I really never bother to get the pokeradar out and chain much. Only once I tried it, mostly I just wait for amazing streaks of luck---
Fire Red-
Trying to sr for a nice Shiny Charmander, and after about a hour of searching I found one!!! male+brave
Randomly gonna restart game, but when I was running into the town, I decided to catch the 60th pokemon in my pokedex (Iv'e restarted the game many times) then a wild Shiny Growlite appeared! I freaked out completly and caught it with a ultra ball in full health (all I had were level 50's)
Diamond- My first and only Diamond shiny came from using the pokeradar in route 201 and after my 33 chained pokemon I found what I had searched for--- A shiny Male Nidoran,with my sleep powder venusaur I chucked a luxury ball at it and got him.
Platinum--With the new Event Member card in hand I decide to go and catch Darkari, So when I got there I saved thinking I wouldn't use my master ball, and talked to it, the theme played and I saw and heard the sparkles coming from it, I immediatly bagged it with the master ball, None of my pokemon fainted at the sight of purple/pink
Darkari, but I sure did!!!