GRE PSR-255 Hand Held Scanner Review

GRE PSR-255 50 channel hand held scanner receiver. Not really a review, but a quick look at a few things that I want to talk about. For the price this scanner is very good. It's very basic, and there are much better ones out there that cost a lot more. But this one is still nice to use. A good size, easy to program and use, fits well in the hand, and the batteries last a long time. 

If you don't want to read and just want my verdict on this scanner, here it is. This is one of my favorite scanners. Don't listen to some of the things you hear about it being "cheap" etc, as if that makes it no good. It is excellent. Picks up everything that my other more expensive scanners pick up [in the same frequency ranges of course]. And even some stuff that they don't.

Reception / Signal

Picks up well. Like all scanners it depends on many things. Like how far away the transmission is that you're trying to listen to, and your own setup. But overall, I have been very impressed with the 255's signal quality with the stock antenna. Some of the Ham radio broadcasts have been extremely clear, and I not only praise the 255 for that but also the quality of the users Ham set ups.

The GRE PSR-255 Scanner Quick Specification

• 50 Programmable Channels
• Steps: 5Khz and 12.5Khz

Coverage:

• 26 - 54MHz
• 68 - 88MHz
• 137 - 174MHz
• 380 - 512MHz
  

But in saying that, some of the CB radio communications [citizen band] I've heard have been very good also. These tend to be the home base set ups rather than lorry drivers. The lorry drivers are moving most of the time and don't have super big towers / antennas / rods in the back of their cabins like some of the Home based CB users do in their back gardens, so the transmissions can be bad. But many are still understandable. I've picked up some really funny conversations. Recorded a few also.

Comparison Vs the Quansheng K6 [or K5 8 as some people call it]

This surprised me. I bought a Quansheng KV6 [KV5 8] with the idea of modding it with the EGZumer software. I thought great. I can get a really cheap, up to date, small, futuristic looking little walkie talkie and modify it so it can search from 18Mhz - 1.3Ghz [1300mhz]. And that's exactly what I did. I installed the egzumer software and it worked a treat. It opened the UV KV5 8 up and seemed to work really well. And by the way, the KV6 really is an excellent little radio for the price. Very well made and packed with features. I couldn't really fault it.

That was until I put it up against the GRE PSR 255 in the CB frequency range [27mhz]. I was picking up a conversation on the GRE 255 in the 27mhz range and thought it was the perfect time to turn on the KV6 and compare how well each one picked up the conversation. Well guess what happened. 

The Quansheng KV6 [KV5 8] could not even pick up the signal. Like not at all. It just would not stop on the frequency, as if nothing was there. When I knew it was because I was listening to it on my GRE PSR 255. I stopped it manually on the same frequency and all I got out of the Quansheng was noise. I couldn't believe it. I was quite disappointed. Not sure if the egzumer software is the cause of this, but experiencing this has made me lose all confidence in the Quansheng KV6 [KV5 8] at the lower frequencies.

The GRE PSR 255 easily picking up the CB bands

My outlook now is, if it can't pick that up, when I can clearly hear it on another scanner, what else is it not picking up. I did a bit of research after this comparison and found quite a few Reddit posts where people were saying the exact same thing. That the Quansheng KV6 [KV5 8] does not work on the CB frequencies. I'm not sure whether to try and install some other software to see if that sorts it out. But I might just sell it as-is to be honest. It still works really well in other areas and can pick up Air Bands etc.

But yeah, it got outdone by the old 255.

And even before it was modded I did some comparisons between the two. Truth is they were both evenly matched. I do think, though, in terms of signal strength that the Quansheng KV6 [KV5 8] was better before it was modded, despite most other reviewers saying it was much better after they installed the new software / firmware. Anyway, back to the GRE PSR 255.

Last quick comparison. I recently bought a Realistic Pro 26 handheld scanner and have done a few comparisons with the GRE PSR 255. Straight to the results / conclusion: the PSR 255 picked up everything the Pro 26 did, and even though the Pro 26 has a wider range and many more features, I think the 255 is much nicer to use. And it even sounds better through the speaker and headphones.

Batteries

They do last a long time, but I would have preferred it to take 4 batteries instead of 6. Six is annoying. 2 too many. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that I only have 4 rechargeable batteries and always have to add 2 random non-rechargeable AA's. I might buy some more rechargeables. I actually ended up finding some old Energizer rechargeable batteries in an old man-drawer that are 2500mAh, and they last for ages in this scanner.

Mains Adapter

It has been surprisingly hard to find a compatible adapter for the 255. It has to be a 9V negative polarity with minimum of 200ma. I've just stuck to using batteries so far. I have heard that if it uses an adapter that isn't suitable it can damage the scanner, so I didn't want to risk it.

Conclusion

People call the GRE PSR 255 a cheap scanner. And it is, to buy. But its excellent. From all of the tests I have done it has, at the very least, held its own against all the other receivers, and even beaten some of them.

What am I up to next

Even so. You know what its like, always wanting more. I've got my eye on a "better" scanner at the moment with a larger range. I think I'm going through a bit of a scanner nostalgia phase, remembering how good they used to be back in the day when everything was analogue. But those days are long gone. 

Now, most things worth listening to are digital. But the lure is still there to get one with a wider range and no gaps. Maybe a Realistic Pro-26 [I got it] or homebase Realistic 2006. I might go back to SDR. I was using it many years ago but lost interest because the RTL dongle I was using wasn't that good. Tempted to get another one.

Update: I'm having a clear out and found the old SDR dongle. I'm gonna see if I can get it to work. It's an old one with a coax connection. Think it goes up to around 800Mhz. It's a start I suppose. Another update: it doesn't, it goes higher. I think it goes up to at least 1.3Ghz, and quite possibly up to 1.7Ghz. And, it's not as bad as I thought it was. It picks up everything and more that any of my normal scanners can pick up. It's actually really good, and I definitely don't need to buy a new one right now. Chat again soon.

SDR# Plugins Seem Outdated

Getting back into SDR after at least 10 year since I last played around with it and I've been very disappointed and surprised in how there seems to have been minimal progress with plugins and there ease of use. I thought at this point many of them would have been quick installations or copy the DLL file to a certain folder and put the keys in the .XML file etc, but no. Yes, some of them are like this, but most of the really useful / needed plugins are not.

Most of the plugins and posts I came across were very outdated. Like there hasn't been much progress at all. Some as old as 2013. Digital decoding, APCO, Tetra, Trunking, all of these plugins need other software to work. I came across a "simple APCO" P25 plugin for SDR#, but once activated, it just made SDR sharp suddenly stop working.

Airspy / SDR# Interface

For me, I'm still using Windows 7 32-bit [yep, I'm just as outdated], and many of the above mentioned plugins need other software to work, and that requires a 64-bit system. So this makes them unusable for me. I could not get any of the more needed plugins to work with my setup.

I did get a few to work / install [digital audio processor, DSD interface and TETRA demodulator], but they don't really seem to do anything. I know DSD may require the DSD+ software installed, but it did not work on my computer.

SDR works great as an analogue scanner though, so I'll keep on using it for that at least, and i'll do some more research and try to get some of the plugins to work. I'm only using a tiny little antenna that came with the dongle when I bought it over 10 years ago.

I might buy a Yagi antenna. I really wanted, at the very least, a digital decoder for SDR. So much is digital now. Does anyone know of a plugin for digital decoding that works with a 32-bit system and doesn't need additional software that's only 64-bit.

Shira FR-1106 Multi-Band Radio Receiver

The Shira FR-1106 Multi-Band Radio Receiver can pick up MW, CB1, CB2, VHF and AIR band. It's an old radio and appears to be quite rare as a Shira model. The design itself, though, is not so rare. It looks as though this design was used by many companies, who made radios that all looked rather similar. And all the companies did was differ the design slightly and slap their brand name on the front.

I've seen a few different types, but the Shira FR-1106 is one of the nicer ones. It's a "portable" handheld radio, but its a big boy, man. Certainly won't fit in a pocket. Try a carrier bag! Takes 4 AA batteries and is fairly loud when turned up. The headphone jack is a mono, so only works in one ear.

Going on the old school "Shira" font on the front of my radio, it looks like this Shira FR-1106 is from the late 1960's or early 1970's. It still works really well. I've never been able to pick up any CB radio talk on it, despite me checking that there was CB talk going on using a proper scanner, and then turning on the Shira FR-1106 and trying to find them talking on there. I could not find it. Maybe the frequencies of the channels are different now than they were in the 70's. I'm not sure.

I'm certain its not broken in anyway as it works great everywhere else. The only thing I wish it had that it doesn't have is a little light inside where the tuning window is. One of those dull orange ones from the 70's. That would have been nice. Cool radio though overall. Sometimes its nice to have some older tech like this to play with and appreciate.