New member from Canberra

[Spinks61]

Hi All,
I have been interested in Shortwave broadcasting for many years and have owned some of the classic receivers of old like the Yaesu FRG-7, Sony CRF series and a few others and I still have a couple of other classics like the Grundig Satellit and Zenith Transoceanic but I have not been active in that area over the last 10 years or so.

I was also very interested in Scanning in the early 1990's starting out with a Uniden and graduating to a Yupiteru MVT and AOR 8000 series and a couple of the more modern WINradio models but they are long gone. However, my involvement waned there too over time, particularly when many interesting sites moved to digital/trunking systems. Although I was generally not active I did not really lose interest with the occasional spurt of activity. I guess these remarks will indicate that I have been around a long time and I would have to admit to the occasional "senior's moment".

Recently, while looking through the man cave for some other equipment for a friend I came across a couple of my Scanners, both ICOM, an R5 and R20 stashed away in a box. The R20 has many many features and I thought it would be too difficult to manually set it all up properly so I went and bought the ICOM CS-R20 cloning software in anticpiation of a much easier set up process. Jeeez, was I wrong. I loaded the software CDROM in my Windows 8 laptop and clicked on the setup file...the install program started to run and I got as far as loading my user name and then entering the software ID according to the written instructions that came with the CDROM. Then Error message "Invalid ID" flashed up and no combination of the stated ID number/serial number from the CDROM itself worked with the consistent "invalid ID" error message...so that was the end of the install.

Perhaps, some of you might be able to offer some advice of where to go next. However, I should also point out that I am not IT savvy, I use Linux as my operating system on my desktop PC and my Windows based laptop is purely for the type of function which has so spectacularly failed; ie running Windows based radio control programs. Best regards

[Comint]

Not 100% sure, but I believe that the Icom cloning software is DOS, and therefore highly unlikely to run under Windows 7 or 8, but I could be wrong.

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Comint

[AIRMAN]

Hi Spinks61

Both the R5 and the R20 are pure analog receivers. If you wish to listen to emergency services and police, you will be disappointed as I believe that the Federal Police are digitally encrypted and have been for some time. The Fire and Ambo's are digital, but may be able to be monitored with a Uniden with APCO PR25 capability.

Your R20 would be fine for HF and VHF aviation monitoring, if you have an interest in this. Manually setting up your Icoms isn't that difficult to do. The R20 is somewhat easier than the R5 as it has a keypad. I have owned both. If you have patience in programming manually, you will be rewarded. The R20 has SSB as well, so you can monitor HF traffic with a long wire. There are some reviews of this on U Tube.

If you have the funds, you may be interested in an AOR AR8200D which can be had for around $899 at Andrews Comms. This model is ACPO equipped. Alternatively a Uniden is a cheaper choice.

Best

Airman

[blacktown]

Police, Fire and Ambulance are all encrypted in the ACT.

Police are on their 468mhz conventional frequencies. Fire and Ambulance are on the ACT Government Radio Network - the ACT extension of the NSW GRN