RadioShack PRO-404 Owner Manual

User’s Guide 20-404/PRO-404

Handheld Radio Scanner

Thank you for purchasing your Handheld Radio Scanner from RadioShack. Please read this user’s guide before installing, setting up, and using your new scanner

Package Contents

Scanner

Antenna

Belt Clip

User’s Guide

Quick Start Guide

Alkaline Battery Holder

Rechargeable Battery Holder

www.radioshack.com

Contents

Features ................................................... 4

Understanding Your Scanner .............................5

Channel Storage Banks ...................................6

Service Banks ..................................................6

Preprogrammed Service Bank Frequencies ......6

Marine Service Bank ........................................6

Fire/Police Service Bank ..................................8

Aircraft Service Bank .......................................9

Ham Amateur Radio Service Bank ..................9

Weather Channels ...........................................9

Understanding the Keypad .............................10

Understanding the Display ..............................12

Additional Display Messages ........................13

Sub Bank Messages ......................................13

Setup ..................................................... 14

Power Sources .................................................14

Using Batteries ..............................................14

Charging Rechargeable Batteries .................16

Using External Power ....................................17

Connecting the Antenna .................................18

Connecting an Outdoor Antenna .................18

Connecting Headphones ................................18

Connecting an Extension Speaker ................19

Attaching/Removing the Belt Clip ................19

Basic Operation ..................................... 20

Turning on the Scanner and Setting Squelch .....20

Programming Known Frequencies into

Channels ..........................................................20

Searching for Active Frequencies ...................21

Tune Search ...................................................21

Service Bank Search ......................................22

Signal Stalker II Search ..................................22

Storing Found Frequencies into Channels ......23

Scanning the Stored Channels ........................24

Turning Channel-Storage Banks On and Off .....24

Monitoring a Stored Channel ..........................25

Clearing a Stored Channel ............................25

Listening to the Marine Bank ..........................25

Weather Features .................................. 26

Listening to a Weather Channel ......................26

Weather Alerts ................................................26

Receiving All Weather Alerts ........................26

Receiving Alerts for Speciﬁc Areas ...............27

About SAME Signals ...................................27

SAME Standby Mode ..................................27

Skywarn .........................................................28

Settings .................................................. 29

Setting Delay ...................................................29

Locking Out Channels and Frequencies .........29

Reviewing and Removing Lock-outs .............30

Stored Channels ..........................................30

Marine Service Bank ....................................30

Other Service Banks and Signal Stalker II ...30 Removing Lock-outs from All Frequencies

in a Service Bank .........................................31

Using Priority ...................................................31

Using the Display Backlight.............................32

Turning the Key Tone On and Off ...................32

Using the Key Lock ..........................................32

Additional Information ........................... 33

Cloning the Programmed Data .......................33

Programming with a Personal Computer ........33

Initializing the Scanner ....................................33

Troubleshooting ..............................................34

Birdie Frequencies ...........................................35

FCC Notice ......................................................35

Scanning Legally..............................................36

Care .................................................................37

Service and Repair ..........................................37

Speciﬁcations ..................................................37

Limited Warranty .............................................39

Features

Your new PRO-404 Handheld Scanner lets you scan conventional transmissions and is preprogrammed with search banks of the most common frequencies used by public service agencies. Service Banks are accessed by pressing a one-touch search key—no complicated programming required.

Your new scanner gives you direct access to over 25,000 frequencies, including those used by police and ﬁre departments, ambulance services, aircraft, and amateur radio services.

Your PRO-404 scanner also has these special features:

Signal Stalker II –

monitor, and store frequencies from nearby radio transmissions.

Service Banks –

preprogrammed frequencies in separate marine, ﬁre/ police, aircraft, ham, and weather banks.

Display Backlight –

low-light situations.

Lock-out Function –

frequencies when scanning or searching.

Ten Channel-Storage Banks –

channels in each bank (200 total channels).

tune to new and unlisted frequencies starting

Tune –

from a speciﬁed frequency.

SAME/FIPS Weather Alert –

event and sounds an alert for the speciﬁc cities or counties you choose.

Memory Backup –

memory for an extended time even without batteries.

Scan Delay –

moving to another channel in order to hear replies.

Priority Channel –

channel every two seconds while scanning.

Data Cloning –

another PRO-404 scanner.

a powerful tool to rapidly detect,

easily locate types of calls by searching

makes the display easy to read in

skip over speciﬁed channels or

group and store 20

displays the weather

frequencies remain stored in

delays scanning for two seconds before

set the scanner to check one

transfer the programmed data to

Key Lock – lock the scanner’s keys to help prevent accidentally changing the scanner’s programming.

Liquid-Crystal Display –

programming information.

Flexible Antenna with BNC Connector –

good reception of strong local signals. You can also connect an external antenna for improved reception of distant or weak signals.

Three Power Options –

batteries (rechargeable or non-rechargeable), external AC power (using an AC adapter, not supplied), or DC power (using a DC adapter, not supplied).

Your PRO-404 scanner can receive these bands:

Frequency Range Types of Transmissions

29–54 MHz 10-Meter Ham, VHF Lo,

108–136.9875 MHz Aircraft

137–174 MHz Military Land Mobile, 2-

380–512 MHz UHF Aircraft, Federal

Note: See “Speciﬁcations” on page 37 for more information about frequency steps.

easy to view and change

provides

power the scanner using

6-Meter Ham

Meter Ham, VHF Hi

Government, 70-cm Ham, UHF Standard, UHF “T”

Understanding Your Scanner

Once you understand a few simple terms used in this manual and familiarize yourself with your scanner’s features, you can put the scanner to work for you. Simply determine the type of communications you want to receive, then set the scanner to scan them.

A frequency is the receiving signal location (expressed in kHz or MHz). To ﬁnd active frequencies, use the search function or consult an online resource such as www.radioreference.com. You can also search the

Service Banks

categorized by type of service.

When you ﬁnd a frequency, you can store it into a programmable memory location called a channel,

, which are preset groups of frequencies

Features

which is grouped with other channels in a channelstorage bank. You can then scan the channel-storage

banks to see if there is activity on the frequencies stored there. Each time the scanner ﬁnds an active frequency, it stays on that channel until the transmission ends.

Channel Storage Banks

To make it easier to identify and select the channels you want to listen to, your scanner divides the channels into 10 banks (1 to 10) with 20 channels each, for a total of 200 channels. You can use each channel-storage bank to group frequencies, such as those used by the police department, ﬁre department, ambulance services, or aircraft.

For example, you could program the frequencies used by your local police department starting with Channel 1 (the ﬁrst channel in bank 1) and program the ﬁre department frequencies starting with Channel 21 (the ﬁrst channel in bank 2).

Service Banks

The scanner is preprogrammed with the frequencies allocated to marine, ﬁre/police, aircraft, ham radio, and weather services. This is handy for quickly ﬁnding active frequencies instead of searching through an entire bank (see “Service Bank Search” on page 22).

Preprogrammed Service Bank Frequencies

Marine Service Bank

Channel Frequency

(MHz)

01 156.0500 63 156.1750

02 156.2500 64 156.2250

06 156.3000 160.8250

07 156.3500 65 156.2750

08 156.4000 66 156.3250

09 156.4500 67 156.3750

10 156.5000 68 156.4250

Channel Frequency

(MHz)

Channel Frequency

11 156.5500 69 156.4750

12 156.6000 70 156.5250

13 156.6500 71 156.5750

14 156.7000 72 156.6250

15 156.7500 73 156.6750

16 156.8000 74 156.7250

17 156.8500 77 156.8750

18 156.9000 78 156.9250

19 156.9500 79 156.9750

20 157.0000 80 157.0250

21 157.0500 82 157.1250

22 157.1000 83 157.1750

23 157.1500 84 157.2250

24 157.2000 161.8250

25 157.2500 161.8750

26 157.3000 161.9250

27 157.3500 161.9750

28 157.4000

(MHz)

161.6000 81 157.0750

161.8000 85 157.2750

161.8500 86 157.3250

161.9000 87 157.3750

161.9500 88 157.4250

162.0000

Channel Frequency

(MHz)

n Note: Both frequencies (transmission and reception)

are shown for marine channels used for duplex transmission.

Features

Fire/Police Service Bank

Aircraft Service Bank

Group Frequency Range (MHz) Step (kHz)

1 33.420-33.980 20

37.020-37.420 20

39.020-39.980 20

42.020-42.940 20

44.620-45.860 40

45.880 -

45.900-46.060 40

46.080-46.500 20

2 153.770-154.130 60

154.145-154.445 15

154.650-154.950 15

155.010-155.370 60

155.415-155.700 15

155.730-156.210 60

158.730-159.210 60

166.250 -

170.150 -

3 453.0375-453.9625 12.5

458.0375-458.9625 12.5

460.0125-460.6375 12.5

465.0125-465.6375 12.5

Group Frequency Range (MHz) Step (kHz)

1 108.000-118.000 12.5

2 118.0125-136.9875 12.5

Ham Amateur Radio Service Bank

Group Frequency Range (MHz) Step (kHz)

1 29.000-29.700 5

2 50.000-54.000 5

3 144.000-148.000 5

4 420.000-450.000 12.5

Weather Channels

Channel Frequency (MHz)

1 162.400

2 162.425

3 162.450

4 162.475

5 162.500

6 162.525

7 162.550

Features

Understanding the Keypad

(Marine)

Search the preprogrammed marine bank.

(Fire Department/Police Department)

Search the preprogrammed ﬁre/police bank.

(Aircraft)

Search the preprogrammed aircraft bank.

(HAM)

Search the preprogrammed amateur radio bank.

/ (Weather / Skywarn)

Search the seven preprogrammed weather channels.

Press and hold to jump to the Skywarn channel

(channel 200). You must ﬁrst program your local Skywarn frequency into channel 200 (see page 20).

SCAN / MAN (Manual)

Enter Scan mode to scan programmed channels.

Enter Manual mode to stop scanning, directly enter

a channel number, or monitor a single channel.

PRI / ALERT

Enable and disable the priority feature.

Enable and disable SAME standby mode when

monitoring a weather channel.

TUNE / CLEAR

Enter Tune search.

Clear an incorrect entry.

e d

Select the direction for searching and scanning.

L/O

L/O RVW

Lock-out selected channels or frequencies.

Review locked-out frequencies.

Turn the backlight on and off.

Press and hold to lock and unlock the keypad.

PGM

Program frequencies into channels.

(Signal Stalker II)

Activate the Signal Stalker II function.

0–9

Input a number when entering frequencies and

selecting banks (0 selects bank 10). The range of numbers above the key (1–20, 21–40,

41-60, etc.) indicates the channels stored in that bank.

• / DELAY

Input a decimal point when entering frequencies.

Program a two-second delay for the selected

channel.

ENT (Enter)

Complete the entry of frequencies.

PSE (Pause)

Stop and restart a search or tune.

Features

Understanding the Display

Row 1 Row 2

Row 3

Row 4

Row 1

– Signal Stalker II search is active.

BANK –

the scan bank. The bar under the bank number shows banks that are turned on for scanning.

Appears with numbers (1–10) to indicate

– Keypad locked.

Row 2

WX – Searching weather channels.

Searching the marine bank.

MAR –

FD/PD –

AIR –

HAM –

Searching the ﬁre/police bank.

Searching the aircraft bank.

Searching the amateur radio bank.

Row 3

– Skywarn channel active.

000

– Channel number the scanner is tuned to.

Appears with channel number (1–

CH –

(priority channel).

000.0000

L/ 0

selected or reviewed.

– Frequency the scanner is tuned to.

– Batteries are low.

– A locked out channel/frequency is manually

200

) or

Additional Display Messages

ALL CH L-out

or marine band search .

b X Ch-FULL

b X StorE

bank’s channel.

CLOnE

-dUPL-

Error

FLo ALL-CL

removed during a FD/PD, AIRCRAFT, HAM, or Signal Stalker II search.

L-r

L-O Fr-FULL

locked out.

oFF tonE

On tonE

-t-

– Clone mode.

– Frequency is already stored in another channel.

– Entry error.

– Review the locked-out frequencies.

– Scanner is tuned to the priority channel.

– Tune mode.

– All channels locked out during scan

– All displayed bank channels are full.

– Frequency programmed into displayed

– All the locked-out frequencies

– Maximum of 50 frequencies already

– Key tone deactivated.

– Key tone activated.

Row 4

e d (Up/Down) – Search or scan direction.

SRCH –

SCAN –

MAN –

PGM –

PRI –

DLY –

Searching a service bank.

Scan mode.

Manual mode.

Program mode.

Priority feature is active.

Two-second delay is active.

Sub Bank Messages

Lo VHF

Hi VHF

UHF

10 M

6 M

2 M

70CM

– Sub-bank 1 of the ﬁre/police bank.

– Sub-bank 2 of the ﬁre/police bank.

– Sub-bank 3 of the ﬁre/police bank.

– Sub-bank 1 of the HAM bank.

– Sub-bank 2 of the HAM bank.

– Sub-bank 3 of the HAM bank.

– Sub-bank 4 of the HAM bank.

+ 14 hidden pages