Aircraft programming strategy for inexpensive scanner?

[hertzian]

What is your favorite programming strategy for the inexpensive conventional scanner with the typical bank/channel setup?

Ok, this is kind of a loaded question - I'm familiar with aircraft scanner programming, but when I brought home an inexpensive RS Pro-135 handheld as a general-aviation backup, I realized just how poor the out-of-box experience could be for a budding aircraft monitoring enthusiast.

First on the list: Other than ditching the rubber duck, the biggest problem I see is that doing a "service search" on the aircraft band is so slow that you miss most of the action and might even assume the scanner is dead or there isn't any activity. Almost as bad is dumping 200 channels into it and slogging through all of the channels and missing comms. Don't waste your time. Instead, head straight to the RadioReference database and get the channels for your area programmed into memories and optimize the banks.

Generally, I program my channels with known nearby frequencies, and include duplicates like the same air-to-air channels among all the banks. I don't mind wasting a few channels when I'm doing multi-bank monitoring due to the fact that the comms are so short I'll hit that duplicate frequency even faster. The banks themselves are dedicated to areas I'll be sure to hear things in, like when I'm at work, school, or elsewhere.

Other than that, I turn off the channel delay, as I'm not interested in hearing the "good night" replies, and want to get to the next active channel as fast as possible. Works for me.

So how do you have yours programmed on a conventional scanner? Do you put specific airports into banks, or separate them by high-level / low-level, aircraft vs helicopters, or do you prefer to do it geographically?

[b7spectra]

I have one "bank" in my 396XT and 996T called "AERONAUTICAL". Under that bank, I have several "sub banks" such as "ATL", "PDK", "ARTCC", Dobbins ARB", "MIL-AIR LO", "MIL-AIR VHF", "MIL-AIR UHF", so as you can see, I keep my "sub banks" set up for what I need to listen to. That's the nice thing about the newer Unidens. On my old Pro-96 (where ever it went, I don't know), when I wanted to go out to the airports, I would simply upload my "Aeronautical" program and when I was done, I would reload my "Public Safety" program.

[hertzian]

That's pretty much how I have mine setup to a degree, although there are plenty of duplicates for air-air and whatnot in each group. Hmm suppose I could make a specific air-air group and just leave it active all the time..

Using the Pro-135 was like going back in time, which was really frustrating after using the newer unidens. Almost as frustrating as when I tried to get used to it in the first place.

I might have to pick up the software for the '135 and do what you suggested by just loading an entire custom program depending on what was going on for the day. Seems like the best overall strategy!