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Customers most agreed on the following attributes:
I own 5 scanners and just bought the 163. Good radio over-all. Down side is small screen, hard to program if your have not done a trunking scanner before, lighting on front panel is uneven.Bought it becouse you can text tag all channels, A biggie for me, I also own a pro 433 which is in sale if you can find them for 119.00 I M O the 433 is a much better radio, display is huge seperare controls for squelch and volome, and reception out of the box is better than 163 I run both base units 24-7 and 3 handhelds when I am mobile. Pro 164 97 and a pro 25 my go to radio that NEVER fails. 163 is a good radio but 433 if you can referance 5 digit # to transmitting source in the trunking mode is a better value for your money. all Radios receive much better with a external antenna 163 and 433 will pull N H P for 100 miles out, simplex channels running a hy-gain 15 feet up on mast. FIND OUT WHAT YOUR CITY OR TOWN RUNS BEFORE YOU BUY A SCANNER IF THERE ARE MOSTLY ANALOG OR DIGITAL SYSTEMS OR YOU WILL BE VERY MAD BEING YOU CAN'T HERE ANYTHING.
from Central Texas on 9/18/2008
Outperforms my PRO 2055, clearer sound and the signal bargraph is a nice addition.
Great Product
from southeast mo. on 9/4/2008
this thing receives as well or better than my Bearcat 9000 xlt first one to ever do that ecept for the pro 2006 I used to have.
I have this unit in my Volunteer Firefighting response vehicle and its really reliable. When my pager goes off in the middle of the night, i get out of bed, and get in my truck, i turn this unit on and it goes right to our dispatch channel so i know what i'm going to and where it is.
Excellent for the price.
from camden sc on 7/20/2008
home use only
Good scanner,The bad is that you get x-amount of channels per bank and if you program all the channels so you can name them it leaves you with fewer lockout spaces to lock out unwanted signals. It stinks because I can only have it on search and save the channels for lockout purposes only meaning I cant name my channels
from Carlisle, PA. on 6/21/2008
After further usage, this scanner receiver is more and more impressive,,i've had the pro-2055 model in the past which this scanner replaced, and it was a great radio, i think the pro-163 is even better all around, the receive is great on it, much better also than a uniden bct-15 i had in the past year. Comes with a much better quality stock telescopic antenna than the unidens and works quite well. Many new added features, solid build, make this one of the best analog trunking base/mobile scanner's on the market IMO.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Zephyrhills, Florida on 6/15/2008
This is a great scanner, it has great Sensitive to it and the trunking mode is very easy to program. the only problem I have with it is the buttons seem to stick other than that I find no other problems with it.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Carlisle, PA. on 6/14/2008
This scanner picks up where the pro-2055 leaves off, so to speak, Lots more features, rebandable, very nice looks,,signal strength meter is a nice touch, great looking display, thats nicely lit. Receives frquencies very well with the included telescopic antenna,,great audio sound,,solid well built. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good base/mobile unit,,Hard to beat for the price !!
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
Very excellent radio no problems with it and works very well on the military uhf aero band, trunking work very good to. took me a while to program the text into the radio. this is a great radio.
If you're a casual user or new to scanning you don't need a $200 scanner. The Pro-433 has all the important features and costs barely over [$] when not on sale. Buy that instead. I promise you will not miss the added features of this scanner.If you don't need a base scanner like this, or don't know what form factor you want, get a handheld like the Pro-528, it should prove to be much more convenient and versatile. This scanner isn't a bad scanner by any means. I just feel that the extra features you're paying for aren't worth the extra cost over a 433. If I had to do it again I'd probably have gone with the Pro-162. Similar to the 528, but divides the channels up into 20 banks with 50 channels each. Smaller banks make it much easier to organize and focus on what you want to scan.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Bangor, Maine on 3/30/2008
Over all a pretty good scanner for the price. The display is a bit small but most scanners now days are getting smaller anyway. It is very clear though and great back lighting. I like the alpha tags that you can add to the freq. and the signal strength meter is a nice addition to it. It is easy to program if you take the time to read the instructions. The buttons are small but actually big enough for somebody with big hands like me to program it easily. It would most likely be easier to program with a computer and scan-cat lite software but it was not a deal breaker for me. It scans and searches at a pretty good speed compared to what older Radio Shack scanners have over the years. I have owned many scanners over the years including Bearcat and Radio Shack. This one ranks pretty high especially for such a low price.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Dallas, TX on 3/29/2008
Decent radio, however it comes out of the box with Firmware issues. Can't program LTR through the keypad. Trunking will stop and disappear after some time of operation. I recomend a Pro-97 over this or the Pro-164.
[1 of 2 customers found this review helpful]
from Dallas, Texas on 3/12/2008
Good Scanner, easy set up and crystal clear, but I have had to return 3 times for the display going out. The last time it worked a total of 5 seconds. I would not recommend this scanner, what a pain.