Digital Scanner?

GrilledCheese · Nov 22, 2010

Will this scanner work for listening to digital freqs.? Our police recently went digital here in Gillette, and i talked to a police officer today, and he said the sheriff and EMS will also be switching over in about a month. This scanner im looking at looks like a trunk tracker. Is trunk tracking and digital not the same thing? The scanner is a "Uniden Bearcat BCT8 BearTracker Warning System with 800 MHz TrunkTracker III". I hope it works with digital because it has a really good rating.

LINK:
Amazon.com: Uniden Bearcat BCT8 BearTracker Warning System with 800 MHz TrunkTracker III: Electronics

WyoWabbit · Nov 22, 2010

Yes, trunking and digital are two different things. There are analog trunking systems, and there are digital trunking systems. Sorry to say, but the Bearcat BCT8 does not do digital trunking, it is analog only. Tom

GrilledCheese · Nov 23, 2010

Ok, well, is there a digital scanner you could recommend?

WyoWabbit · Nov 23, 2010

Check the RADIO SHACK SCANNERS forum. The handheld and base units are $100 off this friday. Heck of a deal. Tom

hawkspringsfire · Nov 25, 2010

GrilledCheese said:
Ok, well, is there a digital scanner you could recommend?

Uniden BCD996T or BCD996XT.

ranger821 · Nov 25, 2010

I vote for the Pro 197 or the 106. I have been (Drooling) sorry about that, over both of these. never had a digital scanner before. will have mine at 5:30 AM tomorrow. Same as the GRE's. Have done a lot of research and it comes up 197 in my books.

eaf1956 · Nov 25, 2010

Scanners

GrilledCheese said:
Ok, well, is there a digital scanner you could recommend?

I hate when someone asks for a suggestion. It comes down to UNIDEN vs GRE vs RS. Any digital scanner will work for you just pick one that you like and does what you wish to do.

ranger821 · Nov 25, 2010

Yes, that is true. eaf1956. Best way to do any of this (buying scanners) is to do your research as to features, what comes with it, and most important what kind of activity you have in your area. I have looked at all of them, digital ones, and for the price and what I am looking for the RS 197 is it. The GRE 600 is the same scanner at a higher price. It comes with the cable to program it. I already have a cable. Compare them all by all means.

martyjess · Nov 25, 2010

Digital

A cool feature that is fun to have too is CLOSE CALL. I recently bought a digital scanner, I did it fast and did not look at it. I don't have close call on my unit and I regret it !! I have the BC250D, awsome unit.

Love digital scanner.

Austin4Wyo · Nov 28, 2010

I love my PSR 500. Great investment. Once you get used to the interface and it's capabilities, it works great.

As far as Close Call goes, it has the GRE equivalent of Spectrum Sweeper, which has led me to many a bizarre frequency here on the high plains.

If you're going to drop several hundred dollars on a digital unit, also be sure to get a decent antenna. You may have the most amazing radio in the world, but it still won't be worth anything without an antenna that brings the signals in. Given the open spaces of Wyoming, that becomes rather important.

GrilledCheese · Nov 29, 2010

So i bought the radio shack pro-197, now programming it is the second daunting task... I have read previous replies saying no one knows the "talk groups" the Gillette police changed to. I also saw a reply stating the police moved to a mutual aid TG. Well, i dont think its a mutual aid TG because i programmed all the Mutual aid TG's into scanner, and nothing plays or anything.. So, now we are back at step one where noone has an idea about the TG's. I did talk with a cop about a week ago, and he said in about a month our Sheriff's Office, and EMS are also switching over. (So now its about 3 weeks or less, and i wont have anything to listen to, when the time comes when they want to switch over.) Or has someone found out yet? Or am i just not programming it correctly? Thanks for the help.

subvet · Nov 30, 2010

Hey Grilled Cheese! I am into my second day of trying to get Gillette programmed in to the PRO-500. I ordered it pre-programed from Scanner Master and, just like the HP-1 it only has two working channels, the old SO and EMS. I just downloaded ARC- 500 Pro software. The very helpful staff at SM suggested looking at the free manual at Mark's Scanners . The GRE manual is pretty poor. With it I was able to program the 800Mhz control channels, but not talk groups. I'll keep working on it. I also joined radio reference so I can upload anything I find. May need some help from the pros to get that done correctly. I think we can directly share programming from GRE to RS scanners. Good luck!

puzzleriddle · Nov 30, 2010

If you program just the CC's set up a wildcard to "collect" the TGs

subvet · Nov 30, 2010

Thanks. That is what I attempted to do but don't have myself straight yet on exactly how to enter it. One mistake I think I made was to put the control channels for both Gillette towers (one tower will be fall back) as control channels for the same talkgroup. Am Icorrect that I don't need to enter the voice channels, just find them by wildcard? My next attempt will be to set up talk groups, I think by cloning the tysys and putting the tg # in instead of wildcard. I am also going to save the SM programing as a V scanner and start out new.

wyomingmedic · Nov 30, 2010

With a 197, just program in the control frequencies and the backup control frequencies (red and blue ones on RR database). Then, if it is setup in Wildcard, it will just listen to anything and you can save the individual TGs that show up. The radio will automatically track the actual "voice" frequencies, even if you do not program them in. That data is passed on the control channels and your scanner can decode that.

Once you get the swing of it, you can setup an actual programming with individual TGs and not use the wildcard. I did this for the first few days of owning the scanner. I just played with it and messed it up. After I had the workings down, I completely emptied it and started over with the ARC500 software. It was great.

As for which is better (197 or 996xt) I have both and I can safely say it is a draw. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but they are both very capable radios. But they both program COMPLETELY differently, so the learnig curve between the 2 is awful.

Good luck and enjoy,

WM

GrilledCheese · Nov 30, 2010

Thankyou wyomedic! Its working! It found the talk group for the Police department here in Gillette. its 14904 as the id. When they were talking i immediately recognized their voices. Now im just wondering what the talk group might be for the highway patrol for Campbell county..... hmm

wyomingmedic · Nov 30, 2010

19883 dispatch
19886 car to car

Those are the Cambell county WHP TGs on Wyolink. They should be active.

WM

GrilledCheese · Dec 1, 2010

Now for that, do i need to use the gillette water tank freq's, gillette south freq's, or rozet hill freq's?

wyomingmedic · Dec 1, 2010

While Gillette's 800 system is tied into the WyoLink, It would probably be better to stick with just Rozet hill.

If the Gillette 800 system is similar to Casper's 800 in how it will be tied into the WyoLink, then the only time you as a scannist would hear WHP on the 800 system would be if an 800 system user has their radio on the WHP TG and was making it broadcast on the 800. Probably won't happen all of the time.

So I would stick with Rozet.

WM

GrilledCheese · Dec 2, 2010

So do i need to put in just the control channel for Rozet hill, or all of them? Becuase when I go into scan mode its not showing it as a trunked freq. (or is it not supposed to?)

Digital Scanner?

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