RadioShack Pro 29 Programmable Scanner Reciever Owners Manual

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Direct Search
When you listen to a channel, you can search up or down from the cur-
rently displayed frequency. 
-d- appears on the display during a direct
search.
1. Press 
MANUAL, the channel number, then MANUAL to select a fre-
quency stored in a channel.
2. Press 
t or s to search up or down from the selected frequency.
3. When the scanner stops on a transmission, press 
MONITOR to
store that frequency in the current monitor memory. Or, press 
t or s
to continue the search.
4. To hold the frequency, press 
LIMIT. -h- appears on the display.
To exit the hold mode and resume the direct search, press 
LIMIT
again.
Notes:
• You can press 
t or s during the hold mode to step through the
frequencies toward the upper or lower limits.
• If you tune to a search skip frequency, the display shows 
L/O
(see “Search Skip Memory”).
~~~
~~
~
HI LO AIR
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							22
LISTENING TO MONITOR MEMORIES
Once you have stored frequencies into monitor memories using a direct
or limit search, you can listen to the monitor memories by pressing 
MAN-
UAL
, MONITOR, and then the number for the monitor memory you want
to listen to.
MOVING A FREQUENCY FROM A MONITOR 
MEMORY TO A CHANNEL
Follow these steps to move a frequency stored in a monitor memory to
a permanent channel.
1. Press 
MANUAL.
2. Enter the number for the channel where you want to store the
monitor frequency. The channel number appears.
3. Press 
PROGRAM.
4. Press 
MONITOR and the number of the monitor memory number
that has the frequency you want to store. The channel number
starts flashing.
5. Press 
WX/E. The scanner stores the frequency in the selected
channel, and the channel number stops flashing.
~~~
~~
~
HI LO AIR
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MANUALLY SELECTING A CHANNEL
You can continuously monitor a specific channel without scanning. This
is useful if you hear an emergency broadcast on a channel and do not
want to miss any details — even though there might be periods of si-
lence — or if you want to monitor a specific channel.
Follow these steps to manually select a channel.
1. Press 
MANUAL.
2. Enter the channel number.
3. Press 
MANUAL again.
Or, if your scanner is scanning and stops at the desired channel, press
MANUAL one time. (Pressing MANUAL additional times causes your
scanner to step through the channels.)
To resume automatic scanning after manually selecting a channel,
press 
SCAN. Your scanner then scans through all non-locked channels
in the activated banks. 
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SPECIAL FEATURES 
USING THE KEYLOCK
Once you program your scanner, you can protect it from accidental pro-
gram changes by turning on the keylock feature. In this mode, the only
controls that operate are 
SCAN, MANUAL, KEYLOCK/, VOLUME, and
SQUELCH. 
Note: 
The keylock does not prevent the scanner from scanning chan-
nels.
To turn on the keylock, press and hold 
KEYLOCK/until the scanner
beeps and 
KEYLOCK appears on the display. To turn it off, press and
hold 
KEYLOCK/until the scanner beeps and KEYLOCK disappears
from the display.
LOCKING OUT CHANNELS
You can increase the effective scanning speed by locking out individual
channels that have a continuous transmission, such as a weather chan-
nel. To lock out a channel, manually select the channel and press 
LOCK-
OUT/S/S
 so L/O appears on the display.
To remove the lock-out from a channel, manually select the channel and
press 
LOCKOUT/S/S so L/O disappears from the display. 
Note:
 You can manually select locked-out channels.
To remove the lock-out from all channels in a memory bank, follow this
procedure.
1. While scanning, press the number key corresponding to the mem-
ory bank you want to unlock.
2. Press 
MANUAL to enter the manual mode.
3. Press and hold 
LOCKOUT for more than 3 seconds. The scanner
beeps twice, and all locked out memory channels in the selected
bank are unlocked.
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TURNING CHANNEL-STORAGE BANKS ON 
AND OFF
You can turn each channel-storage bank on and off. When you turn off
a bank, the scanner does not scan any of the 10 channels in that bank.
While scanning, press the number key corresponding to the bank you
want to turn on or off. If the memory bank indicator is on, the bank is
turned on and the scanner scans all channels within that bank that are
not locked out. If the indicator is off, the scanner does not scan any of
the channels within that bank.
Notes:
• You can manually select any channel in a bank, even if the bank is
turned off.
• You cannot turn off all banks. One bank is always active.
SEARCH SKIP MEMORY
You can skip specified frequencies during a limit or direct search. This
lets you avoid unwanted frequencies or ones you have already stored
in a channel. You can program up to 30 skip frequencies into the scan-
ner’s memory.
To skip a frequency, press 
LOCKOUT/S/S when the scanner stops on the
frequency during a limit or direct search.
To clear a single frequency from skip memory so the scanner can stop
on it during a limit or direct search, press 
LIMIT to hold the search, press
t or s to select the frequency, then press LOCKOUT/S/S until L/O disap-
pears from the display.
Memory Banks 3 & 4 are Turned Off
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							26
To clear all the skip frequencies at once, while in the search mode,
press and hold 
LOCKOUT/S/S until the scanner beeps twice.
Notes:
• If you program more than 30 skip frequencies, each new fre-
quency replaces ones you stored earlier, starting from the first
stored frequency.
• You can select the skipped frequency when the scanner is in the
hold mode. The scanner displays 
L/O when you select a skipped
frequency.
PRIORITY
You can scan through channels and still not miss an important or inter-
esting call on a specific channel. When a channel is selected as the pri-
ority channel and the priority feature is turned on, the scanner checks
that channel every 2 seconds, and stays on the channel if there is activ-
ity. 
PRI appears on the display whenever the scanner is set to the pri-
ority mode.
To program a channel as the priority channel, press 
PROGRAM, the de-
sired channel number, then 
PRIORITY. P appears beside the channel
number. 
To turn on the priority feature, press 
PRIORITY while the scanner is in
either manual or scan mode. To turn off the priority feature, press 
PRI-
ORITY
 until PRI disappears from the display.
Notes:
• You can only select one channel at a time as the priority channel.
• Channel 1 is initially set as the priority channel.
• You cannot select a monitor memory when priority is turned on.
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USING THE DISPLAY BACKLIGHT
You can turn on the display’s backlight for easy viewing in the dark.
Press 
KEYLOCK/to turn on the display light for 15 seconds. To turn
off the light before 15 seconds elapses, press 
KEYLOCK/again.
Note:
 Do not hold down 
KEYLOCK/or it will lock up the keypad. If this
happens, press and hold 
KEYLOCK/until the scanner beeps and
KEYLOCK disappears from the display.
LISTENING TO THE WEATHER BAND
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has allocated 11
channels for use by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-
tion (NOAA). We have preprogrammed your scanner with the seven fre-
quencies most commonly used by NOAA. 
To hear your local forecast and regional weather information, simply
press 
WX/E. Your scanner begins scanning through the weather band,
and 
WX appears on the display.
Your scanner should stop within a few seconds, and then you hear the
local weather broadcast. If the broadcast is weak, you can press 
WX/E
again to scan through the rest of the weather band.
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A GENERAL GUIDE TO SCANNING
Reception of the frequencies covered by your scanner is mainly “line-of-
sight.” That means you usually cannot hear stations that are beyond the
horizon.
GUIDE TO FREQUENCIES
National Weather Frequencies
* Not preprogrammed in this scanner, but you can manually program
them.
Ham Radio Frequencies
Ham radio operators often transmit emergency information when other
means of communication break down.
The following chart shows the frequencies this scanner receives that
Hams normally use:
Note:
 Your scanner cannot receive some types of transmissions on
these bands.
161.650* 161.775* 162.400 162.425
162.440* 162.450 162.475 162.500
162.525 162.550 163.275*
Wa ve len gth
(meters)Frequency
(MHz)
10-meter 28.000–29.700
6-meter 50.000–54.000
2-meter 144.000–148.000
70-cm 420.000–450.000
33-cm 902.000–928.000
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Birdie Frequencies
Every scanner has birdie frequencies. Birdies are signals created inside
the scanner’s receiver. These operating frequencies might interfere with
broadcasts on the same frequencies. If you program one of these fre-
quencies, you hear only noise on that frequency. If the interference is
not severe, you might be able to turn 
SQUELCH clockwise to cut out the
birdie.
The birdie frequencies on this unit to watch for are:
To find the birdies in your receiver, begin by disconnecting the antenna
and moving it away from the receiver. Make sure that no other nearby
radio or TV sets are turned on near the receiver. Use the search function
and scan every frequency range from its lowest frequency to the high-
est. Occasionally, the searching will stop as if it had found a signal, often
without any sound. That is a birdie. Make a list of all the birdies in your
scanner for future reference.
31.05
41.40
51.75
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GUIDE TO THE ACTION BANDS
Typical Band Usage
HF Band (3.00–30.0 MHz)
10-Meter Amateur  29.00–29.70 MHz
High Range 29.70–29.90 MHz
VHF Band (30.00–300.0 MHz)
Low Range 30.00–50.00 MHz
6-Meter Amateur 50.00–54.00 MHz
Aircraft 108.00–136.97 MHz
U.S. Government 137.00–144.00 MHz
2-Meter Amateur 144.00–148.00 MHz
High Range 148.00–174.00 MHz
UHF Band (300.00 MHz–3.0 GHz)
U. S. Government 406.00–450.00 MHz
0.6-Meter Amateur 420.00–450.00 MHz
Low Range 450.00–470.00 MHz
FM-TV Audio Broadcast, Wide Band 470.00–512.00 MHz
Public Service 806.00–823.93 MHz
Conventional Systems 851.00–856.00 MHz
Conventional/Trunked Systems 856.00–861.00 MHz
Trunked Systems 861.00–866.00 MHz
Public Safety 866.00–868.93 MHz
High Range 896.11–902.00 MHz
33-Centimeter Amateur 902.00–928.00 MHz
Private Trunked 935.00–940.00 MHz
General Trunked 940.00–941.00 MHz
Fixed Services 941.00–944.00 MHz
Studio-to-Transmitter Broadcast Links 944.00–952.00 MHz
Private Fixed Services Paging 952.00–956.00 MHz
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