Preferences
Selecting Preferences from the MacR–1000 application menu, or pressing ⌘–,, opens the preferences panel.
At the top of the panel is a popup menu offering you the choice of all the serial ports available on your system. Select the port by which your computer communicates with the IC–PCR1000.
If you have not previously assigned a serial port for use with MacR–1000, or if the previously-assigned serial port is no longer attached to your Macintosh, the preferences panel will open automatically when MacR–1000 starts up.
You can use your IC–PCR1000 as a programmable scanner by pressing the Scan button in the Library window. See Scanning Saved Frequencies for more details. This section of the preferences panel allows you to choose what happens when an active frequency is found during a scan
- You can listen to the frequency so long as it’s active, but no more than a set time limit. When that time limit expires, the scan resumes. Select Pause for a period of:, and choose a time limit, for this option.
- You can listen to the frequency as long as it is active. If it becomes inactive (as when one station stops transmitting and another takes a second or two to reply), MacR–1000 waits a set period of time for activity to resume. If that period expires with no new activity, scanning resumes at the next frequency on the list. To use this option, select Wait for a silence of: and choose a time limit for the wait.
MacR–1000 offers many options for entering frequencies in the main frequency display, the search limit boxes, and the library listing. Most options involve entering whole numbers which are then interpreted as Hertz, kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz. However, it is natural to express frequencies in decimal fractions, of megahertz in aviation and VHF/UHF ham usage, or kilohertz in shortwave listening and HF ham usage.
Because different users have different preferences, MacR–1000 allows you to choose what a frequency means when it contains a decimal point. If “121.5” represents the VHF aviation emergency frequency to you, select the MegaHertz (multiply by 1 000 000) button. If, instead, it means a frequency in the LF band, select kiloHertz (multiply by 1 000) button. There are also Hertz and gigahertz buttons, to round out the selection.
When the option Look for names of searched or entered frequencies is checked, MacR–1000 will check the frequency library every time you tune or search to a new frequency. If an entry in the library has the same frequency (and CTCSS tone, if one is set on the radio), the entry’s description is displayed under the frequency display. This is a reasonably fast process, and convenient, but may hamper performance if the frequency library is very large. If you do not want to use this feature, uncheck this box.
When this option is checked, MacR–1000 adjusts its modulation, filter size, and tuning step to match the most-common usage of a frequency whenever the frequency changes. This means you can tune to 14040 kHz in the CW subband of the 20m ham band, then 91.5 MHz in the FM broadcast band, and then 460.5 MHz in the public-safety band, and the PCR1000 will automatically be set to CW/2.8 kHz filter, Wide FM/230 kHz, and Narrow FM/15 kHz without further input from you.
This feature can be convenient, but it is far from perfect. If you find your mode, filter, and step settings are being changed out from under you when you don’t want or expect them to be, turn this option off.