RadioShack Pro 91 Handheld Trunking Scanner Owners Manual

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3. Press MON/CLEAR and enter the number of the
monitor memory that contains the frequency you
want to store.
4. Press 
E. The scanner stores the frequency into the
selected channel.
SCANNING THE STORED 
CHANNELS
To begin scanning channels, press SCAN. The scanner
scans through all non-locked channels in the activated
banks. (See “Locking Out Channels” on Page 34 and
“Turning Channel-Storage Banks On and Off” on
Page 33). When the scanner finds a transmission, it
stops on it. When the transmission ends, the scanner
resumes scanning.
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 clockwise to
decrease the scanners sensitivity to these signals.
If you want to listen to a weak or distant station,
turn 
SQUELCH counterclockwise.
If 
SQUELCH is adjusted so you always hear a hiss-
ing sound, the scanner does not scan properly.
 To scan in the trunk tracking mode, see “Scanning
a Trunked Bank” on Page 43.
MANUALLY SELECTING A 
CHANNEL
You can continuously monitor a single 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 silence
— or if you want to monitor a specific channel. 
Follow these steps to manually select a channel.
1. Press 
MAN.
2. Enter the channel number.
3. Press 
MAN again. 
						

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Or, if your scanner is scanning and stops at the desired
channel, press 
MAN one time. (Pressing MAN addition-
al times causes your scanner to step through the chan-
nels.) 
To resume automatic scanning, press 
SCAN. 
						

							33
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 on a specific
channel, you can program a 2-second delay into any
channel or frequency. The scanner continues to moni-
tor the channel frequency for 2 seconds after the trans-
mission stops before resuming scanning or searching.
To program a 2-second delay:
 If the scanner is
scanning and stops
on an active channel
where you want to
store a delay, quickly
press 
DELAY before it
continues scanning
again. 
DLY appears.
 If the desired channel is not selected, manually
select the channel, then press 
DELAY.DLY ap-
pears.
 If the scanner is searching, press 
DELAY while the
scanner is searching. 
DLY appears and the scan-
ner automatically adds a 2-second delay to every
frequency it stops on in that band.
To turn off the 2-second delay, press 
DELAY while the
scanner is monitoring a channel, scanning, or search-
ing. 
DLY disappears.
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. Numbers appear
at the top of the display, showing the currently selected
banks. 
						

							34
The scanner scans all the channels within the dis-
played banks that are not locked out (see “Locking Out
Channels”).
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 must
always be active.
LOCKING OUT CHANNELS
You can increase the scanning speed by locking out
channels that have a continuous transmission, such as
a weather channel. To lock out  a  channel, manually
select the channel, then press 
L-OUT.L/O appears. 
Note: You can still manually select locked out chan-
nels.
To remove the lockout from a channel, manually select
the channel, then press 
S/S.L/O disappears.
To unlock all channels in the banks that are turned on,
press 
MAN to stop scanning, then hold down L-OUT un-
til the scanner beeps twice.
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 5 stored
channels). If the priority feature is turned on, as the
scanner scans the bank, it checks that bank’s priority
channel every 2 seconds for activity.
The scanner automatically designates each banks first
channel as its priority channel. Follow these steps to
select a different channel in a bank as the priority chan-
nel. 
						

							35
1. Press PROG.
2. Enter the channel number you want to select as
the priority channel, then press 
PRIORITY.
appears to the right of the channel number.
3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for the channel in each bank
you want to program as a priority channel.
To review all priority channels, press 
PROG, then re-
peatedly press 
PRIORITY to see the numbers of the pri-
ority channels.
To turn on the priority feature, press 
PRIORITY during
scanning. 
PRI appears. Every 2 seconds the scanner
checks the priority channel in each bank that is turned
on.
To turn off the priority feature, press 
PRIORITY. PRI
disappears.
Notes:
 The priority feature must be turned off to listen to
the monitor memories or to use the data skip fea-
ture.
 You can lock out pri-
ority channels. If you
lock out all priority
channels, 
appears when you
turn on the priority
feature.
P
LOC OUt 
						

							36
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,MAN,KEYLOCK,VOLUME/OFF, and
SQUELCH.
Note: 
The keylock does not prevent the scanner from
scanning channels.
To turn on the keylock, hold down 
KEYLOCK until K/L
appears. To turn it off, hold down KEYLOCK until K/L
disappears.
USING THE DISPLAY BACKLIGHT
You can turn on the display light for easy viewing at
night. Press   to turn on the display light for 15 sec-
onds. To turn off the light before 15 seconds elapse,
press the button again.
CHANGING SEARCH SPEEDS
The PRO-91 has two search speeds.
To switch between the normal and Hypersearch
speeds during limit search or direct search, press 
H/S.
HYPER appears during Hypersearch.
Note: 
You can use Hypersearch only in the 5 kHz step
bands (29–54 MHz and 137–174 MHz).Normal Search Hypersearch
100 steps/second 300 steps/second 
						

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TURNING THE KEY TONE OFF/ON
To turn off the key tone, follow these steps.
1. Turn off the scanner.
2. While holding down 
L-OUT/S/S, turn on the scan-
ner. 
OFF bEEP appears.
To turn the key tone back on, repeat these steps. 
on
bEEP
 appears.
TURNING THE BATTERY SAVE 
FUNCTION OFF/ON
To save battery power when a channel is manually se-
lected or while you program the scanner, the scanner
automatically sets itself to a standby (battery save)
mode if no button is pressed for more than 5 seconds
and no signal is received.    appears when battery
save is set to on.
While the battery save mode is set to on, the scanner
repeatedly turns off the internal power for 1 second,
then turns it back on for about 
1/2 second to check for a
transmission.
The scanner is preset with the battery save mode set to
on, but you can turn it off or back on.
Note: 
The battery save mode does not work if the prior-
ity function is on, even if a channel is manually select-
ed.
To turn the battery save function off or back on, turn off
the scanner, then hold down 
PRIORITY and turn on the
scanner.

OFF SAVE briefly appears when battery save has
been turned off.

on SAVE briefly appears when battery save has
been turned on.
S 
						

							38
SKIPPING DATA SIGNALS
You can set the scanner so it skips nonmodulated or
data signals (such as fax or modem transmissions)
during a search or scan.
Note:
 Since data signals are not generally found in the
air band, this feature does not work in the air band.
To turn on the data skip feature, be sure the priority
feature is turned off (see “Priority” on Page 34), then
press  .    appears. To turn off the feature,
press   again.   disappears.
DATADATADATADATA 
						

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TRUNK TRACKING
Your scanner is designed to track transmissions on Mo-
torola Type I, Type II, and hybrid analog trunking sys-
tems, which are extensively used in 800 MHz
communications. Remember these important points
when tracking transmissions:
 Your scanner monitors Type II systems by default.
However, you can change this if the system in your
area is different (see “Types of Trunking Systems”
below and “Scanning Type I and Hybrid Trunked
Systems” on Page 50 for more information).
 Your scanner cannot track transmissions on non-
Motorola trunking systems.
 Your scanner cannot track an 800 MHz trunked
system and scan conventional frequencies at the
same time.
 The frequencies for many of the 800 MHz public
safety systems are listed in the separate “National
Public Safety Trunked System Frequency Guide”
included with your PRO-91.
TYPES OF TRUNKING SYSTEMS
Your trunk tracking scanner can monitor two basic types
of systems — 
Type I and Type II. Instead of selecting a
specific frequency to transmit on, a trunked system
chooses one of several frequencies in a 2-way radio us-
er’s talk group when that user presses PTT (push to
talk). Thus, trunking systems allocate a few frequencies
among many different users, but the way Type I and
Type II systems do this is slightly different. One impor-
tant distinction between these systems is the amount of
data transmitted by each radio when its push-to-talk
(PTT) button is pressed. In a Type I system, the radio’s
ID and its current affiliation (the trunk system it belongs
to) are both transmitted. In a Type II system, only the ra-
dio’s ID is transmitted. 
Why the difference? In Type I systems, each radio in
the trunk group individually transmits its own affiliation,
while the trunk system maintains a database that deter-
mines each radios affiliation(s) in Type II systems. 
Another difference between the systems is that Type I
systems are arranged in a fleet-subfleet hierarchy. For
example, it is possible for a city using a Type I system
to designate 4 fleets, each with 8 subfleets.  
						

							40
The fleets might be the police department, the fire de-
partment, utilities, and city administration. The police
might decide to further divide its fleet into subfleets
such as dispatch, tactical operations, detectives, north,
south, east and west side patrols, and supervisors. All
the available police radios would then be assigned to
one of the police subfleets, letting the police centralize
their communications and control the type of users on
a single system. Determining the exact fleet-subfleet
hierarchy for a particular area is referred to as fleet
map programming.
The disadvantage of a Type I system is that the brief
burst of data sent when a user transmits must contain
the radio’s ID and its fleet and subfleet. This is three
times the amount of data a Type II system radio sends.
Since the data capacity of Type I systems is limited and
the amount of data increases with each user, Type I
systems usually accommodate fewer users than Type
II systems. Nevertheless, Type I systems are still in
use.
There are also 
hybrid systems which are a combination
of both Type I and Type II. Your scanner defaults to
monitor Type II systems, but you can change to Type I
or a hybrid of Type I and Type II systems by selecting a
preprogrammed fleet map or creating a custom fleet
map for your area (see “Scanning Type I and Hybrid
Trunked Systems” on Page 50).
You do not need to determine the fleet-subfleet hierar-
chy for Type II systems unless you are tracking hybrid
systems that contain both Type I and Type II systems.
SETTING THE SCANNER TO THE 
TRUNK TRACKING MODE
Press TRUNK to switch between conventional scanning
and trunk tracking.