Message posted by lone wolf on January 01, 2005 at 21:22:01 PST:

I have a pro-96. You will need to download win96 (see link) to get the radio to receive mil air. The mil air specs are OK, but not as good as the 296D. However, I wouldn't buy the 296D for a few reasons. First, it uses a crappy battery pack that is hard to load quickly (impossible in the dark) and is proprietary to Uniden. The pro-96 uses AA batteries. Second, the Uniden astro decoder is not very automatic, that is, you need to feed it parameters to get the radio to sound half way decent. The pro-96 astro decode is fully automatic, and in fact, according to those who own Motorola Astro radios, the pro-96 sound is better. The pro-96 lacks I-calls and LTR trunking, which the Uniden 296D does have. Still, I wouldn't buy the uniden.

There is a yahoogroup for GRE scanners at

I was able to get my pro-96 used. The thing is quite expensive, but RS hold periodic sales. There are a few Rat Shack dealers on the list, and they leak when the $100 off sale is happening. Also, tje current software rev for the radio is C, which you can only check from the radio itself. The DSP algorithms used in Astro decoding are user programable, but the software can only be revised by soldering in a new rom. The yahoogroup will have info on the bugs.

Without going into details, astro capability comes in handy around the range. Blackf150 may recall the "gatoraid" crisis we monitored from Tikaboo over a "nearby" astro trunk system.

In Reply to: Radio Scanner Question/Opinions posted by Hawkeye on January 01, 2005 at 19:45:59 PST:

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