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Reviews For: GRE PSR-800

Category: Receivers: Scanners

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Review Summary For : GRE PSR-800
Reviews: 28MSRP: $499
Description:
EZ-SCAN DIGITAL. Latest GRE Scanner with complete USA & Canada Radio Reference database stored on SD card. Simple to program from music player style interface. Scanner firmware can be updated from SD card.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.greamerica.com/PSR-800.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00283.4
WZ3O Rating: 2012-05-02
Very Good Scanner.. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Would give it a five it you could scan faster but at least for now you can't...
Great audio, solid build, nice screen ....

To the battery life sucking "issue", you need to reset the Battery Indicator in the Advanced tab along the bottom of the software to the following for NiMH batteries:

4.78
4.59
4.42
4.35
4.25
4.20
4.18
4.10
4.08

Works very well, makes a set of 2000mAh batteries last forever...OK almost ...
My usage isn't continual but in using with back-light "ON" at all times...They will probably last a week +, I'll report back when I have a time frame to leave on constantly & see how long they go ...

----------------------
Earlier 4-star review posted by WZ3O on 2012-05-02

Would give it a five it you could scan faster but at least for now you can't...
Great audio, solid build, nice screen ....

To the battery life "issue" reset the Battery Indicator in the Advanced tab along the bottom of the software to the following for NiMH batteries:

4.78
4.59
4.42
4.35
4.25
4.20
4.18
4.10
4.08

Works very well, makes a set of 2000mAh batteries last forever...OK almost ...
My usage isn't continual but in using with back-light "ON" at all times...They will probably last a week +, I'll report back when I have a time frame to leave on constantly & see how long they go ...
WES Rating: 2012-04-09
Good, just not for me. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
There are huge pros to this system, namely the entire RadioReference database on a SD card and the weekly database updates available for download. With the software, it's super-easy to get up and running too.

Here are the two negatives that caused me to trade it for a PSR-500. First, the battery life is cranky at best. I realize that you can adjust the settings in the software (which I did), but you shouldn't HAVE to. The primary reason that I traded it in was its terrible performance on my local (Austin, TX) P25 simulcast system sites. When that's the primary public safety communications system in your area, the reception needs to be good, if not great. Unfortunately, in this realm, the PSR-800 doesn't hold a candle to any of the other radios I've used here (BCD296T, BCD396T, and PSR-500)for this specific need.

As such, I can only recommend it for analog monitoring. (Which it does a great job on, by the way!)
N3LCW Rating: 2012-04-02
Excellent digital scanner Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is the best sounding scanner especially decoding P25 digital signals. The built in recording capability is great for capturing events while away and playing back later.

Battery life is excellent AFTER you adjust the battery life scale settings in the advanced settings. A set of Energizer Recharge AA's gets 10 - 12 hours life easily. The sensitivity is excellent.

The use of removable micro SD memory cards allows for extended recording times, hundreds of hours with larger memory capacity.

The entire RadioReference.com database is on the micro SD card and allows immediate use, as easy as entering your zip code for location.

This has been the easiest to use scanner to date.

N9PI Rating: 2012-03-28
Needs some help Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I really agree with all the other reviews with the exception of the time it runs on batteries! It sucks! At best I get less than 4 hours with 3000 MA NiMHD rechargeable batteries. I would have thought that it would have been better than this. I even run the unit with no LED and no back light. This is the most disappointing feature to me. I hope others are having better battery life than I am!
SIERRAHOTEL Rating: 2012-03-17
I really wanted to like this radio. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Well, I have to say, I really wanted to like this radio, but I couldn't, it just annoyed me. First problem I had was it locked up, a lot. It was mostly at random, but it happened quite often during searches and when programming. Sometimes, it locked up during railband searches so often I would get frustrated, and walk away for a while. Updating the firmware resolved this, for the most part, but it was never totally fixed. The next problem I had with it was it was seriously deaf on 800MHZ and VHF-HI. On the PSR-800, compared to my other scanners, signals were unreadable that were nearly full quieting on my other radios. Resetting it helped a little (I have no idea why), but it was still deaf enough that I eventually sent it in to GRE, who claimed it "Meets specs". At that point, I had enough and sold it off for almost what I paid for it, and went back to using, and enjoying, my PSR-500 and Pro-106 handhelds. My final opinion of the PSR-800 was it was one of the most frustrating, and annoying, scanners I have ever owned, out of more than 100 different models going back to the "Little Tiger" converter days.
KC1MK Rating: 2011-12-04
Best scanner I've used Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just received my PSR-800 about a week and a half ago, and so far I am quite pleased with its features and performance. I live outside a small town, so no issues (or way of determining if there might be any) with very strong nearby RF. Performs reasonably well with the stock antenna, but an aftermarket Austin Antenna really makes it shine. No problem getting reasonable signals from Austin, about 25 miles to the south of me, with the scanner sitting inside on top of one of my studio monitors on my desk. Also works great mobile, where the programmable alert LEDs really come in handy -- I have LED flash settings for different agencies in my area and can tell at a glance what agency I am monitoring.
The included software is, while not perfect, very useful, in fact necessary really. With it, it's fairly quick and easy to set up scanlists and virtual scanners as needed, and it's quick and easy to update the frequency database and upgrade the PSR-800 CPU firmware and DSP.
I would probably give it a five, or at least a 4.7 or 4.8, at this point except for the battery life issue. It does go through batteries faster than any other scanner I have used, but get a good charger and a few sets of good rechargeable NiMh batteries and this isn't a problem. I use a Powerex C9000 charger and Powerex 2700mAH AA batteries and am pleased with these. The C9000 charger also did a very good job of reviving some Eveready 2400mAH AAs that are several years old, and these also provide reasonable battery life in the PSR-8000.
Scanning is really just a side interest for me, but this is my first new scanner in quite a few years, and I am pleased with my choice. Main thing I miss in scanning in recent years is that my county went to an encrypted system for all law enforcement communications, and I miss being able to monitor what is going on in my town and county. Texas DPS, however, is unencrypted APCO25, and I do enjoy monitoring DPS.
KE7VXP Rating: 2011-06-18
Great radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Review after two weeks ownership. The concept is that you get the entire ScannerStuff national frequency/talkgroup directory with the radio and you program from that database. It works. Slight problem is that rural locales might be missing from the database. Otherwise, for urban and suburban loci the program is complete and great. Very easy to get the scanner programmed. Very good performance. With the five inch ducky the thing is quite sensitive and quieting is good. I think you get what you pay for with this radio.

Gripes and criticisms: Nothing beautiful about this thing. It is a plain black box. Display uses battery power and is virtually invisible without backlight on. Like everyone else's menus you have to experiment to learn it. The nice matte finish on the front wore off close to the knobs pretty quickly and it doesn't like being mixed up with my 2m/70cm rigs in the go bag. But these are small gripes, it is a really good functional machine.
M0JSS Rating: 2011-02-16
Very Cool Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just received it yesterday. I will need to make a follow up review in a few weeks. I am totally new to digital scanning. I have only had analog scanners up to this point. This is one sweet scanner. I was up and scanning P25 and other local Northern Virginia trunking systems minutes after putting in the batteries. But looking at the software and documentation it also has lots of user programmable options. It maybe a little heavy on battery consumption. I was thinking of the Uniden Home Patrol but saw a PSR-800 demo at the Richmond Hamfest. I ordered from AES my S/N is 11xx but I would have to think this is one of the first ones shipped in the US. No longer do I have to re-program and research scanner frequencies before vacation or trip. One feature not on the pdf spec sheet is the capability to record scanner transmissions to the internal SD card. Connections to the computer is super easy with the provided USB cable which will also charge the 4 AA sized NMH batteries if you install and set the battery compartment switch to the NMH position. I have only used disposable AA batteries so far. With the USB cable connected the internal SD card shows up as a drive letter. I updated the internal database which was about 4 weeks old. The software installed fine on Windows 7 64 bit and had no issues. I checked for firmware updates to the CPU and DSP but both were up to date at version 1.0 In playing around I did corrupt the firmware but it was easy to recover with just a couple mouse clicks. GRE providing free updates to the scanner database is a great bonus. It uses a standard SD card and you can make a replacement SD card from the included software. The SD card is easy to remove once you take off the battery cover. You don't have to take the batteries out to remove the SD card. The flap that covers the USB connector looks like it will break off but time will tell. The connector looks like a standard mini-USB so I would guess any USB cable would work if you loose the one shipped with the unit. So far I am very happy and will report back once I get more time with the GRE EZ Scan Digital.