What has changed in the scanning hobby since I quit?

I am thinking about getting into the hobby again. To give you an idea of when I lost interest in the hobby.... Unscrambled cordless phones were becoming fewer and fewer. Trunk-tracking was "the new scanner ability" etc etc...

Back in the day I mostly listened to analog cellphone convos, unscrambled cordless phone convos, DJs out on location (talking off the air... usually picking up on chicks), HAM radio operators. I wasnt really into a lot of police and fire/ems chatter. I DID listen to it and had my old uniden sportcat 150 programmed to several local police frequencies, but I preferred the more interesting stuff.

So what has changed since last I was in the hobby. I want to know what to expect IF I went out and bought a new more modern scanner.

if your old scanner still works, and you don't want to listen to public service, not much has changed. Now if you want to listen to public service, much has changed. Starting at about $3090 and up, you will get a digital ready scanner. Encryption, digital, is out. Depending on where you leave will determine the price you will pay as some digital units can capture more. With the new scanners, gone are the days of putting frequency X into channel something, as channel days have gone the way of the dodo bird. The newer handheld units, are smaller , they hold far more than the earlier scanners. You will use your computer to load in frequency information. Newer digital trunking scanners are either DMA architecture or Object Oriented architecture. Both are like learning a foriegn language, one is say French and the other is Russian, who provide an english language output. You have a choice on the Uniden scanners which are DMA or the Radioshack-GRE-Whistler brand that are Object Oriented.
YOU WILL FIND MANY HELPFUL PEOPLE HERE AT RR TO GET YOU INTO LISTENING AGAIN.

dirtymoney said:

Back in the day I mostly listened to analog cellphone convos, unscrambled cordless phone convos, DJs out on location (talking off the air... usually picking up on chicks), HAM radio operators. I wasnt really into a lot of police and fire/ems chatter. I DID listen to it and had my old uniden sportcat 150 programmed to several local police frequencies, but I preferred the more interesting stuff.

So what has changed since last I was in the hobby. I want to know what to expect IF I went out and bought a new more modern scanner.

Click to expand...

Well, these days most of what you used to listen to is illegal to monitor with hams being the only exception.

Trunking is firmly planted in the hobby, and digital and/or encryption is becoming an issue. With the digital formats come more expensive scanners.

On the bright side, some aspects have become easier such as preprogrammed scanners that allow you to monitor any area of the USA without reprogramming.

My advice: Forget scanners. I have 3 words for you: Software Defined Radio.

Get yourself a cheapie little RTL-SDR dongle and start playing with the literal plethora of free SDR software out there. Tons to listen to, tons to learn and about $40 and a decently modern PC is all you really need to get started. If you know or are interested in learning Linux, there's even more software available to play with and new stuff is being written all the time. SDR is definitely the future of our hobby.

-AZ

It's like asking "Well I got a black and white television from long ago, what has changed in TV broadcasting over the years?" The answer is, "Pretty much everything".

As stated above: trunking, digital signals, narrow-banding and encryption along with some "un-scannable" formats are prevalent. Still depending upon where you are, there is a lot of stuff that one can hear on scanners. But be prepared to shell out some big bucks to do it.

Get a Uniden BC125AT or find a GRE PSR-310 to get your feet wet. Good luck OP.

The hobby is still fun but a lot of what you used to listen to is gone now.

AZScanner said:

My advice: Forget scanners. I have 3 words for you: Software Defined Radio.

Get yourself a cheapie little RTL-SDR dongle and start playing with the literal plethora of free SDR software out there. Tons to listen to, tons to learn and about $40 and a decently modern PC is all you really need to get started. If you know or are interested in learning Linux, there's even more software available to play with and new stuff is being written all the time. SDR is definitely the future of our hobby.

-AZ

Click to expand...

I think this is probably the most appropriate direction if you're not so much interested in the public safety side as you are interested in hearing just about everything and anything. You may want to check out some videos of RTL-SDR to see what it is about. It's not as effective at scanning multiple known frequencies like a scanner, but it will definitely pick up on all sorts of radio transmissions if you enjoy searching around for them and maybe even decode some digital radio transmissions if you have the right software. You can actually pick up a dongle for less than $20 dollars if you shop around.

As for actual scanners, these days they are quite a bit more complicated in both terms of programming and how they function. Almost all the newest stuff on the market is pushing towards the direction of computer/software only programming, programming by hand is almost unheard of in the newest scanners and some people probably wouldn't care if programming by hand was removed from scanner these days. A trunk-tracking scanner is basically a standard of anything on the market and there's a lot of new technologies involved with public safety communications like digital formats.

A fair amount of private/commercial type communications has largely gone to cellphone only or digital modes not supported by current scanners. Cordless phones now operate on frequencies that no scanners can really get into (highest most scanners have reached is 1.3 GHz). Cell phones are now encoded and scanners are blocked by law for receiving those frequencies. They're most likely not operating in the range of a modern scanner anyways.

As for the HAM, many still operate on analog and on all sorts of bands. There is some movement towards digital modes as well, but there's still plenty of people out there who want to talk to the vast majority.

If you are interested in picking up a scanner for public safety, you may want to list what you are interested in monitoring and where and I'm sure plenty of people will give you an advice (and price range) of what you need to get the job done.

Well, listening to phones is still illegal.

Almost everything is trunked, digital, or not monitor-able at all.

The Wiki here has some great information. Reading it can make you an expert.

There is useful information in these forums too, but you have to sift through all the BS.

AZScanner said:

My advice: Forget scanners. I have 3 words for you: Software Defined Radio.

Get yourself a cheapie little RTL-SDR dongle and start playing with the literal plethora of free SDR software out there. Tons to listen to, tons to learn and about $40 and a decently modern PC is all you really need to get started. If you know or are interested in learning Linux, there's even more software available to play with and new stuff is being written all the time. SDR is definitely the future of our hobby.

-AZ

Click to expand...

I would have to second that. Especially if your on a budget and your dealing with trunking and digital systems. Not only do the SDR dongles do RF scanning but you can get into tons of other stuff like navigational and satellite images and such.

It will cost you hundreds to buy a scanner that will even begin to do some of the stuff the 8 dollar SDR USB dongle can do. The only downside is that it uses up a computer and its not very portable.

So yeah,on a budget go SDR. Have hundreds to spend, go with the conventional scanners.

I'm so sorry to tell you this but everything you liked to listen to is pretty much gone or will be gone by the end of the decade with the direction things are going in.

The cordless phones are now spread spectrum digital unmonitorable.
The analog cell phones are... I don't need to tell you what happened to that.
DJ's don't exist anymore.
The ham bands are dead.
and Police and fire are migrating to digital trunking systems which may or may not be monitorable. Some cities, particularly large metros are still monitorable and will be for some time but the trend for most is the other direction. Even if you're willing to plunk down the money for a DTRS scanner, by the time you get set up with that, they'll move on to something else the scanner won't do.

That's not to say there aren't other things to listen to but as for as the items on your list....

dirtymoney said:

I am thinking about getting into the hobby again. To give you an idea of when I lost interest in the hobby.... Unscrambled cordless phones were becoming fewer and fewer. Trunk-tracking was "the new scanner ability" etc etc...

Back in the day I mostly listened to analog cellphone convos, unscrambled cordless phone convos, DJs out on location (talking off the air... usually picking up on chicks), HAM radio operators. I wasnt really into a lot of police and fire/ems chatter. I DID listen to it and had my old uniden sportcat 150 programmed to several local police frequencies, but I preferred the more interesting stuff.

So what has changed since last I was in the hobby. I want to know what to expect IF I went out and bought a new more modern scanner.

Click to expand...

dirtymoney said:

So what has changed since last I was in the hobby. I want to know what to expect IF I went out and bought a new more modern scanner.

Click to expand...

Hard to tell without knowing where you live. A head's up on that would make it easier to point you in the right direction
Don't know what scanner for $3090 teufler was promoting, but you can get a decent digital scanner here on the RR for sale forum.
If you want to explore other comms, there is a really nice AOR 8600 Mark II up for grabs in the for sale forum too.
Help us help you
Larry

teufler said:

if your old scanner still works, and you don't want to listen to public service, not much has changed. Now if you want to listen to public service, much has changed. Starting at about $3090 and up, you will get a digital ready scanner. Encryption, digital, is out. Depending on where you leave will determine the price you will pay as some digital units can capture more. With the new scanners, gone are the days of putting frequency X into channel something, as channel days have gone the way of the dodo bird. The newer handheld units, are smaller , they hold far more than the earlier scanners. You will use your computer to load in frequency information. Newer digital trunking scanners are either DMA architecture or Object Oriented architecture. Both are like learning a foriegn language, one is say French and the other is Russian, who provide an english language output. You have a choice on the Uniden scanners which are DMA or the Radioshack-GRE-Whistler brand that are Object Oriented.
YOU WILL FIND MANY HELPFUL PEOPLE HERE AT RR TO GET YOU INTO LISTENING AGAIN.

Click to expand...

What $3090 model might that be ?

I am thinking he meant $309 and up for a digital scanner.

But depending on your area I am sure you could still hear alot of traffic on an old anaolg scanner.

I live in a huge metro area and most of the traffic is still analog. My little 60 dollar analog scanner still gets about all the traffic she can handle.

Thats $300.00 , slight mis type. Only one arm works as sometimes , in a hurry, my fingers drag across the keys. I have tried to come up with a spell checker that would catch all the typing errors but so far no lock. I guess there might be a scanner thats $3000 , somebody would spend that much. I have seen pictures of ":war rooms" here on RR that have more that that amount on theradios in the rooms. Those look very nice. I have learned there are ways to quickly jump from one frequency to another, like was done on the older scanners. Not quite as easy but it can be done. Still trying to figure out how to print up a list.

The hobby is always changing, I find I am spending more and more time hunting down new signals and confirming frequencies and less time actually listening to what is being said over the air.

Just my two cents worth... If you are looking to ease back into the hobby, your old scanner will likely pick up aircraft and possibly military aircraft bands. Nothing much has changed with those bands. As for public safety, if you do not have the funds for a digital scanner (provided the systems in your area are digital and are able to be monitored with current models) you could always use a phone app to monitor public safety for your area. You had mentioned that this was not your primary focus of your monitoring though. This would allow you to listen to PD and FD when you want, and you could use your old scanner for things like aircraft, ham, maritime, etc.

Depending on where the OP is located, NOT all Public Safety moved to P25

There are plenty of Major Metro Areas where Analog is the King

StevenS said:

Just my two cents worth... If you are looking to ease back into the hobby, your old scanner will likely pick up aircraft and possibly military aircraft bands. Nothing much has changed with those bands. As for public safety, if you do not have the funds for a digital scanner (provided the systems in your area are digital and are able to be monitored with current models) you could always use a phone app to monitor public safety for your area. You had mentioned that this was not your primary focus of your monitoring though. This would allow you to listen to PD and FD when you want, and you could use your old scanner for things like aircraft, ham, maritime, etc.

Click to expand...

dirtymoney said:

So what has changed since last I was in the hobby. I want to know what to expect IF I went out and bought a new more modern scanner.

Click to expand...

The price hasn't changed much. MRSP was around $499 back in the '90 's Unless you are talking high end latest and greatest todays stuff is around the same.

The biggest change is you need a computer and USB cable to program the things.