Icom r5 i hav just got this scanner having never really used one before and i cant seem to pick anything up except for a high pitched noise i dont know if its me doing summin wrong or the scanner can anyone help.

A quick "get you started" guide.....

First set the squelch (gets rid of the hissing noise and allows the radio to scan)
to do this....

On the side are 2 buttons, the bottom one is monitor.
press and hold then look at the display,
turn the top dial until "AUTO" appears,

The squelch should now keep the radio quiet.

Now the tuning step..
You need to set this because if your radio was on 450.000 and you wanted to listen to 450.012.5 you would miss it if your radio was making 000.025 "steps". IE you would need 12.5 steps. This is the most common step used by ambulance etc in the UK, you will need to check local band plans.
Stick with 12.5 and you should get most stuff on VHF / UHF.
For airband 12.5 will get most stuff, but some is now changing to 8.33.
For HF (below) 136 Mhz I'd use 5

To set the step....

On the front there are 4 big buttons.
press [V/M.S.MW.SKIP] to select VFO mode,
then press [BAND.LOCK] to select the band you want to listen to,
then press [TS.SET] to enter the step
turn the dial to select your step (stick with 12.5 for now)
press [TS.SET] to exit back to VFO mode



To scan...

First set the scan type...
On the front there are 4 big buttons.
Press and hold the one that says [MODE.SCAN] for 2 seconds and look at the display,
turn the top dial until the screen reads ALL,
press [MODE.SCAN] again and the radio should start to scan with the 12.5 steps you set earlier.
If you want to change scan direction, just turn the top dial.
If you want to stop the scan, just press [MODE.SCAN].

When you hear something interesting, make a note of the frequency on the display.

To set memories (store frequencies).....

On the front there are 4 big buttons.
press [V/M.S.MW.SKIP] to select VFO mode,

to get close to the frequency you made a note of, press [BAND.LOCK]
Then set the actual frequency with the top dial,
press and hold [V/M.S.MW.SKIP] for 2 seconds to select memory write mode (1 short and 1 long beep)
turn the top dial to select which channel you would like to overwrite. Start with 01.
press [V/M.S.MW.SKIP] for 2 seconds. ( 3 beeps )

Thats it!

Any more problems just post on here and either me or someone else will help.

M3ODQ