Posted: 12/12/2004 1:42:50 PM EDT
| I am in the market for a good scanner. Basically just something to listen to when I am cleaning my guns and hangin out. Anyone know of any decent models? I have a Bearcat, but it gets shitty reception. |
t's sad that we have preban scanners. I had an old Pro-2006 for a whole- great scanner. I might try to find another, but they're really beginning to get out of date. Mike |
A friend of mine (yes, I have a friend!  ) listed one on ebay and they canceled his auction becuase they determined that the scanner was old enough and could pick up cell convo's w/o modifications...Go figure..I used to listen to cell convo's all the time when they were analog.. Always someone cheating, having phone sex (when those 900 numbers were popular), arguing, or buying dope..It was fun.. Can't do that now with digital...Bearcat is selling off most of the older models of mobile/base units..You can get a decent one for under $100..I use a Bearcat 2500xlt which has 400 channels..I probably only use 10-20 Check out Radio Shack or Ham Radio Outlet off of Dunlap and the I-17 for a good radio... |
| ... I have both Radio Shack 1.3 GHz and PRO-62 Triple Conversion Hyperscan scanners. Although the 1.3 GHz has a broader range, it is a postban and isn't as sensitive as my PRO-62. Both have seen some hard miles and wear. Can't imagine living w/o them. Many Saturday nights while surfing the net, I mute the TV and just listen to all the craziness out there. You'll hear it all. |
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How to you scan the trunked 800 mhz systems? I have an old pre-ban Uniden scanner with turbo scan. When scanning the trunked systems like Scottsdale it stops on the voice frequencies but also stops on the digital noise frequencies. I imagine the digital noise is the MDT data. Is there a way around that? |
You need a Trunk Tracker scanner. I have a Radio Shack Pro-90 I've had for a few years. The data you here on the 800 trunk frequencies is called a control channel. The trunking system allows a bunch of different groups to talk on a few frequencies by sharing them. A simple analogy would be how the banks used to serve customers. Each teller had a seperate line (freq) to wait in and the shortest wasn't always the fastest, hence the old non-trunked systems. Now banks have one line for all windows to serve everyone and always use the tellers. You're no longer stuck in a line (frequency) you can't use because it's busy, you simply get assigned a new available line or teller (frequency). This allows more people to share the same frequencies and handle more radio traffic. The different departments (e.g., Police, Fire, Animal Control, Water Dept) get assigned different IDs (talk groups) and the radio uses those as an identifier, so each group doesn't hear one another. Like Scottsdale's District 1 (south patrol) uses talk group (TG) 4208, however to them it's Channel A on their radio. Each time TG:4208 has traffic it can be on any number of frequencies, but with the Truck Tracker scanner you only see 4208. It's a different mode in the scanner that monitors the control channel and decodes its TG so you can follow one channel. Also, if a user, like a cop, has urgent traffic they can bump someone else off to get through in case "all circuits are busy", but I doubt it ever happens. My Pro-90 follows Scottsdale just fine, however, everyone else is digital now or will be soon. Scottsdale uses analog technology in its system. Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe and a bunch of other cities will be or are using digital trunking using Motorola's Astro 25 system. You can't even listen to a frequency in the system since the analog scanner won't decode digital signals. You need a digital scanner, and I only know of two. Radio Shack's Pro-96 and Uniden's BC-296D. Both are 500 bucks and ugly as hell. The Radio Shack is better, but the Uniden has some things the Radio Shack doesn't and vica versa. Basically, all the new digital shit and different trunking systems have made the hobby a bitch to enjoy. I want the Radio Shack (they've always been better IMO), but 500 is too much and I want to wait until the technolgy slows down a little. ETA: For those that don't read my post, if you want to listen to Police, Fire or other exciting stuff, you'll need a digital scanner. The analog scanners will be worthless in a few months. Scottsdale is the only trunking that is analog and they could go digital any time like Tempe did. If you only want Air traffic, Ham radio, boring companies and other useless shit, then analog will be okay. |
Radio Shack should have them in stock, but who knows. When they first came out they were difficult to get. As far as the Uniden, I have no idea, except online vendors. The worst part, as I mentioned, is the price. 500 dollars, not including tax, is a lot of money for a scanner, especially when it's new technology and may improve when more models come out. I spent a lot of time reading the groups on Yahoo about these scanners and they sounded like a royal pain. For example, the audio with digital transmissions has to be fine tuned to sound right, and the voices are either too quiet or too loud, so people complained that one person was difficult to hear and another was way too loud. The Uniden has to be manually tuned for each trunked system, but the Radio Shack model auto-tunes the audio. The manual tuning that the Uniden requires annoyed everyone, and they all said the audio quality sucked compared to the Radio Shack. Also, there are different trunking systems or companies, like GE/Ericsson, Johnson, Motorola. The Radio Shack model follows the GE/Ericsson EDACS, and Motorola I, II, II/I, and digital Astro-25 (C4FM and CPQSK) modes. The Radio Shack needed a firmware upgrade to follow the CPQSK mode by the way, and didn't follow the new Phoenix Metro system at first because of it. Radio Shack's doesn't follow Johnson's LTR modes. All new scanners, ham radios, and civilian receivers and tranceivers have cellular frequencies blocked per federal law, that'll never change. I did some looking a while ago and found a couple new Uniden scanners that advertise receiving digital trunking, however like their first model, a couple mentioned needing their digital firmware card that was extra money. So it looks like Uniden is coming out with new digital capable scanners and Radio Shack still has just the one handheld. Either way, they're all pretty expensive still. Personally I'd hold off and get one from Radio Shack that follows all the trunking modes so you aren't missing anything. If you want to look into the Uniden models, search the net for discussions about them because they sometimes put out crappier scanners than RS. |
Time for a Canadian order.....  Mike |