Digital Scanners

[pasadenamd]

I have looking through radio refrences' digital scanners information but i have a few questions. What are good scanners that will work properly in Anne Arundel County? Scanners that will be digital is also what i am looking into. Is there anyone that has a file of all anne arundel fire/police/emergency operations that i can download and put into the scanner that i get? Thanks.

 

[ka3jjz]

There are so many opinions on this topic that I won't bother to summarize them. The PSR500 and 600, from what I have been reading, seem to have better digital audio recovery than the BCD396/996 (it's rather early to tell if the new firmware release has solved any of these issues - some have had very good luck with it, some seem to have found some bugs...), however if you are close to a major area, the PSRs tend to overload easier than the Unidens. Many folks like the PRO-96 and 2096 - however there are some things you cannot do with those that the Unidens and GREs can - namely, running a PC program to log and record, as well as control the scanner. Those 2 cannot cover the milair band out of the box, and even if you use Win96 to open them up, the sensitivity tends to vary widely from unit to unit.

I like my 396. I am not quite so critical of the audio as some of these others, as one must keep in mind that these aren't designed to be, or intended to be, replacements for Motorola equipment. There's only so much you can push out of that little speaker, after all. I get only a little overloading - only when I'm in the Woodlawn area, with all those blasted 800 mhz and MW towers, just about anything is going to squawk now and again.

There are a couple of newer digitals coming on the market in the next couple of months - the jury is still very much out on these.

You'll have to be a bit more specific about what you are looking for in a digital scanner. I know Troymail has both the GRE and Uniden units, and I'm sure he will jump in at some point. Remember as I understand it, right now AA is not using digital, except on some private calls (I-Call). However there is so much digital that surrounds us (and eventually it's expected AA will make the switch) that making the move now is the right call.

As for getting all the IDs, there are many applications now that can connect to the database and download data into the edtor for the scanner. You need a premium subscription, of course, but that's inexpensive. There are lots of ways to get files if you are too cheap <ahem> to get a subscription. To a certain extent, that's dependent on what scanner you get, and what software you are using. For some applications, that's an important consideration.

73 Mike

 

[pasadenamd]

I have been looking into a Pro-96 digital scanner. Has anyone owned this scanner? If i would get this scanner would i be able to put this in my scanner:
DEC HEX Mode Alpha Tag Description Tag
16 001 A 1A DISP Dispatch Fire Dispatch
48 003 A 1B TAC 1 Tactical 1 Fire-Tac
80 005 A 1C TAC 2 Tactical 2 Fire-Tac
112 007 A 1D FC E & F Field Communications for 1E & 1F Fire-Tac
144 009 A 1E TAC 3 Tactical 3 Fire-Tac
176 00b A 1F TAC 4 Tactical 4 Fire-Tac
208 00d A 1G CMD E&F Command for 1E & 1F Fire-Tac
240 00f A 1H SOPS 1 Special Operations 1 Fire-Tac
272 011 A 1I SOPS 2 Special Operations 2 Fire-Tac
304 013 A 1J FC K & L Field Communications for 1K & 1L Fire-Tac
336 015 A 1K TAC 5 Tactical 5 Fire-Tac
368 017 A 1L TAC 6 Tactical 6 Fire-Tac
400 019 A 1M CMD K&L Command for 1K & 1L Fire-Tac
432 01b A 1N ADMIN Admin Fire-Talk
464 01d A 1O MEET ME Fire to Police Dispatch Multi-Talk

If i can, how do i do it? Thanks

 

[psr600md]

psr scanners come with aac in them,i have a psr600 and love it,now im in rock hall so i cant say it the psr600 gets intermod in the city yet.bad points for a newbe youll need win 500 arc to quickly load it.i use the win500 it has a remote client so if im away i can control the scanner.

 

[ka3jjz]

Pasadena - clearly we need to step back a bit here and get an understanding of what trunking means. Our wiki can help - just read the overview section of the following, which has 2 or 3 articles which will get you started...(note that anything in blue or underlined - both here and in the wiki - are links)...

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking

Yes, what you have shown here can be entered into most any trunk capable scanner. However there are limits to the number of users (talkgroups) that can be stored. The PRO-96 or 2096 can handle the AA county system as well as the various digital ones in the area, EXCEPT the ones that are now showing up in the 225-400 mhz area (we have a couple in that area as well). All you would need is the 'DEC' and description. The 'DEC' is the Uniden representation of the talkgroup - the HEX is the Motorola representation. With the exception of the GRE models, you don't need the HEX at all (the PSR500 and 600 could handle the HEX, but it's really unnecessary).

As mentioned earlier, depending on what scanner you have, there are many applications that would allow you to download data into the software editor, and from there into your scanner. You would first need to purchase a few things;

- A premium subscription as described here;
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/subscription/

- The USB-serial cable to make the connection between your PC and scanner. If you go with the PRO-96 or 2096, GRE sells these, as well as many others. A quick check on the RS forum would bring some other compatible distributors. Uniden sells the USB-1 for their scanners, but there again, there are other distributors that also work. If you wish to go with the Uniden, ask on the Uniden forum...

- A copy of Win96. You can read a little about it here;
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Win96

With these 3 things you would have no trouble downloading data. There are many other apps that can do the same thing with downloading data, and here's a list...go to the bottom of...
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/RadioReference.com_Web_Service

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Slow down; start at the beginning- you really need to understand the basics of trunking -it's used very heavily in our area, so it behooves you to get an understanding NOW, and also decide on which scanner you need to get to fit your needs. That's where I would begin. Learn now so you don't make the wrong (expensive) decision later.

 

[psr600md]

dito

thats what i did in my before i bought my scanner.