Is there a such thing as scanner + ham radio?

[KC0UDT]

Hello everyone, I'm a ham radio operator, and like listening to the local stuff while driving (2m/70cm). I also enjoy listening to general broadcasts on a scanner.

While I know most ham radios can "scan", it's not nearly as quick or featurefilled as a true scanner.

What I'm hoping to find, is something that gives best of both worlds. Wideband receive (with trunking, if possible), but also allows transmitting on 2m/70cm. Output power isn't a huge issue, though I'd prefer something at least 5w.

Yes, I know I can program in UHF and VHF into most dual banders, but it doesn't scan very quickly, nor offer many memories/trunking.

So, is there anything out there for "the best of both worlds"?

 

[Rt169Radio]

There are HT and mobile ham radios that have wideband receive and ham bands in them, but I don't think they are like a "scanner" or scan as fast as one.

 

[WB4CS]

To my knowledge there are no trunking capable receivers that can also transmit on 2/70. If there were it would be one very expensive radio.

My Kenwood HT and mobile (TH-K20A and TM-281) both scan the memory channels pretty fast, but they are only 136-174 MHz receive. I'm not sure what the scan speed is on the Kenwood dual band radios.

 

[RadioDaze]

I believe that there never was enough demand for such a complex and expensive radio. Most, though obviously not all, radio amateurs are fairly comfortable with the idea of having multiple radios. The market would be limited to an extremely narrow segment, which at least does include lordsaryon and myself.

 

[Darth_vader]

'To my knowledge there are no trunking capable receivers that can also transmit on 140/400. If there were it would be one very expensive radio."

YET.

Chances are, there's probably a sub-$100 unit in development somewhere in China as I write out this post. Just give it a couple years. It's amazing the things one can do with digital signal processors.

 

[robertmac]

The OP does not state what Ham radio he has. The Chinese radios are pathetic when it comes to scanning. The big three amateur radios are all fair speed scanning, but none are capable of doing trunk scanning. Although there are ways to set up scanning for certain trunk systems. But like some said, why have a scanning ham radio. Makes more sense to have a scanner for scanning mulitple bands and an amateur radio for there bands. With all sorts of digital modes now out, it would make for sense to have scanners and/or ham radios decode the various digital formats. A lot of scanners and ham radios are becoming useless for scanning with every manufacturer promoting their own digital formats.

 

[QDP2012]

Back in the 1990's, Icom made three HTs using the same physical body, but with different configurations:

• IC-2SRA: Left-side: 2m Tx/Rx; Right-side: full scanner 25-906mHz
• IC-4SRA: Left-side: 440 Tx/Rx: Right-side: full scanner 25-906 mHz
• IC-W2A: Left-side: 2m Tx/Rx; Right-side: 440 Tx/Rx (radio had full cross-band repeat feature and was truly two radios in one chassis)

Since then, I have not (though others might have) seen an HT that would provide a truly separate, quick-scanning, wide-band scanner, that functioned separate from the ham-transceiver. I do not know of any HTs that have trunked-scanners, and more importantly digital-trunked scanners, built-in.

It would be interesting though if one was developed.

 

[KC0UDT]

Thank you guys for the replies. I've got an IC-V8000, Baofeng UV-5R, Puxing PX-777 (bought both to see how well these little guys operate), and a Yeaseu FT-50r. I'm not really happy with the scanning speed on any of them.

Easy enough to use them plus the Pro-97 I guess, was just hoping someone, somewhere, had something like what I was looking for

Though the HT's QDP2012 referred to, almost sound great.

 

[AC2OY]

Lord this is what I do if I'm on my HT and I hear sirens, I switch the thing to split mode and punch in the police or fire frequencies on the other receiver. I haven't figured out yet how to transmit on "A" mode and have "B" scan yet but I'm sure there is a way to do it!

 

[commscanaus]

Back in the 1990's, Icom made three HTs using the same physical body, but with different configurations:

• IC-2SRA: Left-side: 2m Tx/Rx; Right-side: full scanner 25-906mHz
• IC-4SRA: Left-side: 440 Tx/Rx: Right-side: full scanner 25-906 mHz
• IC-W2A: Left-side: 2m Tx/Rx; Right-side: 440 Tx/Rx (radio had full cross-band repeat feature and was truly two radios in one chassis)

Don't forget the IC-X2A....Left side: 70cm Tx/Rx Right side: 1.2Ghz Tx/Rx

Regret selling that one!

Commscanaus

 

[troymail]

'To my knowledge there are no trunking capable receivers that can also transmit on 140/400. If there were it would be one very expensive radio."

YET.

Chances are, there's probably a sub-$100 unit in development somewhere in China as I write out this post. Just give it a couple years. It's amazing the things one can do with digital signal processors.

Too bad Alinco and GRE couldn't have pulled this one off.

I have a VX-8R that I bought when I got my license several years ago. I bought it (rather than something simple) mostly because I could afford it and it looked like it had so many features, I could never tire of playing with it. Unfortunately, for reasons I am not even sure about at this point, it ended up becoming a rather expensive single channel fire department paging monitor radio.

I recently purchased a new battery for it with renewed interest (again, I'm not exactly sure why except maybe scanner things have become boring for the moment) and I am now fighting my way through all of the features and buttons/key sequences to really use it (maybe that's why I stopped using it in the past...). I'll probably never use all the features this radio provides -- probably < 20% of them anyway - but that holds true for my PSR-800 as well.

Given the complexity in just this little radio, and the comments and requests for help posted on RR for some of the newer scanners, perhaps a combination amateur radio/full featured trunking scanner would be far too complicated for the general user.... I can handle the GRE and Uniden scanners and I'm fighting my way through the VX-8R but I myself would probably throw in the towel if they were all one radio (unless both scaled back the feature sets - which would then certainly lead to complaints from some sectors).

 

[KC0UDT]

I'd even be willing to have a almost headless design for it. Something I can hook up to the PC, use CHIRP or similar to program the talkgroups and scanning frequencies, and just leave it with an LCD that display the relevant info (i.e S meter, current frequency AND name, tone, etc).

I wish I were significantly better with EE, and could design something, but I'm realizing I'm only one person who would use this, and from the thread, it's seeming others wouldn't.

73 de KC0UDT