Radio scanners?

[guitardemon]

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about radio scanners. I am looking for something that will let me listen to the fire, medical, and police radio channels. Will any simple scanner do this?

 

[M. McCord]

Most agencies are using 800 & 900 mHz systems now. I'm not aware of any scanners that can do those. My experience is limited but I used to run an 800 mHz console in a previous career.

 

[DaveH]

Many smaller cities have not yet gone to 800 mhz and above. It kinds of depends on your area.

Actually many scanners can do 800 and 900 mhz except for cellular. You probably want a model that does all three trunking systems, and is compatible with the new channel spacing which I think is 12.5 mhz.

I saw some great deals on in stock scanner that could not do the new channel spacing, be care what you buy.

Also it seems most of the cool stuff no longer comes through radio channels like it used to but gets done via cell phone.

Here is a good resource:

http://www.grove-ent.com/

 

[guitardemon]

What would one of these scanners run me? If i went down to a local radio shack they should be able to tell me what i need to listen locally right?

 

[fixer27]

The trend is towards APCO 25 compliant systems, those are digital only systems, and require specialized equipment to listen to.

Then to make things even more interesting, the whole country is being "rebanded" meaning that subgroups like police, fire, garbage, all are going to have new residences for their frequencies.

"if" you buy say a radio shack pro 95, you will soon be hearing only static, you must go digital, and digital that can handle the new trunked schemes.

A uniden 396 is a good example of a modern scanner that won't be obselete as soon as you buy one.

Radio Shack's pro 96 is "good" but the older models will not handle the rebanding, their bios OS is not designed for that.

Price?

Pro 96 maybe 325 if you shop around

BC 396 400 or so if you shop for one, 480 if you do not, and 50 dollars for the software to run the thing, the Uniden software is not good.

Cool thing about the 396, you can run a sort of VM Scanner" on your computer, meaning if you plug your scanner in via usb, you can run it from your computer screen and utilize the sound cards on today's computers...that is something to listen to let me tell you...

 

[DaveH]

Oops edit as pricing has already been covered.

 

[GarageBoy]

What's the difference between a scanner an a receiver from, say, Icom?

 

[DaveH]

Scanner usually but not always means receives public safety transmissions, receiver generally means may receive all sort of other stuff like wideband FM for radio stations and UHF TV sound for example. General receiver might not have "trunking" as well.