hello all

[minicircles]

since i'm new to this forum i'll go ahead and post my question right here. sorry if it's the wrong forum.

i was reading an article on how to convert a am/fm radio to a scanner. i was wondering if there is a way to do it and if it's worth the time? i'm not doing it to save money, i'm more doing it because i like to mess around with radios etc and never had the time to start doing it. well now i have a baby girl and almost never leave my place, so it's the right time

also - are there any other kits maybe i can buy to mess around with?

appreciate your help!

 

[xxdanielt3]

Welcome to RR! I'm sure this is possible but it will involve some time and effort. Good luck!

 

[kb2vxa]

Since scanner frequencies are so far removed from broadcast from a practical standpoint the answer is no. Then too how would you get it to scan?

Radio shack used to be the experimenter's gold mine but times change. The only supplier of kits today that comes to mind is Ramsey Electronics, why not give them a shot?
Ramsey Electronics

 

[mancow]

It can be done by changing or varying the tuning components (coils and variable cap) if it's an analog tuned device and you are trying for Vhf Hi band. The filters are way too wide though and would likely produce little audio and overlapping signals.

 

[Rt169Radio]

This place also has build kits, I think their with the MFJ company.

Vectronics

 

[W8RMH]

i was reading an article on how to convert a am/fm radio to a scanner.

Interesting...could you post the article.

 

[gmclam]

Welcome to RadioReference.com!

I'm not sure what aspect of modification you're interested in. Like others said, converting an AM/FM broadcast radiio into a scanner is a stretch. I did something a little different, I took older crystal controlled scanners, gutted the scanning circuitry and replaced it with a microcontroller. see here

My mods were done to crystal controlled receivers, so it took one crystal per channel for everything I wanted to receive. You could do something similar, or if really ambitious, design a PLL based circuit that provides the signals to run the receiver so only a ref freq is required rather than all those crystals.

 

[wtp]

air maybe

the best i could do was retune an old fm radio to receive the air band
yes i know fm radio am transmission
it worked ok for the close ones
i was a kid and just listened i don't know to who though