Just to give you a bit of history on Radio Shack GRE and Whistler

Radio Shack doesn't make their own products. Instead they find "OEM Manufacturers"
to make them and put the Radio Shack name on the unit.

While Uniden made a couple of RS's units way back when, GRE made the lion's share of RS's
scanners. GRE was just a Manufacturer and only sold their units to one company, Radio
Shack. GRE also made the cables, which were originally SERIAL DB9 units, and then
eventually went to USB

As a "Side story", When GRE came out with the USB Cable, It became immediately evident the
USB cable would not work on units that used the HeadPhone Jack for both headphones and
DATA. The Audio was on the "tip" and the Data was on the Middle "sleeve" of a stereo jack.
The DB9 Units only used a Dropping resistor to reduce the "12v Plus/Minus RS232 level
data", and the Headphone units were designed to use this "higher voltage". The USB only
puts out 5.5 volts, so it was not sufficient to trigger the radio to "receive" data. This
caused a LOT of issues ... and phone calls.

A few years ago, GRE decided to go into business as a "retailer". So they took the
identical units, changed the paint, and started marketing to 3rd party Distributors. Radio
Shack was going slowly broke, and that was what prompted GRE's move, as more or less a
Survival move.

Then partially due to a lack luster sales of "their" units, and Radio Shack's ever growing
financial problems, GRE went belly up, and that of course, cut off the supply of Radio
Shack's private labled units.... so for a while RS started selling Uniden branded scanners.

THEN, Whistler (a Radar Detector outfit) bought out all the manufacturing and intellectual
rights of the GRE company, and started selling to RS again as a Private label, but also to
the Retail market under the Whistler brand.

ALLLL the time these scanners have never changed "inside", nor have their cables etc. My
favorite saying about that has been... "The quality goes in before the name goes on"..

GRE manufactured the cables, but they have used exclusively a "Prolific" chipset and
electronics. Essentially their cables have not changed internally in probably 10 years. So
no matter what version of color of the cable, if it's made by RS, GRE or Whistler only the
"Paint" is different <G>.

To be Fair, GRE is a Chinese company run by Chinese, and they coordinate sales using a few
select "white people" here in the US. So when I mention that some of the after market
cables are "Chinese counterfeits", I'm not including "these people" in that description.
GRE - In My Opinion - has always made a quality "CABLE". So buying an unknown Chinese "Knock-off"
product can have it's down side, as if it IS a knock off, there's a high possibility
it WILL NOT WORK