Newbie Digital Scanner ????

[natiep]

Hello Everyone!

My first post here.

I few years ago when all of the Minneapolis, St. Paul area was analog I bought a Bearcat BC785D without the digital card.

Now that all of Minneapolis, St. Paul and surrounding areas are mostly digital I'm looking at getting the Radio Shack Pro-197 since it is on sale for $299

Now for my question.......I was able to enjoy my BC785D for roughly 2 years until everything went Digital. Now I'm left with an expensive analog scanner that is pretty much useless. If I do buy the Pro-197, how long do you think I will be able to use it before it too is useless. What I'm asking I guess is, how often do agencies change their digital systems? Will the systems they are using now be the ones they use for a while?

I just don't want to buy another $300 scanner only to have it rendered useless because a different digital system comes along.

Also, is the Pro-197 a good digital scanner? How user friendly is it?

Thank you all for your comments and input!

Nate
St. Paul, Minnesota

 

[sjgostovich]

I don't know a whole lot about that scanner in particular, but I think if you got a digital card for it and programmed it for the metro area minnesota armer trunked system, you could monitor it just fine?

 

[N8IAA]

I could be wrong, but the digital card for the 785 decoded 3600 baud systems. The Minnesota state system is 9600 baud. I have a 106, and two 197's. All get used daily. With the proper software, Win500 or PSREdit500, they are a joy to use. They are a little more technically harder to program by hand than the 785. I used to have a 780, and it was used for milair and local analog trunktracking. Then everything started going digital. You won't go wrong getting a 197 for your digital scanning Oh, there has been new digital modes introduced to public safety that none of the present scanners can monitor. Follow the posts in the Minnesota state forum to keep up with what is new in your area. Hopefully, we won't be shut out of everything.
HTH,
Larry

 

[Bubba1661]

I have both the Pro-106 and the Pro-197, They are both fantastic radios.

 

[pioneer13]

scanner systems

Iv got a radio shack pro-106 and i gave around 400 for mine and it was well worth it. There a little complicated but its just a little time and reading to learn how to use it. But as far as how often citys change there scanner types like anolog and digital it doesn't happen often. I live in Tennessee and the city im in is still on anolog. Mostly bigger cities are going to digital which is better but i would just hang on to the anolog one and f you can definitely get a digital one and thats a good price but hope this helped or answered some of your question

 

[shadcall]

I wouldn't discount your old scanner. Even though you cannot use it to monitor the ARMER system there are plenty of things you can monitor in the MSP area. There is aircraft, both civilian and military, railroads, businesses, schools, marine, Federal Government (although some Fed freqs will be digital and even encrypted etc. It all depend on what your interests are. Just check the database for all there is to listen to that is still analog. Depending on your location and your antenna you might be able to monitor some of the surrounding counties in the MSP metro area. They may have some analog frequencies.

As far as programming I would check out ARC 500 by Butel. It is a great program and easy to use.

 

[MisterK33]

You could always oust sell it, too...

 

[ka3jjz]

Nate, this article from our wiki is designed to give you a one-place stop to shop for almost everything you need to get started, including a link to this scanner's Easier to Read manual (both here and in our wiki, anything blue is a link)

Getting Started with your GRE/RS Object Oriented Scanner - The RadioReference Wiki

HTH....Mike