Aircraft handheld radio.
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The Uniden BC125AT is by far the best VHF/UHF scanner I have ever used. If you are looking for a 2 way radio, try the Icom A25 or A16.
Just a thought but it could be your antenna? Maybe not resonant enough? One example; 118-145MHz Base Antenna Tunable 5/8 Wave
Signals from the tower travel upward and are often harder to receive than the aircraft, which has the height advantage for reception from farther away. I have four radios I use for air frequencies, from an inexpensive BC125AT to an IC-R30, and there is not much notable difference using the stock antennas. An antenna tuned for air frequencies might help, but the nature of tower to plane transmissions is a factor.
Antennas at airport towers put maximum signal at the horizon, not upward. Also, the 5/8 antenna recommend or any 5/8 is not wide band enough to cover the entire VHF air band, they only cover a few MHz very well then performance drops off.
The SDS100 is a digital scanner and aircraft frequencies are analog. That isn’t to say you can’t receive analog transmissions on your SDS100 (you can), but the quality won’t be very good most of the time.
Case in point, I have a BCD436HP, which is also a digital scanner, and analog traffic sounds like **** (very static-y and quiet, usually, even at max volume). I use my 436 to monitor the digital, trunked system in my area but I still use my BC125AT—usually at the same time— to pick up air, rail and the few analog freqs in my county (like county fire). ESPECIALLY for air, the BC125AT outperforms my 436 every time.
I was not really happy with my SDS for Aircraft. That said, I have an IC-A25 and found it to be the best aircraft handheld i have ever had. I have heard excellent things about the BC125, but the cutting off of the top end of UHF Mil air is a concern (although I could get the UK version and fix that) and the battery life issues I have read about.
My goto for airband is my Icom IC-R20. Really sensitive AM receive even with stock telescopic antenna
You will be amazed by the Icom A25C, hands down, it is awesome even with the rubber ducky antenna. I have a Taco D-5076 antenna with a coax cable I use if I want even better reception.
I agree. I had some Yaesu (Vertex) radios before that and thought they were nice. Then a buddy of mine let me play with the 25. MUCH better RX. The IC-A24 is nice too
GROL
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If you are looking for a transceiver, I would suggest the Yaesu handhelds. Just don't transmit if you are not piloting aircraft or working on the airfield. A huge no-no that could land you in much trouble. I don't recall if the ICOMs do, but the Yaesu FTA-250 has a transmit lockout function. I have the FTA-250 which works great! If you are not a pilot, you have no need for the NAV versions. The FTA-250 is COM only. When I was in the 235th ATCS, we had the ICOMs and they would pick up anything around them that emitted RFI. Always had to have the squelch really tight to reject interference from computers. Other than that, they worked very well away from the office. I have not had that issue with the Yaesu FTA-250. The FTA-250 receives weak transmissions just as well as any of my scanners and has better audio. But a scanner radio is much better than a VHF air transceiver for scanning, so I would suggest a scanner. The VHF transceivers scan, but are slow scanning. For civilian air, the BC125AT is much more than adequate. If you are also interested in military air monitoring on 225-400 MHz, the BC125AT is very affordable and would be quite good for civilian and almost all military air, but Uniden made a mistake and assumed all of 380-400 MHz was reassigned to P25 trunking which is not true. There are still AM air-air and Gnd-Air military Comms in that range. The BC125AT can also receive military air in the 137-144, 148-151 MHz range. There is quite a bit of milair AM around 141-142 MHz. You can miss a lot if you are near where fighter aircraft operate if you are not scanning around 141-142 MHz. The USAF Thunderbirds use frequencies in the 137-144 and 148-151 range. Over all the years I have monitored them, 141.85 has been in consistent use. Common manpack radios used by forward air controllers tune 116-150MHZ and 225-400MHz. These are also used for mobile air traffic control tower operations.
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They do, you can select TX Inhibit and it makes the mode RX only. I do this on the ATIS/ASOS Frequencies as well as others I am not needing to TX on.
I do agree that a good scanner might be a better choice if you also want UHF Mil Air.
I use an Icom IC-A2 transceiver. Transceivers are better than scanners.
125AT - Best, even on stock duckie
436/536HP - Average, pretty good on a Diamond midband antenna.
SDS100/200 - I mean it'll do it. But meh
436/536HP - Average, pretty good on a Diamond midband antenna.
SDS100/200 - I mean it'll do it. But meh
GROL
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I am also very pleased with the performance of the BCD325P2 for air bands. Very good audio and receive. It covers all of the civilian and military air bands. Of course it is $370, but it is also a digital trunk tracker. I also use two Radio Shack Pro-164 that are great on all air bands and a BCD396XT. And two base/mobiles. For a base/mobile the BCT15X is very hard to beat especially for the price. The BCD996P2 also does very well. The audio from the BCT15X and BCD996P2 are the only scanners I have which are better sounding than the Yaesu FTA-250 handheld transceiver.
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GROL
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It depends greatly on the scanner you are comparing. I cannot say that any handheld transceiver I have ever used did better than the BCD325P2, BCD996XT and BCT15X on receive, and not much better than the rest of my scanners. And the civilian transceivers will not cover milair. Ever since I first maintained AN/PRC-113 transceivers I wanted to own one for monitoring. They cover 116-150 and 225-400 MHz. But when I bought the BCT15X, I no longer was interested in buying one surplus.
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Still use an Icom IC-A2 myself. Uses the same batteries as a similar Icom but in VHF Marine band. For newer use at work, I work near an airport, an Icom IC-A16 fits the bill. There are also a lot of very well used Icom IC-A14's that have lasted more than a few years in use as well. Many airports use Icom handhelds, and continue to do so as they are cheap, reliable, and effective (last sentence was for OP).
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