GRE PSR500 Digital APCO-25 Triple-Trunking Handheld Scanner

I work for a public safety communications agency and upgraded from a Uniden Bearcat to this GRE PSR-500 scanner for home use since I cannot listen to all frequency bands on my agency radio. What a world of difference! Probably the next best thing I did was purchase the ARC-500 software (currently available at Ham Radio Outlet for $34.95) to program this from a PC with a Windows XP or newer operating system. The software makes programming this scanner very painless and it is almost intuitive- not that tough if you are vaguely familiar with spreadsheet based programs like MS Excel. With all of the options this scanner has, it would take a VERY long time to manually key in every object entry from the buttons on the scanner and then assign all the properties to each individual one.This scanner is very flexible- you can assign a scan list or multiple scan lists to any talk group or frequency.You can activate the LED indicator light in six different colors for individual scannable objects, or have it flash in an available color. The back light can be programmed to turn on the same way. Properties can be assigned to individual talk groups, or whole groups of frequencies with one click of a mouse.Talk group names can be created or edited to your preference- it is all done easily and quickly with software.This scanner holds up to 1800 scannable objects that are not limited by 'banks' of trunked frequencies like other scanners. You can put things anywhere you want in the scan lists- it still works just fine and it works perfectly with our local trunked 800 MHz public safety radio system. Additionally, I was able to import most of the frequencies and talk groups directly from RadioReference.com. without typing them in manually, which saved a LOT of time.This scanner was worth every penny- and the software is a must if you ever want to make future changes since it can hold so much data!My only complaint- the scanner arrived pre-loaded with frequencies from the manufacturer for my region, but I could not get mine to work until I connected it to my PC and imported the data into it from RadioReference.com. Not really a big deal for me, but for those who expect it to work out of the box, you might need to add or modify some things to make it work depending on your location and any frequency rebanding changes that may have happened recently.By comparison to others- 5 stars.

I have only begun to fully utilize features of this scanner. Impressions so far are (1) good quality, build, and design (2) lots of features (3) very decent RF performance over the frequencies I have tested.

I have had this unit for some time now. All the major police departments around Atlanta have gone digital P25 except the towns in Fulton County. It does a good job on the Fulton County Analog frequencies (trunked 800 Mhz). P25 digital is awful. almost everywhere I try to listen to Atlanta, it only decodes chuncks of audio. The poor intelligibility of digital traffic is made worse by the spotty reception and decoding of the digital traffic. I have not seen any reports that a firmware upgrade would help this problem.

This scanner is probably top of the line for someone who understands all the technical jargon of a scanner, but for the novice, I still don't have it programmed sufficiently.

I have several scanners and this is my second P-25 scanner. If you decide to get one of these you may also want to puchace the programing software and a subcription to radio reference so it can save a ton of time putting in the freqs.It may take a bit of time to figure this thing out if you a novice to scanning, but thanks to the net there's a wealth of info out there to get you going.Once you get the hang of it yer gonna love this thing, for example if you need to snoop out a conventional freq for a sevice which is near by what ever it may be this thing will find it in no more than 5 seconds and give you the pl tones too.And the multi colored led feature is nice for when yer driving you can tell which sevice you're listening to at a glance. EG red for fire, blue fer the cops, green for ham radio ect...This thing goes everywhere with me and I feel naked with out it.If yer a radio geek I dont think you'll be disapointed with this one.....

Best handheld scanner I have owned. Took a bit of a learning curve to program the trunks, but admit that is probably from me being out of the "sport" for several years.I did have to buy an extended antenna to get better reception in my house, but i don't think any scanner would work well in my particular setting without a better antenna.Note - this unit was a return or other re-manufacture - but I knew that when I ordered.

This is an expensive scanner, but worth every penny. I highly recommend buying the Win500 software, which really simplifies programming.Very sensitive receiver, pretty good filtering also. GRE has a long history of top rated scanners, this one is their best to date.Read the specs, does almost everything. I'm using it on conventional, EDACS, Motorola, and digital trunked frequencies. Nothing but grins.

Our family is very happy with this scanner. Purchased this scanner as a Christmas gift for my husband. We only use it to monitor our local law enforcement, fire and ambulance transmissions. I was a little afraid of the programming piece as most reviewers said that was the most difficult part. I followed the advice of previous reviewers and utilized the Win500 software along with Radio Reference and the programming really is quite simple. Programming it without the software would have been very difficult. We are very, very happy with this scanner.