Specifications

The PSR310 uses 4 AA cells, the Uniden uses three. I have found that battery life is pretty similar between them; the PSR
apparently uses a bit more power for the improved audio circuits.
The PSR310 also has a battery strength indicator. While this provides a pretty good relative indication of the amount of
power left in the cells, there is a setting (in the “GLOB” menu) needed to be made in order to make it more accurate when
using rechargeable cells. While alkaline cells produce about 1.5 VDC, rechargables produce slightly less voltage, about 1.25
volts. The PSR310 allows you to set the battery type so that the meter is more accurate and, more importantly, so that the
radio produces the proper charging current for NiMH or LI cells.
The batteries will last longer if you follow these suggestions:
Turn off the lights.
If you really don’t need it then don’t use the LED light or backlight as they really suck up power.
Keep the volume down.
Use of earbuds or an external amplified speaker will allow you to keep the volume level down, and the lower you
can keep the volume, the longer the batteries will last.
Is it an antenna or an aerial?
Let’s call it an antenna, the most important part of a scanner. This determines how well the scanner will perform. While in
many instances the included antenna will work just fine, if you are doing any type of serious monitoring from a building or
vehicle an external antenna is required. While there are dozens of available scanner or two-way antennas that will work fine,
the antenna that works best for you depends on many factors. This includes the frequencies you want to monitor, the
distances and power levels involved, you location and elevation and more. Entire books have been written to help you decide
what works best. See Scanner’s Master’s antenna section for a variety of excellent options.
The PSR310 comes with a standard rubber coated spring type antenna, commonly referred to as a “Rubber Duck”. It connects
onto the BNC connector on top of the radio. You can also use this to connect another antenna, either directly or with coaxial
cable. You can use an antenna geared toward a specific band or one more generalized over the range of frequencies.
Performance
With like antennas the PSR310 and it’s competition, the Uniden BC346XT, perform similarly as far as sensitivity is
concerned. I found the 310 slightly more sensitive than the 346 in use in my area. If you read the Yahoo, RadioReference and
other user groups and web sites online you’ll find a spirited debate over which radio is the better receiver. It seems as though
it depends on the environment you’re in (urban, suburban, rural), how close you are to nearby unwanted transmitters
(cellular, paging, broadcast and the like), among other factors. There is no definitive answer on this. I personally did get a bit
more intermod type interference from the PSR500 than I did with the PSR310 or the BC346XLT when comparing them in a
high RF environment (in a city or when you’re close by the aforementioned types of transmitter sites). I have also heard of
cases where in a high RF environment, when you connect an outdoor/base station antenna, the GRE will tend to become
overloaded but you can remedy this by enabling attenuation. The problem with this is that it lessens the impact of the time,
money and effort you put into putting up an outdoor antenna in an effort to receive distant signals. Now suddenly you’re
attenuating them. All radios are subject to this problem to some degree but the PSR310 seems to be slightly better than many
other radios.
Your results may vary, and results can vary from radio to radio.
Speak to me
The GRE provides a quarter watt of audio into a built-in speaker. This provides pretty good audio punch for a handheld
scanner and the audio sounds good across the board. The audio quality is on par with larger mobile scanners.
The PSR310 has an earphone jack that provides limited audio power so as not to blast your eardrums. If you want to use an
external speaker then you should look for an amplified speaker, the audio presented may not be loud enough without one.
The earphone jack works fine with iPod style earbuds or other standard earphones and devices.
Programming
If you have never programmed a scanner before you will want to take time to read the manual thoroughly. Scanners are
complicated these days and there are a lot of things to learn. That said, it isn’t really hard to learn if you have patience and are