Scanner World Is Back

After a year's (?) absence, scannerworld.com is back and it looks like the website's even been redesigned. The catch is...they don't sell scanners...just accessories.

cbehr91 said:

The catch is...they don't sell scanners...just accessories.

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They need to change their name to.."Anything but Scanners World"

Kinda like Radio Shack....Everything but RADIOS

Wonder how they gonna make it on accessories only, but brought some 5mm knobs from them a couple weeks ago cheaper than Amazon delivered. Fast order and shipping.

Welcome to Scanner World...where we don't sell scanners. They should change the name to Scanner(Accessories)World.com.

Maybe they simply don't have the dealership(s) set up yet.

If that was the case, one would think having this banner on the top of their home page is a bad idea..."SCANNER WORLD SELLS ACCESSORIES ONLY. WE DO NOT SELL ANY SCANNING RADIOS."

Instead, I would think they would have one saying something like "We are not CURRENTLY selling scanning radios. Please check back."

I'm sure the name "Scanner World" is a long standing DBA, no point in changing the business now. Haven't been there in a couple of years (store is only 15mi away from me) but there was an elderly woman that would ring up the orders at the counter....wonder if something happened and the business is being run by someone else now. There is also a side business that was dealing with antique furniture out of the same building, wonder if that is still going as well.
Back in their heyday the business was located right in Albany NY right down the street from Albany Med Hospital(New Scotland Ave). "Back in the Day" people actually bought CB's, scanners, and other radio hobby stuff. They also sold some commercial 2-way radios. But then again 20-25 yrs ago I can think of at least a dozen other electronics/radio shops and stores Albany/Capital District-local that sold similar stuff too, most of them are gone.
They moved to the Railroad Ave (warehouse/industrial area, west Albany, not urban like other site, but still busy truck traffic) probably 15yrs ago? I bought accessories too a few years ago, they had a lot less radio displays than the old store. I think they were feeling the business shift even then, probably keeping a lot less radio stock on hand. In fact when I was there about 5 years ago I bough some CB base antennas in a "clearance" section. I'm thinking they cleared out a lot of the radios a long time ago.
They are a business and the way we do business has changed a lot. We all shop Amazon and E-Bay now. Really hard to compete online. I bet there is no more profit margin for radios so they are not going to buy inventory just to lose money. The accessories must be CHina made goods and they can get a little more ROI. Who knows if enough people demand radios again, and if people buy from them again and there is a resurgence in actual Radio hobby...but with Smartphone "scanner apps" being all the rage I doubt it.

Bought a lot of scanner gear from them about 8-10 years ago. My works bought 7 Uniden BCT-15's and discone antennas. Of course I tacked on some personal orders too. Was a great company to deal with. Will have to check them out again.

kb2hpw said:

They also sold some commercial 2-way radios.

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I had a buddy who bought a Regency 16 channel portable scanning 2-way from them in the early 90s. I don't know about other areas, but believe it or not the Regency HX1000 is still very popular among the railfan rank, and apparently Scanner World was one of the last places you could buy batteries for it.

I wonder how good their accessories are. I see a couple extension speakers and a "VHF Air/High Band" mag mount as well as a VHF High/UHF mag mount antenna that caught my eye. Those rubber mast mobile scanner antennas with the chrome mounts look just like the old Valor antennas that still occasionally pop up at Universal.

kb2hpw said:

Back in their heyday the business was located right in Albany NY right down the street from Albany Med Hospital(New Scotland Ave). "Back in the Day" people actually bought CB's, scanners, and other radio hobby stuff. They also sold some commercial 2-way radios. But then again 20-25 yrs ago I can think of at least a dozen other electronics/radio shops and stores Albany/Capital District-local that sold similar stuff too, most of them are gone.

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They also gave a nice discount for public safety people, espicially those of us right there in Albany.

Boy, I must have had a very different experience from everyone else the couple of times I stopped by there "back in the day" at the old location (when they ran Bob's 4-wheeler in the shared building as I recall). Back then it seemed they didn't want retail business coming in the door. Perhaps they wanted business accounts and mail/phone orders only (well before Internet was available). In fact it was so long ago I recall talking about the experience with "Broadway Harry" if anyone up in the area remembers Harry and his shop in Schenectady.

Scanner World is my favorite place to order radio products for me!

cbehr91 said:

I had a buddy who bought a Regency 16 channel portable scanning 2-way from them in the early 90s. I don't know about other areas, but believe it or not the Regency HX1000 is still very popular among the railfan rank, and apparently Scanner World was one of the last places you could buy batteries for it.

I wonder how good their accessories are. I see a couple extension speakers and a "VHF Air/High Band" mag mount as well as a VHF High/UHF mag mount antenna that caught my eye. Those rubber mast mobile scanner antennas with the chrome mounts look just like the old Valor antennas that still occasionally pop up at Universal.

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The HX1000 and the much better HX1500 were (and still are) the most sensitive scanners ever produced for monitoring the railroad bands.

Nasby said:

The HX1000 and the much better HX1500 were (and still are) the most sensitive scanners ever produced for monitoring the railroad bands.

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Not to get off topic, but who had the HX-2000? It was the absolute worst scanner EVER! Even worse than the JIL SX-200. :lol:

Yes sir! I had one of those. Total piece of crap. It was like 100% plastic shell with a ctappy one inch antenna.

If you moved it an inch, the signal would be lost. Even the closest, strongest signals had static.

I returned it after 2 weeks to Scannerworld. I think I got an HX650 instead.

Scannerworld was my first mail order scanner source back in the late 70s. This was before the web of course and they mailed out catalogs.

... it's like walking in a time machine...LOL... it doesn't look like there is any stock there less than 20 years old and some of it is 40... it's nice to know that I can get a case for my 40 year old crystal controlled BC-4 (if I could find it) or a power cord for my BC-100 (caught on fire and burned 32 years ago)... or maybe a "top of the set" replacement antenna for my BC-101 from 1974 (I loved that scanner) or my BC-210... I wonder if the 14 year old battery packs for the BCD-250 would hold a charge?.... I must say it's nostalgic to see all of those Antenna Specialist mobile scanner antennas of yesteryear... good stuff... also the adapters and connectors are wonderful... it's nice to know if I ever needed a PL259 to a MOT pin plug I could find it but I wonder how many people are still using scanners from the 70's and 80's to sustain their business?... it's nice to know they are there and have blown the dust off their ancient stock and reopened their warehouse... I wish them luck, I bought many things from them years ago...

Nasby said:

The HX1000 and the much better HX1500 were (and still are) the most sensitive scanners ever produced for monitoring the railroad bands.

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Wonder what made them so good, and why with today's technology that couldn't be replicated? The ICOM 2000 series mobiles are about the most sensitive I've used for railfanning.

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... I do miss scanning and scanning radios the way it used to be with stores like ScannerWorld and other local stores in my area that are long gone... the radios were different but so were the systems... emergency communications used to be much better than it is now... digital trunking, LSM, multiple sites simulcasting have not improved performance ... emergency 2 way radio used to be clear, dependable and fun to follow not the muffled , garbled crap we have today... I like that we still have some conventional systems in my area but it's mostly digital... I do hope the next wave of scanners by whoever makes them are better than what we have now as we sure could do better... it really is nostalgic to see all that old stuff at Scanner World for the radios of yesteryear... I remember the excitement of being able to follow 8 channels at once on a crystal controlled scanner instead if just one on my slide rule dial tunable VHF High Band receiver... sigh...