What is the best handheld scanner to use in San Antonio, Texas

I am new to scanning in San Antonio, Texas and would like to know what is the best handheld scanner to use.

Depending on what you want to listen to. But to hear just about every thing out there I would go with the
RS 106 Digital. It's a bit pricey, but a good scanner. Being your new to scanning be sure to get the usb cable & soft ware for the scanner, unless you know some one who can manually program it. You can also go on EBAY & bid on a scanner to get it cheaper. Good Luck.

Pretty much all of San Antonio and Bexar County Law Enforcement and fire is on the non scan able ProVoice system, with the exception of County Fire which is not provoice on the system. but a good basic digital scanner will pick up the Military system for all the bases in the area the LCRA P25 system which has some of the area smaller towns on it and any VHF Fed stuff and surrounding counties.

You said you were new to scanning but not sure if you're new to the hobby. If you are, start off with an easy to use analog scanner. Forget spending $$$ for a digital scanner for right now.

Get a Uniden BC125AT. Welcome to the hobby.

ScanManSATX said:

I am new to scanning in San Antonio, Texas and would like to know what is the best handheld scanner to use.

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UNIDEN BCD-436HP | UNIDEN BCD436HP TrunkTracker V/APCO P25 Phase I & Phase II

For ProVoice you'll need a discriminator tap and pipe it into a computer running DSD+

NC5267 said:

Pretty much all of San Antonio and Bexar County Law Enforcement and fire is on the non scan able ProVoice system, with the exception of County Fire which is not provoice on the system. but a good basic digital scanner will pick up the Military system for all the bases in the area the LCRA P25 system which has some of the area smaller towns on it and any VHF Fed stuff and surrounding counties.

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Digital Speech Decoder (software package) - The RadioReference Wiki

The latest version (1.6) supports the following formats and modulation types:

P25 Phase 1
ProVoice EDACS Digital voice
X2-TDMA - Motorola public safety TDMA system with P25 style signaling (mostly based on DMR)
DMR/MOTOTRBO - Digital Mobile Radio standard
NXDN - 9600 baud (12.5 kHz) NEXEDGE and 4800 baud (6.25 kHz) NEXEDGE/IDAS
D-STAR - The Github version of dsd/mbelib can parse and play back D-STAR traffic.

C4FM modulation
GFSK modulation (including GMSK and other filtered 2/4 level FSK)
QPSK modulation (sometimes marketed as "LSM")

Will Digital Speech Decoder (software package) - The RadioRerference Wiki decode EDACS ProVoice frequencies in the UNIDEN BCD-436HP so that they can be heard? If not what needs to be done so I can hear theese frequencies?

Is SAFD switching to digital anytime soon? If so will they be encrypted.

SAFD is Digital they are just Digital ProVoice not P25