Help with Scanner Radio Receivers

[Stickles01]

I had an epiphany yesterday, a little voice in my head said "Hey Ryan, why don't you get a handheld scanner/search receiver?", and being the nice guy that I am, I couldn't refuse my conscious. So anyone with any expertise with choosing the best receiver with the best RX powers, best functions, and best choice in bands, if you can help me in pleasing this neverending "buy this" voice i would appreciate it. Also if anyone has any links please feel free.

 

[sstrauss]

I have a radioshack pro-95 that works really well. The only problem is that in my area some municipalities and the State Patrol use a digtal mode that it won't receive.

Scott.

 

[TomH]

I also have the RS Pro-95. Great little radio for the money, especially if you can get one on sale. If you don't need the Pro-95s trunking ability, the ICOM R-10 is also a great radio, better general coverage, but it does cost a bit more. Good luck on your selection.

 

[was_jlh]

Stickles, I have had several radios, incl RS, Uniden, Icom, Yupiteru, Sony. Like Tom, I agree that the IcomR10 is a great radio, my favorite is the Yupiteru MVT7100. Depends on what you want to do with the radio. Like flashlights, it's fine to start out with something like a RS or Uniden, but you will "move up" to stuff like Yupi, Icom, AOR.

The best resource :
www.strongsignals.net

 

[Frenchyled]

AOR is the best in Handheld radio scanner. I have one AOR and one Tandy radioshack (don't remember the number), it's the day and the night /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[was_jlh]

Pascal, you got the 8200? Nice radio.

Oops, forgot about the 5000, maybe that's it.

 

[Frenchyled]

[ QUOTE ]
was_jlh said:
Pascal, you got the 8200? Nice radio.

[/ QUOTE ]

YEs, exactly it's the AOR 8200 II here . It's the scanner's Rolls Royce /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[jtice]

If I know Ryan,,, and I do,,, he will want to find the Radio that best fits his needs, and has the features that he will actually use....



And then buy the modle 3 steps above that for $150 more. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Ahhhh, I tought him well.

Upgrading to better stuff later on? pffffftttt

 

[scrappy]

I have several but the two best are my Alinco DJ-X-2000 and the AOR 8200 MKIII. If you buy from this wonderful little store in Canada you get ALL the bands...costs a little extra though. I forgot the name of the store but just buy any communications magazine and they are in there. I'll try and remember the name for you and get back to you. I also have the ICOM R-3 with the TV screen, don't get it, it is not that good. If you are looking for base scanners the AOR 8600 Mark II is awesome. If you have 5000 the AR-ONE is the best you can buy.

 

[GJW]

It might help to know what you want to listen to.
I don't belive the 8200 does trunking so if you have trunked services in your area, the Pro95 would be a better choice.

 

[BobVA]

You really need to figure out what types of communications you want to hear. For instance, the highly rated AOR's and Yupi's are pretty useless to me since all the interesting PS comms in my area are on digital trunked systems. Conversely, they are killer if you want to tune into military air comms (as an example).

I'm pretty happy with my Uniden BC250D digital scanner. Tracks trunk systems well and has good software support for the PC making managing the zillion channels easier. Sensitivity isn't so hot, though. The Radio Shack equivalent is the PRO-96, I believe, and it's received good reviews as well.
If I didn't need the digital trunking I'd probably be using a GRE (Radio Shack) since I like the way they program/operate. For just a few channels of monitoring (e.g. Mayberry PD) I'd probably just use my ham handi-talkie (Yaesu VX-5) as it receives a broad range of frequencies.
There's a lot of other issues you need to consider too, like what you've got to spend, how many systems you want to monitor, etc. Again, you could spend a lot of money on an ICOM R-10 (and I've had one and liked it - even wrote software for it) and find out that it's got a VERY slow scan speed and an awkward bank system that makes it suboptimal for monitoring a complex urban comms landscape.

BUT, if you live in an RF nightmare (like near a paging tower) the superior, triple conversion IF of an ICOM or AOR could make the difference between having a listenable radio and a noisy paper weight. Same thing if you're a LONG way from the signal source. The higher end specialist scanners tend to be shorter on digital bells and whistles (like digital voice, trunking) and long good RF engineering. You may need one or the other, or prefer one or the other.

Then there's the "cool" factor. For example one new scanner coming out has a built in frequency counter that can fast-tune the receiver to automatically pick up any nearby transmissions. Pretty handy if you don't have a clue as to what to monitor...but useless if the radios are digital (this model is analog only).

There's no "best" scanner, you'll probably wind up with a couple if you get into it, or just one optimized for your interests if you don't.


Check out:
http://www.strongsignals.net/access/content/pickrecv.html
for a starter.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[was_jlh]

Bob, what sw did you write for the R10? Had an R10 a couple of years ago and used a couple of progs with it, would be interested to know if I used yours ( if you distributed it, that is).

 

[BobVA]

Nope, nothing worth distributing. Just some Palm Pilot software that would command it over the CI-V link and load the banks. Finally switched over to something better I bought but it was fun learning the CI-V commands and seeing how that worked.

I did distribute a freeware Palm application for the BC245XLT that would map trunk ID's to alpha tags and display them on the Palm and let you control the scanner from the Palm. That was fun to get running, too, but made obsolete by the next wave of analog scanners with alpha tags.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[wiredgargoyle]

I currently carry an Icom IC-R5, it's really small and has a huge reception range especially if you get the unblocked version.

 

[Stickles01]

I would like to pick up both digital trunked/non trucked signals, along with all police, air, cellphone, and anything else that's out there. I will be moving to the DC area soon, and thought that it would be nice to monitor some of that stuff. Scan speed is also an issue, not just through the presets but also through each band. It has to look cool, with lots of buttons too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif, I would like to have a nice one, and would probably be willing to spend around 400 bucks if not more. That link to the Canadian shop with the unblocked receivers would be VERY cool. I would also like semi fast searching 25-30 channels/s but have heard that it isn't really that important. One thing I think is that the police in the Arlington and DC area probably use digital coded Trans/Recvr's so I won't be able to receive them.(correct me if i'm wrong though). I would like to get the scanner that has the widest range of freqs as possible, without sacrificing the sensitivity. The farther away i can demod a signal, the happier my little voice would be.

 

[BobVA]

Check out
http://www.radioreference.com/ or get a copy of "Police Call" from your local Radio Shack to figure out what's where.

From your requirements, you're looking at either the Pro-96, the Uniden 250D + digital care, 296D or an equivalent desktop. I'd recommend either the 296D or the Pro96, check the features carefully to see what differences may be important to you (i.e. mil air band, etc.) Probably looking at about 5 bills. You can get the Pro-96 at any Radio Shack or check out http://www.grove-ent.com/scanners.html who carry a lot of different brands and can provide some knowledgeable help (Disclaimer: I'm just a customer, no connection with them).

Do some research - programming trunked scanners can be pretty challenging. The boards at www.strongsignals.net are a good resource. (One of the nice features of the Radio Shack version is that it comes preloaded for many major metro areas, including DC/VA.)

Note that importing "unblocked" scanners, unless you are an authorized user, is a violation of federal law. Also these won't be FCC certified which makes possession a bit dodgy as well. Finally, the only thing you'll hear on the "blocked" bands are analog cellular transmissions, which (like all cell phones) are illegal to monitor in the US. "Pre-ban" scanners that cover these bands are still legal to own/sell but you still can't use them to monitor cell phones.

Have fun!

Cheers,
Bob

 

[NewBie]

How do these newer whizbangs compare to the old unlocked Pro-34?

 

[BobVA]

The '34 and '43 were great radios. Good front end, big enough to work on, lots of mods for it, etc. I kind of like the '43 a bit because it was more compact (and consequently more "fun" to work on).

If it does what you want, I wouldn't get rid of it. I'd still be using a '43 if that cut the mustard around here.

But, all the mods in the world won't make one of them work on a trunked system. (You could copy digital with an outboard convertor box, but there aren't too many digital/non-trunked systems.)

Cheers,
Bob

 

[was_jlh]

Stickles, since you're moving to DC, you may want to check out the Scan-DC mailing list, I used to belong to it, was a good list.

 

[MrThompson]

Provided the front end will not be overloaded, consider a Yaseu VR500. Although we have a pair of AR8000/Scout combos and an AR5000 at home, it’s the Yaseu that both my wife and I carry daily. Size and ease of use with decent RF performance and SSB HF make it an all around winner.