RadioShack Pro 90 TrunkTracker Scanner Owners Manual

							21
Notes:
• If you have not stored frequencies into any chan-
nels, the scanner does not scan.
• If the scanner picks up unwanted, partial, or very
weak transmissions, turn 
SQUELCH counterclockwise
to decrease the scanners sensitivity to these sig-
nals. If you want to listen to a weak or distant sta-
tion, turn 
SQUELCH clockwise.
•If 
SQUELCH is adjusted so you always hear a hissing
sound, the scanner does not scan properly.
STORING KNOWN FREQUENCIES 
INTO CHANNELS
Good references for active frequencies are the Ra-
dioShack “Police Call Guide including Fire and Emer-
gency Services,” “Official Aeronautical Frequency
Directory,” and “Maritime Frequency Directory.” We up-
date these directories every year, so be sure to get a
current copy.
Note: To store trunking system frequencies, see “Pro-
gramming Trunked Frequencies” on Page 34.
Follow these steps to store frequencies into channels.
1. Press 
MANUAL, enter the channel number where you
want to store a frequency, then press 
MANUAL again.
The channel number appears. 
2. Use the number keys and 
• to enter the frequency
(including the decimal point) you want to store.
20-520.fm  Page 21  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							22
3. Press E to store the frequency into the channel.
Notes:
• If you made a mistake in Step 2, 
Error appears
and the scanner beeps when you press 
E. Simply
start again from Step 2. 
• Your scanner automatically rounds the entered
frequency to the nearest valid frequency. For
example, if you enter a frequency of 151.473,
your scanner accepts it as 151.475.
•Press 
DELAY if you want the scanner to pause 2
seconds on this channel after a transmission
ends before it proceeds to the next channel (see
“Delay” on Page 26). The scanner also stores
this setting in the channel.
4. If you want to program the next channel in
sequence, press 
MANUAL and repeat Steps 2 and 3. 
LIMIT SEARCH
If you do not know a frequency to store, you can search
for transmissions within a range of frequencies you se-
lect, called the 
limit search range. Then you can store
any interesting frequencies you find into channels.
1. Press 
MANUAL, enter the channel number where you
want to store a frequency, then press 
MANUAL again.
The channel number appears. 
2. Use the number keys and 
• to enter the frequency
that is the lower limit of the range you want to
search.
3. Press 
LIMIT.
20-520.fm  Page 22  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							23
4. Use the number keys and • to enter the frequency
that is the upper limit of the range you want to
search.
5. Press 
LIM IT, then press SRCH. The scanner begins to
search from the lower limit to the upper limit.
6. When the scanner stops on a transmission, quickly
press either:
•E
 to store the displayed frequency into the chan-
nel. The scanner stores the frequency and con-
tinues searching.
• s or t to stop searching so you can listen to the
transmission. 
HOLD appears.
To release hold and continue searching, press
SRCH.
Notes:
• To step through the frequencies while 
HOLD
appears, press s or t.
• If you tune to a search skip frequency, 
L/O
appears. See “Locking Out Channels and Frequen-
cies” on Page 27.
• To skip data signals (such as modem signals), press
DATA. See “Skipping Data Signals” on Page 31.
SCANNING SERVICE BANKS
You can scan for police, fire/emergency, aircraft, marine,
and weather transmissions even if you do not know the
specific frequencies that are used in your area. And, you
can store any of the frequencies you find into channels.
20-520.fm  Page 23  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							24
Your scanner has the following preprogrammed service
banks.
• POLICE — contains 1,079 police frequencies.
• FIRE/EMG — contains 280 fire and emergency ser-
vice frequencies.
• AIR — contains 2,319 aircraft and air service fre-
quencies.
• MRN contains 65 marine frequencies.
• WX — contains 7 weather frequencies.
To select a service bank, press 
SVC. A service bank’s
name 
(POLICE, FIRE/EMG, AIR, MRN, or WX) and
one of the preset police frequencies appear. After a 2-
second delay, scanning begins. To select another ser-
vice bank, repeatedly press 
SVC until the scanner dis-
plays the name of the bank you want to use.
Notes:
 
• In the marine band, the active frequency and its
marine channel number alternately appear.
• To skip data signals (such as modem signals), press
DATA. See “Skipping Data Signals” on Page 31.
• Because frequencies are not always assigned to the
same services everywhere, you might hear transmis-
sions from one service in another service group.
If necessary, press 
SCAN to start scanning immediately
or to continue scanning if you want to skip a frequency.
During service-scan, you can press 
HOLD to pause the
scanning. 
HOLD appears. Press s or t to move up or
down one step, or press 
SCAN to resume scanning.
Follow these steps to store frequencies into channels.
1. Press 
MANUAL. HOLD appears. 
2. Use the number keys to enter the channel number
(1–300) where you want to store the frequency, then
press 
MANUAL.
3. Press 
SVC to select a service bank and begin scanning.
4. When the scanner stops on a transmission, press
HOLD. The frequency appears.
5. Press 
E to store the frequency into the channel.
20-520.fm  Page 24  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							25
SCANNING THE STORED CHANNELS
To begin scanning channels, press SCAN. The scanner
scans through all non-locked channels in the activated
banks. When the scanner finds a transmission, it stops
on it. When the transmission ends, the scanner resumes
scanning.
Note:
 To scan in the trunk tracking mode, see “Scanning
a Trunked Bank” on Page 36.
MANUALLY SELECTING A CHANNEL
You can continuously monitor a single channel without
scanning. This is useful if you hear an emergency broad-
cast on a channel and do not want to miss any details —
even though there might be periods of silence — 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 ad-
ditional times causes your scanner to step through the
channels.)
To resume scanning, press 
SCAN.
DELETING A STORED FREQUENCY
1. Press MANUAL.
2. Use the number keys to enter the channel number
containing the frequency you want to delete. Then
press 
MANUAL again.
3. Press 
0, then press E. The frequency is deleted.
Note:
 Channels with no frequencies are automatically
locked out during scanning.
20-520.fm  Page 25  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							26
SPECIAL FEATURES
DELAY
Many agencies use a two-way radio system that might
have a period of 2 or more seconds between a query
and a reply. To keep from missing a reply, you can pro-
gram a 2-second delay into any channel or frequency.
The scanner continues to monitor the frequency for 2
seconds after the transmission stops before resuming
scanning or searching.
To program a 2-second delay:
• If the scanner is scanning channel-storage banks
and stops on an active channel where you want to
store a delay, quickly press 
DLY before it continues
scanning again. 
DLY appears.
• If the desired channel is not
selected, manually select the
channel, then press 
DLY. DLY
appears.
• If the scanner is scanning service banks, press 
DLY
while the scanner is scanning. DLY appears and
the scanner automatically adds a 2-second delay
to every transmission it stops on in that band.
To turn off the 2-second delay, press 
DLY while the scan-
ner is monitoring the channel or scanning the service
banks. 
DLY disappears from the display.
20-520.fm  Page 26  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							27
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 30 channels in that bank.
While scanning, press the number key that corresponds
to the bank you want to turn on or off. If the bar under the
bank number is on, the bank is turned on and the scan-
ner scans all channels within that bank that are not
locked out. If the bar is off, the scanner does not scan
any of the channels within that bank.
Notes:
• You can manually select any channel within a bank,
even if that bank is turned off.
• You cannot turn off all banks. One bank is always
active.
LOCKING OUT CHANNELS AND 
FREQUENCIES
You can scan existing channels or search frequencies
faster by locking out channels or frequencies that have a
continuous transmission, such as a weather channel.
Note:
 If you just want to skip over a lengthy transmission
(such as a modem signal), see “Skipping Data Signals”
on Page 31.
Locking Out Channels
To lock out a channel while
scanning, press 
L/O when the
scanner stops on the chan-
nel. To lock out a channel
manually, manually select
the channel and hold down
L/O until L/O appears.
L/O
20-520.fm  Page 27  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							28
Note: You can still manually select locked-out channels.
To remove the lockout from a channel, manually select
the channel and hold down 
L/O until L/O disappears
from the display.
To unlock all channels in the banks that are turned on,
press 
MANUAL to stop scanning, then hold down L/O until
the scanner beeps twice.
Locking Out Frequencies
To lock out a frequency during a limit search or service
bank scan, press 
L/O when the scanner stops on the fre-
quency. The scanner locks out the frequency, then con-
tinues searching. To lock out a frequency manually,
manually select the frequency and hold down 
L/O until
L/O appears.
Notes:
• The scanner does not display locked-out frequen-
cies during a search.
• You can lock out as many as 20 frequencies during
a search. If you try to lock out more than 20 frequen-
cies, the first locked-out frequency is automatically
unlocked.
Follow these steps to remove the lockout from a fre-
quency.
1. During a search, select the frequency you want to
remove the lockout from.
2. Press 
L/O. L/O disappears from the display.
To remove the lockout from all frequencies, while
searching, hold down 
L/ O until the scanner beeps twice
(about 2 seconds).
PRIORITY
The priority feature lets you scan through channels and
still not miss important or interesting calls on specific
channels. You can program one stored channel in each
bank as a priority channel (for up to a total of 10 stored
channels). As the scanner scans the bank, if the priority
feature is turned on, the scanner checks the priority
channels for activity every 2 seconds.
20-520.fm  Page 28  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							29
The scanner automatically designates each banks first
channel as its priority channel. Follow these steps to se-
lect a different channel as the priority channel for a bank.
1. Press 
MANUAL.
2. Enter the channel number you want to select as the
priority channel, then press 
MANUAL again.
3. Hold down 
PRI until the scanner beeps twice. P
appears to the left of the channel number.
4. Repeat Steps 2–3 for the channel in each bank you
want to program as a priority channel.
To turn on the priority feature, press 
PRI during scanning.
PRI appears. Every 2 seconds the scanner checks the
priority channel in each bank that is turned on, starting
from the lowest to the highest-numbered priority chan-
nel.
To turn off the priority feature, press 
PRI. PRI disap-
pears.
Notes:
• The priority feature must be turned off to use the
data skip feature (see “Skipping Data Signals” on
Page 31).
• You can lock out priority channels. If you lock out all
priority channels, 
P ch Loc Out appears when
you turn on the priority feature.
20-520.fm  Page 29  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM 
						

							30
USING THE KEYLOCK
Once you program your scanner, you can protect it from
accidental program changes by turning on the keylock
feature. When locked, the only controls that operate are
SCAN, MANUAL, LOCK/, VOLUME/OFF, and SQUELCH. 
Note: 
The keylock does not prevent the scanner from
scanning channels.
To turn on the keylock, hold down 
LOCK/ until 
appears. To turn it off, hold down 
LOCK/ until 
disappears.
USING THE DISPLAY BACKLIGHT
You can turn on the display backlight for easy viewing at
night. Press 
LOCK/ to turn on the display backlight
for 15 seconds. To turn off the backlight before 15 sec-
onds elapse, press the button again.
CHANGING SEARCH SPEEDS
The PRO-90 has two search speeds for a limit search.
Normal Search HyperSearch
100 steps/second 300 steps/second
20-520.fm  Page 30  Wednesday, August 4, 1999  3:06 PM