radio Shack PRO-99
Reviews: 2MSRP: 169.99
Description:
This is one scanner developed specifically with the race enthusiast in mind. Along with virtually all racing frequencies, it also picks up local marine, police/fire, Ham, VHF-air, weather and other frequencies as well. Enter specific ID names so the scanner can display text indicating who you are listening to—including driver names. Store multiple frequencies under the same car or driver name. Receive weather information with the push of a button—hear storm alerts, travel advisories, emergency information and advance warnings of severe weather conditions from the NOAA Weather Radio station serving your area.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=&product%5Fid=20%2D515&hp=search
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0023.5
SCANNERNUT Rating: 2005-12-01
Good Scanner Bad Timing Time Owned: more than 12 months.
In my personal opinion I thing this is a good basic scanner. It is a 500ch. scanner. Great back/key light. Ctcss tone code. First draw back is no Dcs tone code. I think this scanner did not get a fair chance do to the Pro-95,Pro-96 and the new Pro-97 scanners all comming out around the same time.

KG8PQ Rating: 2005-06-28
Nice scanner... with some holes. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I owned this scanner for just under a month before I returned it (more on that later). Previously I've used my RS-Pro 95 scanner at the races I attend. The alpha display has been a real help to me, and I can also use it's trunking features for public safety monitoring back home. But what excited me about the Pro-99 was the CTCSS squelching. The race I most attend is in an urban area and I have to put up with lots of shared business band radio traffic from the community when I'm trying to listen to the cars on the race track.

The Pro-99 is physically a nice unit. The controls are well laid out and the unit is a lot smaller than my Pro-95. It's also nice that it only utilizes 3 AA batteries. The programming is a little different than my other scanners, but it isn't too hard to get the hang of it. The display is nice and offers a lot of information to the user.

As a "race scanner", if offers the usual ability to associate a channel with a given race car number. However, oddly the car number only displays in "Car Number Operation" (when you limit your scanning to one car), but not in general memory scan mode. So you have to double enter the car number (once as part of the alpha text for the channel, and again to associate the channel with the car number).

But the biggest drawback with the scanner is that it only offers CTCSS squelching. Most major racing series use both CTCSS and DCS (Uniden/Relm Code) squelching. So this scanner was only half of a solution for me.

I ended up returning the Pro-99 and have ordered a Uniden SC230. The SC230 offers both CTCSS and DCS squelching, as well as a frequency counter feature called "Close Call". The Uniden can be found, if you look around, for about $20 more than the Pro-99... but the price difference becomes moot when you consider that Uniden includes the PC programming cable for free and RS charges $25 for theirs.