Why cant I buy??? Handheld Scanner that is full spectrum WB, Trunking, and Digital?

why mommy why?

Anyone working on making one?

Full coverage reciever, .4999mhz-2.4ghz, trucnking, and digital, and do it all decently?

am I asking too much? Sure it would cost a bundle, but buying six different radios to do this is not exactly cheap either.

Size aside, how much would it realistically cost to put something like this together?

ICOM and Yaesu would be the companies I would expect to make it.

Icom and Yaesu make communications receivers, not scanners, so forget them ever even considering such things. A communications receiver that picks up and decodes trunked communications? Or tacking on the additional cost of a licensed APCO P25 decoder on top? Never...

The Uniden BC-396D does all of it, minus some UHF TV frequencies that no one bothers monitoring because there's simply nothing there in nearly every area of the world except some TV audio if you're lucky. So does the 996, and the new GRE PSR-500 and the 600 too from what I can tell.

No they don't cover clear up to 2.4 GHz, but who'd want that anyway, there's nothing up there of any consequence. Modern scanners cut off at 1.3 GHz because there's nothing up there to monitor that anyone would care about, and if they did care about it, they sure as hell wouldn't be using a scanner to listen - they'd be using far better equipment for those purposes, dedicated to such tasks.

The current batch of top-of-the-line hardware from Uniden and GRE do trunking, digital reception, effective coverage of everything from low VHF to 1.3 GHz soo... what's the problem?

There's also the cost of licensing the vocoder technology, which from what I understand, isn't cheap. Combined with the lack of a large market (ours is a very narrow one), and the cost is likely prohibitive.

Heck I'd be satisfied with a BC396 combined with a Kenwood TF6A or Yaesu VX7R but it doesn't mean it's going to happen. The technology is there, but the cost factors aren't. Although one can dream...

73s Mike

br0adband said:

No they don't cover clear up to 2.4 GHz, but who'd want that anyway, there's nothing up there of any consequence.

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A lot of the wideband radios are deaf as a stump over 1.3 GHz. The RF devices used to amplify the signal are probably being run outside their published range at this point.

You would probably get a lot of digital noise at 2.4 ghz from WiFi hotspots, your neighbors wireless router, and the person standing next to you with a bluetooth headset and phone.

I can understand why the scanner companies block out or do not include certain ranges...it's so they don't have to add the circuitry to filter out unwanted noise - pagers, television, fm stations...etc....

Universaldecoder said:

I can understand why the scanner companies block out or do not include certain ranges...it's so they don't have to add the circuitry to filter out unwanted noise - pagers, television, fm stations...etc....

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I think more to the point... there is nothing to listen to up there. At least not that the casual hobbyist could access.

zz0468 said:

I think more to the point... there is nothing to listen to up there. At least not that the casual hobbyist could access.

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What are these being marketed for?

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/IC-R3

http://www.winradio.com/

A Winradio might be the closest thing the OP is asking for. By buying a few options you can get one to trunk or decode P25, and it goes up to 3500 mhz. Here are the software options.

http://www.winradio.com/home/software.htm

The only thing is....it's not a handheld, and you'll have to tote around a laptop.

Here is the band plan for amateur radio...

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/bandplan.html

There's stuff up there, and I would consider a ham to be a causal listener at times.

Universaldecoder said:

What are these being marketed for?

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That's a good question. Note that I said "casual hobbyist". By this, I mean someone who buys an off the shelf receiver who does nothing more than plug and play... the average consumer, the average scanner listener.

Take a look at the spectrum allocations, and see what's there. 960-1240 is useless. It's a radar band. 1240-1300 is shared radar and amateur. You'll hear a smattering of amateur stuff there, maybe. 1300-1350 is radar, above 1350 to 1710 is a large variety of services that you may or may not hear anything, but is likely beyond the capabilities of the "casual hobbyist" to demodulate. 1710-1850 is federal microwave links (for now) that are beyond "casual hobbyist" capability. 1850-2000 is PCS cellular, off limits. Higher up is more PCS allocations, satellite allocations, ENG video channels, more radar, point to point mw links, ALL of which is out of reach for the "casual hobbyist".

But rather than go through the entire spectrum like that, I'll point out that as you go higher in frequency, the performance and antenna demands increase. Yeah, there is amateur activity at 2.4 GHz, and 3.4 GHz, but it's usually either television, weak signal ssb and cw, or links - beyond the capabilities of the "casual hobbyist". I operate on the microwave amateur bands, and I wouldn't touch one of those receivers because they don't have the required performance to actually be useful to me.

Some of the satellite services are monitorable, but that may be more involved than hanging your scanntenna on the roof and plugging in a piece of RG-6. You're gonna need a GOOD low noise preamp, maybe some tracking software, and steerable antennas - not "casual hobbyist" stuff.

So, like I said... why do they market those receivers? It's a good question. I doubt the average user finds anything to listen to above the 1.3 GHz amateur band.

Universaldecoder said:

There's stuff up there, and I would consider a ham to be a causal listener at times.

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I wouldn't. The people that operate up there are technically savvy, and usually build their own stuff. It goes beyond "casual", and is more a way of life!

zz0468 said:

The people that operate up there are technically savvy, and usually build their own stuff. It goes beyond "casual", and is more a way of life!

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Yeah, I said that already, more or less:

br0adband said:

Modern scanners cut off at 1.3 GHz because there's nothing up there to monitor that anyone would care about, and if they did care about it, they sure as hell wouldn't be using a scanner to listen - they'd be using far better equipment for those purposes, dedicated to such tasks.

Click to expand...

zz0468 said:

I think more to the point... there is nothing to listen to up there. At least not that the casual hobbyist could access.

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Closed circuit TV wireless, unencrypted headsets, microwave comms maybe? Dont know if microwave would be worth monitoring.

I guess I understand how one unit can not efficiently monitor both the normal scanner bands, and the other realms, but why not two units in one? using one interface and one display?

As far as whom it is marketed to. Let me elaborate.

I guess someone already said that the tech was there, but the market is not. That was what I felt, but was happy wondering what the potential market would be and what the price would realistically be. It seems that if you have guys buying $500-600 scanners without blinking and widebands from several hundreds of dollers to tens of thousands of dollers, why would price be a potential limiting factor? Although most hams are notoriously cheap, there are tons of enthusiests where money is no object for better or worse. There are too many "gotta have its!" It seems to me that there are plenty who spend thousands on this hobby. And often, it is for no better reason than to have newer or better eqipment than the next guy. I mean, just look at the whacker crowd. How many of these happy-helper volunteers spend $2k on blinky lights and $2k on radios? It doesnt seem that a $1200 handheld scanner is out of the question if you want to be chief whacker, super-ham at the hamfest, or just plain be a radio geek that has money and wants to be on the bleeding-edge of technology?


Also, I understand that there are limitations on the antanaee to cover such a wide spectrum, but with the traffic being all in the "normal" scanner area for the most part, I dont think that it is unreasonble for to expect most people to understand that aspect of it and understand that they need a different antanaee to monitor anything "up there"

It's simply not a practical thing to research, develop, manufacture, and market. That's about as simple as it gets.

I keep seeing "whacker" posted all over the place, so I'm curious what the hell it means. "Wireless hacker" or ... ? Someone clue me in quick...

br0adband said:

It's simply not a practical thing to research, develop, manufacture, and market. That's about as simple as it gets.

I keep seeing "whacker" posted all over the place, so I'm curious what the hell it means. "Wireless hacker" or ... ? Someone clue me in quick...

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They are vehicular-lighting experts and certified pre-responders with radios. They also keep the world free of dangerous and fattening cake by destroying the threat one slice at a time.:wink:

"vehicular-lighting experts" = People with too much free time on their hands, and money too?

"certified pre-responders with radios" = Is that light George Carlin's "pre" routine? Pre-heat an oven? Pre-recorded? How can you do something before you actually do it?

Interesting... for about a second.

DanTSX said:

Closed circuit TV wireless, unencrypted headsets, microwave comms maybe? Dont know if microwave would be worth monitoring.

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Yeah, some of the closed circuit tv is monitorable, but it's usually very short range. Same with any headsets operating in that frequency range. We're talking part 15 usage here. Do those receivers have video capability? I haven't paid much attention.

The ability to monitor microwave systems would be a scanner enthusiasts dream come true, and I've actually done it. But most systms are now digital, and the proprietary nature of the modulators makes that impractical.

I stand by my original assessment, above 1300 MHz, there's virtually nothing for the casual scanner enthusiast to listen to, so frequency coverage beyond that is a waste of money for most people.

br0adband said:

"vehicular-lighting experts" = People with too much free time on their hands, and money too?

"certified pre-responders with radios" = Is that light George Carlin's "pre" routine? Pre-heat an oven? Pre-recorded? How can you do something before you actually do it?

Interesting... for about a second.

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Heh, sorry, couldnt resist the sarcasm. Whackers are the more overly-enthusiastic end of the volunteer public safety crowd. Usually they are not even Pub Safety, but insist they are anyways. The more successfull of the bunch usually become overly-aggressive security guards or spastic firepolice. They are identified by tons of lighting and triple-redundency on their radios and sense of self-importance.

zz0468 said:

Yeah, some of the closed circuit tv is monitorable, but it's usually very short range. Same with any headsets operating in that frequency range. We're talking part 15 usage here. Do those receivers have video capability? I haven't paid much attention.

The ability to monitor microwave systems would be a scanner enthusiasts dream come true, and I've actually done it. But most systms are now digital, and the proprietary nature of the modulators makes that impractical.

I stand by my original assessment, above 1300 MHz, there's virtually nothing for the casual scanner enthusiast to listen to, so frequency coverage beyond that is a waste of money for most people.

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Yeah, I know there isnt much up there, but things do change. Nobody saw the proliferation of WiFi or bluetooth coming ten years back. Being able to use the unit to identify and mark WiFi access points would be great (wardriving). As far as video, why not have a small LCD or OLED on the unit. I guess a perfected ICOM R5 or whatever it is would be what i'm looking for. A nice feature would be GPS marking to plot where signals are logged as well. I think some of the new Unidens have this feature now. I was corrected that ICOM and Yaesu make wideband recievers not scanners. This I know, but why could they not work with one of the scanner manufactuers to do something like this? That PC scanner has me thinking as pretty interesting.