Car Scanner Suggestions

[NRFDTL11Buff]

Hey Guys, Which radio shack scanner do you guys suggest I mount in my car? Whats the easiest with wiring, and whats the best way to wire it....To the battery?, a cigerette lighter cord? What Im asking is, how do I do this? lol. The Car is an 07 Jeep Wrangler if that helps. Also, what are some good car antennas for scanners that arnt to big?

Thank You

-Chirs

 

[Dubbin]

How much are you looking to spend? What type of systems do you want to listen to? Your location would really help to determine the best radio to fit your needs.

 

[NRFDTL11Buff]

How much are you looking to spend? What type of systems do you want to listen to? Your location would really help to determine the best radio to fit your needs.

Maybee $250 around there. Ill Be using it for Lo Band, VHF, & UHF frequencies for the department. Im in Westchester county NY.

 

[fmon]

This install is in a location where a catch all pocket existed which had brackets attached to the CD/AM/FM radio using a double din setup. I reshaped each bracket to mate to the sides of the 2096 and drilled new holes to mount the two thumbscrews supplied with the unused scanner mounting bracket.

I used the supplied cable for wiring and fed it through the center console between the two front seats to a constant positive wire allowing the scanner to function without ignition power. Ground was at a nearby grounding point.

Antenna is a Radio Shack through glass which works very well. The car is a 2001 Saturn LW Wagon and the antenna is mounted on the right rear glass just behind the rear passenger seat allowing the cable to feed behind the interior molding then under the carpet below the right front passenger seat and forward through the center console to the radio.

The 2067 picture was the original install and it was purchased a few days prior to delivery date of the car. The 2096 was purchased when they first came out and I had to reshape the previously mentioned brackets slightly and drill two new holes. Also had to rerun wiring because the two scanners use different jacks and wire size.

 

[manganos]

Nice install. Where do you have your ext. speaker mounted if you have one?

 

[NRFDTL11Buff]

Cmon Guys, This Is My thread. I wanted advice on what & how to install the scanner un my car. Can we stay on topic? And you can make a new thread about scanning laws.

 

[DewAddict]

Hey Guys, Which radio shack scanner do you guys suggest I mount in my car? Whats the easiest with wiring, and whats the best way to wire it....To the battery?, a cigerette lighter cord? What Im asking is, how do I do this? lol. The Car is an 07 Jeep Wrangler if that helps. Also, what are some good car antennas for scanners that arnt to big?

Thank You

-Chirs

I like being able to remove the scanner easily and use it inside so I chose a Pro-96 handheld model and use rechargeable batteries in it. This way I can quickly go from mobile to portable application. For this set up an external amplified speaker is needed to hear the transmissions in the vehicle as the internal speaker does not get loud enough. There is a "mod" that you can do to a Pro-96 that will allow the use of a non-amplified speaker but I'll keep it simple here.

Direct wiring is nice but not really necessary if you have ample cigarette or power sockets as the scanner does not draw much amperage and does not require a direct wire installation. Its really up to you and how you want to do it.

As far as antennas go, its an endless world of what you could get. Being a Jeep wrangler a magnet mount isn't going to be the best solution. I might look for a trunk lip mount and fasten it to your jeep in some way but I will leave that to the antenna "guru's" on here.

Here is a good place to start looking for antennas and mounts...

http://www.ameradio.com/brands/12/categories.html

You can select what you like and they offer nice discount prices and they appear to be in NY also!!

Rob

 

[mjthomas59]

What kind of budget do you have? I can't help a whole lot with the install as i have no clue what the inside of your jeep looks like. You want to make sure you can easily view it and mess with the controls while in the drivers seat... and have it in a place which doesn't require losing total sight of the road if you need to hit the hold button or change banks, readjust squelch etc etc

I personally own a 2051, a 2055, and a 2096. If you don't need digital then you can scratch the 2096. If you need digital then you can scratch the other 2. The only real benefit i've seen between the 2051 and 2055 is that the 2055 will do CTCSS/DPL... so if that is something you need then i would suggest the 2055. I don't have a pro-433 but i have heard good things. I believe the 433 comes with 20 banks instead of 10(still limited to 1000 channels though) i just don't know if it will do ctcss... also the 433 is rebanding capable.

For an antenna, i would personally go with a 5/8 wave VHF... it will do great on vhf, good on vhf-lo, and decent on UHF. Of course the 5/8 wave is about 49 inches tall so that may not be what you are looking for. If height is an issue then the maxscan1000 by maxrad might not be a bad choice. You will lose some lowband with the maxscan but gain much on UHF and 800mhz. I would(assuming you won't drill any holes) go with a gutter mount setup between your hood and fender. You could put a 5/8wave on the guttermount and it would still only be about 15-20 inches at most over the top of your rig. Also, if you offroad/backroad your jeep much i would definetely recommend an antenna with a spring unless you like replacing them every couple weeks.

There is nothing wrong with direct wiring or cigarette lighter wiring. I personally like to be able to run my scanner without the ignition on so make sure you have a power outlet that is "always on" and just hook your scanner into that. That also makes it easier to take out if you need to. I don't see anything wrong with portables other than they don't respond very well when attached to bigger external antennas. If you buy the handheld get a Diamond RH77ca(handheld) antenna for it and be done with it. Any antenna you mount outside your vehicle(in my experience) will only overload the handhelds and completely defeat the purpose of having that big antenna mounted on your rig.

 

[fmon]

433/528 has 10 banks at 100 freqs each and no tones.

 

[Dubbin]

Cmon Guys, This Is My thread. I wanted advice on what & how to install the scanner un my car. Can we stay on topic? And you can make a new thread about scanning laws.

I did go back on topic as you can see in my last post

 

[mjthomas59]

433/528 has 10 banks at 100 freqs each and no tones.

Sorry for the misinformation on the 433... http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...oductId=2463120&support=support&tab=techSpecs

According to that link it says 20 banks at 50 channels each. Of course i don't own one so i don't know for sure... the features page says 10 banks, the tech specs say 20. However if anyone out there owns one and can verify it only has 10 banks then i will stand corrected.

 

[NRFDTL11Buff]

Thanks Alot Guys

Dewaddict, How do I do that speaker thing without having to amplify? I have a Pro-94, will it also work with that? Thanks for the Link to.

2 more quick questions....

-If I bend an antenna will that take away from its performance?
&
-If I decide to use a simple hand held (Pro-94) Is there a power adapter (that plugs into the side like the wall plug) for the scanner that can be ran to the battery and "maintains" 9 volts?

 

[fmon]

Sorry for the misinformation on the 433... http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?parentPage=family&summary=summary&techSpecs=techSpecs&currentTab=summary&cp=2032052.2032072&custRatings=custRatings&features=features&accessories=accessories&productId=2463120&support=support&tab=techSpecs

According to that link it says 20 banks at 50 channels each. Of course i don't own one so i don't know for sure... the features page says 10 banks, the tech specs say 20. However if anyone out there owns one and can verify it only has 10 banks then i will stand corrected.

20 at 50 is for the 2052. Your 433 link has this data
1000 channels give you plenty of memory to store favorite frequencies (10 banks of 100 channels) listed in the product summery tab.



Likely not notable for receiving.

-If I bend an antenna will that take away from its performance?

Yes, Radio Shack has a couple.

-If I decide to use a simple hand held (Pro-94) Is there a power adapter (that plugs into the side like the wall plug)

 

[NRFDTL11Buff]

I meant, Is there an adapter thats already spliced to connect to the battery for my pro 94 that maintains 9 volts.

 

[loumaag]

All off topic posts split to their own thread elsewhere.
Sorry to the OP for not catching this sooner.

Dwayne, I moved your attempt to get back on topic also but since you referenced it again, I think that suffices.

 

[fmon]

I meant, Is there an adapter thats already spliced to connect to the battery for my pro 94 that maintains 9 volts.

Directly to the batt...none that I know of. To the cig lighter soclet...yes.

 

[mjthomas59]

If you are looking for something that goes directly to the battery... buy the cigarette lighter power cord and just cut off the cigarette lighter adapter and strip the 2 wires. That is what the mobile/base units come with for "hardwiring" them in. Thats about as direct as you can get. As far as bending the antenna... as long as you don't bend it into crazy angles. You can go 45 degrees and you'll never notice the difference for receiving and probably not for transmitting either. A lot of police cruisers have their antennas bent so they are straight up and down and i don't believe they have any ill effects.

 

[mjthomas59]

Just noticed that comment about the 9volt power source. That pretty much eliminates just cutting the cig adapter off. I guess you will just be stuck with that. Another option... if you are wanting to hide the power source is just tapping into the wiring that leads to the cig lighter and adding an additional socket underneath the dash. I've done that a few times with no problems. And they are cheap to buy also, only a couple bucks at walmart or radioshack.

 

[NRFDTL11Buff]

If you are looking for something that goes directly to the battery... buy the cigarette lighter power cord and just cut off the cigarette lighter adapter and strip the 2 wires. That is what the mobile/base units come with for "hardwiring" them in. Thats about as direct as you can get. As far as bending the antenna... as long as you don't bend it into crazy angles. You can go 45 degrees and you'll never notice the difference for receiving and probably not for transmitting either. A lot of police cruisers have their antennas bent so they are straight up and down and i don't believe they have any ill effects.

Just noticed that comment about the 9volt power source. That pretty much eliminates just cutting the cig adapter off. I guess you will just be stuck with that. Another option... if you are wanting to hide the power source is just tapping into the wiring that leads to the cig lighter and adding an additional socket underneath the dash. I've done that a few times with no problems. And they are cheap to buy also, only a couple bucks at walmart or radioshack.

Thanks Alot