New to Scanners

[aviator4life]

Hi,
I want to get a new scanner and don't know what the best is out there and need some help. Just wondering what you would recommend for around $100-150 and can get the thunderbirds and blue angels and also local police is possible? Thanks for your help.

[DPD1]

Unfortunately, unless you find something used, you won't be able to get the mil bands in that price range with something new. The radios that have those bands are usually at the higher end of the prices. Maybe try looking for an old Uniden 3000xlt handheld, or 780xlt base model. But if you can live with just the VHF air band, you can get something new, like the 95xlt. As far as the PD, that greatly depends on what type of system they use near you.

[aviator4life]

Originally Posted by DPD1

Unfortunately, unless you find something used, you won't be able to get the mil bands in that price range with something new. The radios that have those bands are usually at the higher end of the prices. Maybe try looking for an old Uniden 3000xlt handheld, or 780xlt base model. But if you can live with just the VHF air band, you can get something new, like the 95xlt. As far as the PD, that greatly depends on what type of system they use near you.

I was looking into the GRE PSR-300, would that work?

[DPD1]

Yes, that would do mil stuff... But nothing digital if you have any PD or anything near your that's digital.

[aviator4life]

What would you recommend that does military and police/fire?

[rvictor]

The Monitoring Times annual Airshow Guide which is available for download at

MT HOME

contains an article on which radios cover the necessary frequencies and modes to listen to airshows. Note that it is not only a question of frequency coverage, but also the need to cover some of those frequencies in the AM mode. The guide is also a good reference for frequencies used by the various show participants.

There is also an excellent article in the wiki at

Milcom Receiving Equipment - The RadioReference Wiki

As far as police, it appears from the database that there's still considerable analog in your county. However, the State of Ohio MARCS system is all digitial and some of the agencies from your county are on that system. You might want to check in the Ohio forum to find out if there are other agencies that have announced plans to join the MARCS system. You'll need a digital scanner to listen to MARCS and that will up the cost considerably.

Dick