Wideband scanner vs a normal one?

[scannerrail]

besides the price what more does a wideband scanner offer?

 

[trap5858]

There are significant trade offs. First, a wideband scanner does not have digital trunking abilities. A wideband scanner is usually a receiver that has the capability to scan, they are usually a big tricky to program and do not have the sensitivity that a receiver dedicated to a particular band will have. The more you ask it to do the less it will do well.

I use a wideband scanner the Icom R-20 for air/mil air and marine receiving. I use my pro-96 for public safety scanning.

I hope this helps.

 

[n4voxgill]

a communication receiver covers many bands that a scanner does not. It also covers modes, such as sideband, that scanners do not. I have no experience with an R20, but I have an AOR8200 MK III that blows every scanner away that I have used on VHF and UHF. It is very sensitive and selectivity is good so that you don't get much local interference. It will pick up frequencies from .5 MHz all the way up to 3000 MHz (3 GHz). It was not designed to be a scanner so it will not follow trunked systems.

So I have multiple units that I can take with me to listen to scanner type activities or where I need enhanced aircraft civilian and military. The AR8200 does a good job for a handheld on picking up HF communications on sideband such as military planes, coast guard and even ham radio transmissions.

 

[scannerrail]

So i'm reading around here and looking in the Space and Satellite area here.. some are listed under the 2m band would a 800Mhz scanner pick something up like that or would I need a wideband for that?

 

[SAR923]

Almost any scanner will pick up 2 meters (144 to 146 MHz). If the scanner also picks up 800 MHz, that's a bonus but you don't need it for 2 meters. The question is - do need to, or want to, listen to 800 MHZ trunked systems? If so, you need a dedicated trunking scanner. If you don't need trunking, a radio like the AR8200 will expand your world of listening greatly but at a price.

 

[scannerrail]

Wont you need something better then a rubber duckie?

all of the wideband scanners are a wee bit out of my price range at the moment.

 

[Turbo68]

Hello a DIAMOND-RH771 Antenna will work well on a H/H and also a receiver will always offer more options & functions.I cannot say however that one or the other will pick up more signals because at the end of the day if you do not have a good antenna you cannot pull signals in.

Regards Lino:ALINCO-DJX2000E,AOR-3000A,AOR-8200MK3,AOR-8600MK2,ICOM-R5,ICOM-R20,ICOM-PCR1000,ICOM-R2500,ICOM-R9000,ICOM-R9500,UNIDEN-245,UNIDEN-785E,UNIDEN-396,UNIDEN-996,RADIO SHACK-PRO96,REALISTIC-PRO2035,YAESU-VX7R,
YAESU-VR500,YAESU-VR5000.

 

[scannerrail]

Hello a DIAMOND-RH771 Antenna will work well on a H/H and also a receiver will always offer more options & functions.I cannot say however that one or the other will pick up more signals because at the end of the day if you do not have a good antenna you cannot pull signals in.

Regards Lino:ALINCO-DJX2000E,AOR-3000A,AOR-8200MK3,AOR-8600MK2,ICOM-R5,ICOM-R20,ICOM-PCR1000,ICOM-R2500,ICOM-R9000,ICOM-R9500,UNIDEN-245,UNIDEN-785E,UNIDEN-396,UNIDEN-996,RADIO SHACK-PRO96,REALISTIC-PRO2035,YAESU-VX7R,
YAESU-VR500,YAESU-VR5000.

the DIAMOND-RH771 is better then the Diamond RH77CA? I've seen nothing but great reviews on it at least the Diamond RH77CA

ahh nevermind found my answer here

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35154

 

[ka3jjz]

Also keep in mind that most widebands - even the 8200 will have problems at some point with this - don't really have the selectivity and strong signal handling to be able to work with a good antenna (say 100 foot of wire). They just aren't built to handle it.

You're generally better off with a good communications receiver for HF and a scanner for everything above 30 mhz, bottom line. A wideband simply has too many performance tradeoffs if you really get serious about listening on HF.

73s Mike

 

[eorange]

Compared to scanners, wideband receivers ususally:

• scan much slower
• have limited memory options (compared to Uniden's dynamic and the PRO V folders)
• have fewer options for bank/memory tags

 

[scannerrail]

so that i can relate i wideband is more like a handheld shortwave radio?

 

[ka3jjz]

No not really. In many respects they are very different; mainly in the sense where a wideband scanner can scan, often a small handheld SW radio (like the one Grundig has...) doesn't. But they often do suffer from the same maladies relating to overload with larger antennas and lack of ultimate selectivity (being able to hear a weak station that's immediatly adjacent to a much stronger one is one test for this). 73s Mike

 

[scannerrail]

Yeah I understand the higher scan range but I never understood.. say like a radio from 1990 or 89 will still sell near retail price when like 3-4 newer models have come out.. is the market that small for them?

 

[SAR923]

Yes, the market is very small and getting smaller. Many of the earlier wideband radios are being purchased because they have the cell band unblocked. It really doesn't do much good now since almost all cell traffic is digital but there's a certain mystique to it.

Trunking killed off the demand for many wideband receivers since so many areas need a trunking receiver to hear anything. I suspect the widebands haven't offered trunking, especially digital trunking, is that it would make the prices soar to even more unreasonable levels than we see today. Widebands still have their place for digging out elusive signals, both HF and VHF, but they are becoming increasingly irrelevant to most scanner fans.

 

[scannerrail]

One thing I've noticed (maybe it was just the older manuals I looked at)

Do these things have an issue with birdies?

 

[w0fg]

The wideband receivers are examples of devices that do lots of thing fairly well but nothing really well. Neither fish 'nor fowl, as the saying goes. They're not really adequate for HF, and they can't compare with a good scanner for VHF/UHF, but they do capture a lot of spectrum in a very small package. If you just want to sample things I'm sure they'd be fine, but if you're a more than casual listener you're going to want something else for those areas that you are serious about.