Scanners

[Avix]

anyone else here into Radio Scanners? just picked up a old Bearcat for my home office and I'm having so much fun listening to whats going on out there I haven't turned the TV on all day!

 

[geepondy]

I got an older Bearcat that picks up the cellular band but most cell phones are digital these days so it doesn't matter. It was interesting listening 12 years ago when I was laid up for a summer after surgery. Most phone calls were boring but caught a drug deal going down, a "pimp" talking to his hooker amongst other things. One call was a guy extremely drunk and driving, calling up a girl to say he was coming over to beat the crap out of her. She of course was threatening to call the police. If he would have gave any form of ID, I would have called the police and alerted them. All this was in suberbia, not in a big city crime district.

I haven't listened too much the past few years but aren't a lot of police, fire, etc. digital as well, meaning you can't pick them up on a scanner?

 

[was_jlh]

Used to be, Avix.

Best scanner resource on the web:
www.strongsignals.net

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I got an 8-band scanner in my tip jar around 1990 when I worked in a bar; after fashioning an antenna for it, I could listen to police and firemen on it. Though I couldn't say I was really "into" it, there was some entertainment value to it now and again.

 

[fivebyfive]

Yup, I'm into radio scanners. I got the last scanner model from bearcat that has the cell band on it. I got a new trunk tracking scanner and it rocks. You hear so many more things on the scanner that you don't see on the news.

 

[wiredgargoyle]

I'm somewhat into it, moreso for the Ham end of things. Currently I have a Bearcat 780XLT & Icom IC-R5 in rotation.

 

[scrappy]

I love my scanners. I have an alinco DJ-X2000, an AOR 8200 MKIII (w/ the ahem extra band) and an Icom R-3. Never really use the R-3 but the other two get used often.

Rich

 

[geepondy]

Guys are there any affordable desktop scanners that can handle the digital transmissions (is that what trunk tracking is)? I see Radio Shack has a portable but it is $500. A little too rich for my blood. This would be a gift for my parents. Even up in the small town woods, a lot of the departments are switching to digital.

 

[Threepio]

I have several, and use them often. The older Radio Shack Pro-2004/5 and the Pro-34 are great to modify. The scanners led me to a Ham license. When I cruise, I take a marine handheld, (Uniden Voyager), and I'll take that one to Juneau in a few months. My Icom Q-7 is almost an EDC. A lot has moved to digital, but there's still plenty to listen to. The Los Angeles basin is a "signal-rich" environment! --Bob

 

[KC2IXE]

I own 2 scanners, and most of my VHF/UHF will scan SOME of the out of band "stuff" - I rarely turn on the home scanner, as I really don't have a great antenna for it - I'll get local police, the fire dispatch (but NOT fireground unless they are withing a block or 2), and SOME of the local RR

I CARRY a handheld scanner every day, and use it maybe 3-4 times a year - typically when I'm on an ARES deployment, and I want to hear what is going on in the area - be it FD, PD or even other ham freqs that I'm not assigned to

I OFTEN use one of my VHF HTs to scan the RR band when I'm waiting to take the train home (trivial to do) - whenever the railroad has delays, I turn it on, just to figure out what is going on

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

When I drove a '92 half ton F-150 with a center console I carried a Radio Shack Pro-?? VHF Air and 800's (no trunking) around with me always.

Now (on my desk at home) it stays tuned to SE district HPD (my area) and I hear a lot of standard stuff and some exciting 'actor on the ground' calls.

I probably need to get into trunk trackiing. All the smaller Depts ( Sherrifs, Constables, Pasadena etc.) are on trunking.

There is this little problem called money however..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/broke.gif

 

[scrappy]

Geeponde. No trunk tracking is not digital monitoring. It can be but its a bit different. Trunking is when a series of frequencys are used by the same department or city. For instance Stamford has a trunked system for police and fire. Each tranmission is preceded by an information thread that places it on one of the frequencys and the response to it can be on a different frequency. To follow that conversation you need a trunk tracker which switches you to the frequency for the response. Otherwise you may hear only one side of the conversation. HOWEVER, many trunked systems are going to digital now so yes there are digital trunked systems. I think stamford may be moving to digital or are already there. There are scanners now that have trunk trackers and digital trunk trackers as well. I know the new radio shack Pro-96 I think it is, is a digital trunk track scanner and uniden has a base and mobile digital scanner. (the radio shack is the better deal)...

Rich

 

[was_jlh]

Since the thread is leaning toward trunking, another good site is : http://www.radioreference.com/ ( used to be trunkedradio.net ). If you're into trunked systems and you've never run Trunker, you've missed some fun.

 

[Avix]

mucho cool guys! thanks for the site tips. around here the local depts still mostly do clear, and at least so far only the Staters sometimes use encryption. and believe it or not it's the only source of accurate emergency info (we had a flood going on and the wouldn't even interupt the local basketball game to pass on updates, and most everything else is piped in feed.) but it is entertaining, not doing the cell stuff. I'm likeing the PD's EMT and PW stuff

 

[ferreter]

Even us folks down in Oz use radio scanners, I've got a couple of them (Yaesu VR-500 gets the most use).

I only used to really listen to the police and traffic authorities but I use it most during our summer to listen to the bushfire services (I live near a nice big national park which has gone up 3 times in the last 10 years).

These days I'm more likely to have my CB radio (such as an ICOM IC40S or GME TX6200, neither of which is porbably available in the US /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif ) that can also recieve other frequencies on me than just a scanner.

Ferreter

 

[JPT]

yeah, it can be quite useful & interesting listening to the local authorities.
in sydney australia the police have been slowly going over to digital.
i have a icom r2, plus a few shortwave radios which can find some weird listening.

 

[wiredgargoyle]

Digital and Trunking scanners are currently the high end of the market. A bit of info if you're looking for a scanner, Trunked systems are the current standard for much of the public service community (police/fire) but due to frequency crowding and concerns over criminal monitoring they are moving to digital systems which are clearer and can be encrypted. There are very few options to monitoring a system that has gone encrypted.

Bearcat has some sub-$500 Trunktrackers, BC245XLT and the BC895.

 

[idleprocess]

I hear some municipalities are using encrypted digital radio - good luck listening in on those.

The suburb I live in doesn't do that, but 90% of the police communications are via text instant text messaging dispatcher to car and car to car.

 

[nightgaunt]

Any good models out there (new or used) that would be good for a first scanner? Anything sub-$100 or less? I would like to monitor for fires and other emergencies, probably just in my truck or in the office. THANKS!

 

[fivebyfive]

Hey nightgaunt, first gotta ask you what frequency band your local police dept. or fire dept. is using? I mean are they on UHF, VHF, 800mhz, trunked or what? If you buy a scanner and you aren't able to listen to what you want, then it would be useless for your needs. Some of the newer scanners can track the digital radio systems that some of the cities are now switching to.