Eastern Railroad Discussion > Radio Shack Pro 94 scanner

My old scanner has given up the ghost after 14 years of faithful service and I am thinking of replacing it with a Radio Shack Pro 94, which is currently available for about $120.

Does anyone have:
Experience with the Pro 94 for monitoring rail channels?
Specific pros or cons?
Other scanner recommendations in the sub-$200 price range?

Thanks.

Tom Murray

Uniden's SC180B is a great radio--and durable too! It fell off my car roof while I was entering a freeway at 65MPH--the thing survived and still operated great (but the LCD cover plastic is scratched). Or go for the Vertex VX150--slower scanning speed, but awesome range! Yeah is a ham radio, but you dont need a license to scan.

--Dan
KB3LDB, VX150 and SC180B user

Go for a 2 meter ham radio, made to better specs than a scanner :-)

Dave
KI4FBB
(ICOM user)

I love my VX150. I have a Radioshack Trunktracker,
which is great for the 10 banks, and a 30 channel
Bearcat.I seldom use these scanners for mobile
railfanning anymore.The Vertex is more sensitive,smaller,
more rugged,and the batteries last longer.
I live in Indiana, where mobile police scanners are
not legal for most users.

Mark

I have to agree with the 2 meter. They have better receiving capability and some have two receivers in one radio. You can lisen to both the Road and the Dispatcher at the same time, are two different roads with out scanning. No scanner I have ever seen can do this. The Kenwood TH-F6A; Yaesu (parent company of vertex) VX-7R, VX-7RB; Icom ICW32A. All have this feature. The dual receivers are a little more expensive $250-$350. But all three manufactures make 2m handhelds from about $100 and up. Check out Universal Radio Inc. in Ohio. www.Universal-radio.com they have a very good website with pictures and full descriptions of these and other radios. Once in the online catalog go to handheld transmitters (HTs).

I hope this helps
Jason
W3CSX

I'd go with a amateur "ham" portable radio.

Current production dual-band units have a feature called

"UU-VV" which allows you to program 2 discrete VHF frequencies

(like the road channel and the dispatcher's channel) and

hear them at the same time.

The catch is that these radios are more likely to be bothered

by interference in urban areas.

You may also wish to get an amateur license. The standards

have been lowered so much in recent years that about all

you need is a pulse.

I've found that www.burghardt-amateur.com is a good place to

do business.

73

Tim Colbert K3HX

Having owned both a Pro-94 and Pro-95 I'd advise you to get the Pro-95.

The 95 has better sensitivity than the 94 and MUCH better selectivity for better intermod rejection.

A big plus for the 95 is that it is easily programmed via computer us Don Star's Win95 program and a RS232 serial cable. Banks of 100 channels allow you to program all the AAR Radio channels in one bank... No more hunting for frequencies. If you are interested in other (non-railroad) scanning it is a much better reciever than the 94 as far as trunked radio systems are concerned. The only drawback is that it isn't capable of recieving digital radio signals. If you want to recieve those you'll have to go with the Pro-96 ($500 price range). Occasionally you'll find the 94 on sale for around $175.

I have to agree with you about the Pro-95. I had the need to monitor trunked 800 as well as regular VHF. The 95 does a great job for the money. I bought the patch cable and downloaded the free program. It lets you program EVERY function of the scanner from windows. Even naming all the channels etc. Then click download to scanner, and it goes. No keypad to mess with at all except when scanning to cut banks on and off