I have 2 scanners (BCD536HP’s) in my car along with my dual-bander. One of the scanners is dedicated to CloseCall use pretty much all the time. I also have a 536 dedicated to CloseCall at home as well. It is possibly my favorite thing to do as a scanner dude next to listening to railroads.
For those wondering, CloseCall is Uniden’s nearfield RF detection and reception system. To simply describe it, CloseCall searches for a very strong signal and tunes the scanner to it automatically. On older scanners you would need to press a key to view the frequency but on newer radios (like the BCD996P2 or BCD536HP) the frequency is displayed immediately.
GRE designed scanners (Radio Shack, Whistler and GRE branded) have a similar feature called Signal Stalker (RadioShack) or Spectrum Sweeper (GRE & Whistler). While the tech behind the two systems is different, basically they do the same thing. Since I am a tried-and-true Uniden guy I haven’t dealt with GRE/Whistler/RS scanners in years unless I had to. They work fine but I am just so used to Uniden I have no need to remember two operating methods. It is hard enough switching from my Icom and AnyTone back and forth to the Uniden’s much less to add another system into the mix.
CloseCall and its GRE/RS/Whistler compatriots look for very strong signals and allows you to hear that traffic. The range of the signals that trigger CloseCall varies widely. A portable radio might trigger it within a hundred yards or so, a higher power mobile radio might be heard withing a couple blocks. Base station and repeater stations might work within a mile or two. All of this depends on conditions like obstructions, distance and (most importantly) the scanner’s antenna.
I have been using CloseCall or its equivalent for years. I first started using an Optoelectronics Scout when they first came out. I would then need to either write down the finds or pop the frequencies into a scanner. Eventually I was able to borrow a friend’s AR8000 and bought the ribbon cable and special battery door that allowed the cable to plug into the radio and then into the Scout. I went to the mall with this setup and walked around and found dozens of frequencies, being able to listen to them directly as they were detected by the Scout.
I loved this so much that I bought a used AR8000 and enjoyed it immensely. I loved it so much that I ended up buying a second Scout and another AR8000 to mount in the car. I ran this for a couple years or more before I replaced it with a BCD15, which had CloseCall.
In the car I almost always ran CloseCall or the Scout/AR8000 rig whenever I was driving, railfanning or whatever. Around the neighborhood I often get hits from the local golf course and HOA repeaters and occasionally Air Force and civilian planes overhead. Once in a while I would hear traffic on the input from the regional 700 MHz. trunked system in use by the city or even the VHF fire channels they also use.
Once I leave the neighborhood, I have to drive alongside the local mountain range in either direction, into town to the east or the other city to the south. This mountain range has 2 peaks that host multiple radio towers with various land-mobile radio systems. When I go to the east, I often get hits from the federal P25 VHF “Vote-Scan” system. I have logged 7 channels on that system and often will get most or all of them in the 30-minute drive into town. I often get hits from the GMRS repeater, a couple ham repeaters, a couple state radio bases and even a railroad remote base for the Union Pacific.
If I head the other way I pass around the other side of the mountain and most hits from there are ham radio 420 MHz. links. There are also a couple VHF flood data sensors along the way that pop up. These are the ones that I get almost every time I go thru the area, and I routinely lock them out.
Running errands in town I often get aggregate haulers (huge business in the area) on various UHF and occasionally VHF channels. They often run in packs and chat like schoolgirls while on the road. I also get a ton of FRS operations from stores as I pass or between cars. Therea re still a few UHF fire alarm data signals around the area and the occasional repeater input for the local trunking systems.
More interesting however are the county sheriff’s VHF car-car channels. They have a couple different ones and they seem to choose them at random. They are always interesting. The local police do not seem to use any VHF channels at all around here, they don’t even have VHF radios in their vehicles. All traffic is apparently on the trunked system, and of course I hear them occasionally on the inputs.
On the road I get the state highway patrol on the Interstates and when I go north the Yavapai County VHF systems in use for the Sheriff and Fire action is commonly heard on CloseCall,
I often take my BCD325P2 or BC125AT with me to the mall or other stores. I use a set of air buds for private listening, and no one seems to notice as so many people are using AirPods these days. They probably just think I have an old phone with a headphone jack. It seems every store employee these days has a portable radio, usually on UHF, with an earphone to talk to Suzy in the back room or Katie on the register. While some places have switched to digital or spread-spectrum systems the amount of analog traffic in a mall or shopping center is still high.
I used to get a lot of hits from fast-food places but most of that stuff has moved to wired or spread-spectrum equipment these days.
Some of the most interesting finds over the years have been truckers talking about “That van with the bunch of antennas on it” wondering if I work for some secret TLA (“Three Letter Agency”). I usually just pretend not to notice them so they might continue to talk about me, it is always more interesting that way. More than once, I heard police asking the same thing, again I just listen to see what they say.
Once along a highway 50 miles south of my house in Arizona I got a CC hit on 150.000, PL 100.0. It was a repeater, and the users were speaking Spanish. This was very odd, and I never figured out who or what it was nor what the input to this repeater was. I have not heard it since. At first, I thought it might have been military due to the PL (commonly used for military operations) and the odd frequency. At this point I still wonder.
Other interesting CC hits include police surveillance channels, wildcatting on marine band channels (very popular with truckers out here) and of course CB. Once, while returning home from a trip to my wife’s family she was driving, and the kid was sitting in the back seat while I was playing with the scanners. A trucker came up on Channel 19 and told his buddies to “check out the seat covers on that grey van with the antennas”. The kid (15 at the time) and I busted out laughing and we had to tell my wife (who is deaf) what we heard. At first, she was embarrassed but when we both said we thought it was more of a complement she was less so. She did however close the sunscreen on the moonroof for the rest of the drive.
I live right on the edge of an active MOA commonly used by F35’s and aggressor aircraft for training. There are a couple companies in the area that own and fly aircraft of various types to mimic aircraft from potential enemies. For the first few years I lived here I identified a couple new MilAir freqs each week, many via CloseCall. Low-level flyovers by military fighters (F16’s then F35’s) and the contracted aggressors are daily occurrences here so CC hits in the MilAir band are common. I logged dozens of previously unknown frequencies used in the area.
Another common CC hit I get here are from the local ATV and Jeep clubs. They tend to get cheap ham radios like Baofeng, AnyTone and TID’s. Since I live within blocks of both State Trust and BLM lands we are inundated with ORV’s here, and they mostly have radios. While often they are on GMRS sometimes they choose other frequencies in their frequency-agile radios. I have had hits on them here on several VHF frequencies on or off normal assignments. Sometimes they pop up on 460 MHz. freqs used by the state troopers here, I have also heard them on ham freqs or business band stuff.
Sometimes CloseCall can be weird. I have had hits on repeaters dozens of miles away, sometimes even consistently. Back in Chicagoland I would get hits on a T-Band repeater in Northbrook from Schaumburg. While I can understand this happening randomly this was pretty constant whenever I was in the area. Maybe there was a odd reflection off some building or something.
There are a few tricks that I have found over the years using CloseCall. The first is that the antenna makes a huge difference. An antenna tuned to a specific band makes the CloseCall receiver much more likely to hear traffic at longer ranges. One day I popped on a ¼ wave UHF antenna on the car, and I got a bunch of UHF that I hadn’t heard before. A few days later I swapped out the antenna with a VHF one and started getting a bunch of VHF hits and did not get hits on those UHF channels.
Another trick is to use the Broadcast Screen feature in the “Search/CC Options” menu. This allows you to prevent the CloseCall from hitting on specific band segments such as FM broadcast, pagers, weather channels or even user-defined frequency ranges. This helps prevent annoying hits from always-on stations.
In the car remember that most Uniden scanners do not retain lockouts from searches and CloseCall if you pull the power instead of turning the scanner off first. Even on the BCT15 or 996 series scanners that do not use SD-Cards the lockouts are written into the scanners memory when the power switch is turned off, an impolite shutdown (like pulling the power by turning off the ignition) prevents it from writing to the memory. Of course, this applies to the 536 and SDS200’s as well.
I even went out and bought a BCD996P2 to replace a perfectly good BCD996XT in my car specifically due to the updated CloseCall feature. On the 996XT you had to hit a key in order to see the frequency for the hit. The 996P2 displays the frequency automatically as it receives it. I asked the late Paul Opitz about this when the 996P2 came out and he insinuated it was due to a patent issue but did not elaborate, I didn’t realize how sick he really was at the time. Later I decided to standardize on the BCD536HP with a pair in the car and 4 more at home.
I did have an Optoelectronics Explorer many years ago. Like the Scout, it was a latching frequency counter, but it also had a receiver built into it. At the time it was a bees’ knees but compared with today’s tech it was pretty lame. The speaker was tiny and tinny; the audio was really bad. We didn’t know then how good we would have it now.
If you haven’t tried CloseCall, Signal Searcher or Spectrum Sweeper try it, you’ll like it.
For those wondering, CloseCall is Uniden’s nearfield RF detection and reception system. To simply describe it, CloseCall searches for a very strong signal and tunes the scanner to it automatically. On older scanners you would need to press a key to view the frequency but on newer radios (like the BCD996P2 or BCD536HP) the frequency is displayed immediately.
GRE designed scanners (Radio Shack, Whistler and GRE branded) have a similar feature called Signal Stalker (RadioShack) or Spectrum Sweeper (GRE & Whistler). While the tech behind the two systems is different, basically they do the same thing. Since I am a tried-and-true Uniden guy I haven’t dealt with GRE/Whistler/RS scanners in years unless I had to. They work fine but I am just so used to Uniden I have no need to remember two operating methods. It is hard enough switching from my Icom and AnyTone back and forth to the Uniden’s much less to add another system into the mix.
CloseCall and its GRE/RS/Whistler compatriots look for very strong signals and allows you to hear that traffic. The range of the signals that trigger CloseCall varies widely. A portable radio might trigger it within a hundred yards or so, a higher power mobile radio might be heard withing a couple blocks. Base station and repeater stations might work within a mile or two. All of this depends on conditions like obstructions, distance and (most importantly) the scanner’s antenna.
I have been using CloseCall or its equivalent for years. I first started using an Optoelectronics Scout when they first came out. I would then need to either write down the finds or pop the frequencies into a scanner. Eventually I was able to borrow a friend’s AR8000 and bought the ribbon cable and special battery door that allowed the cable to plug into the radio and then into the Scout. I went to the mall with this setup and walked around and found dozens of frequencies, being able to listen to them directly as they were detected by the Scout.
I loved this so much that I bought a used AR8000 and enjoyed it immensely. I loved it so much that I ended up buying a second Scout and another AR8000 to mount in the car. I ran this for a couple years or more before I replaced it with a BCD15, which had CloseCall.
In the car I almost always ran CloseCall or the Scout/AR8000 rig whenever I was driving, railfanning or whatever. Around the neighborhood I often get hits from the local golf course and HOA repeaters and occasionally Air Force and civilian planes overhead. Once in a while I would hear traffic on the input from the regional 700 MHz. trunked system in use by the city or even the VHF fire channels they also use.
Once I leave the neighborhood, I have to drive alongside the local mountain range in either direction, into town to the east or the other city to the south. This mountain range has 2 peaks that host multiple radio towers with various land-mobile radio systems. When I go to the east, I often get hits from the federal P25 VHF “Vote-Scan” system. I have logged 7 channels on that system and often will get most or all of them in the 30-minute drive into town. I often get hits from the GMRS repeater, a couple ham repeaters, a couple state radio bases and even a railroad remote base for the Union Pacific.
If I head the other way I pass around the other side of the mountain and most hits from there are ham radio 420 MHz. links. There are also a couple VHF flood data sensors along the way that pop up. These are the ones that I get almost every time I go thru the area, and I routinely lock them out.
Running errands in town I often get aggregate haulers (huge business in the area) on various UHF and occasionally VHF channels. They often run in packs and chat like schoolgirls while on the road. I also get a ton of FRS operations from stores as I pass or between cars. Therea re still a few UHF fire alarm data signals around the area and the occasional repeater input for the local trunking systems.
More interesting however are the county sheriff’s VHF car-car channels. They have a couple different ones and they seem to choose them at random. They are always interesting. The local police do not seem to use any VHF channels at all around here, they don’t even have VHF radios in their vehicles. All traffic is apparently on the trunked system, and of course I hear them occasionally on the inputs.
On the road I get the state highway patrol on the Interstates and when I go north the Yavapai County VHF systems in use for the Sheriff and Fire action is commonly heard on CloseCall,
I often take my BCD325P2 or BC125AT with me to the mall or other stores. I use a set of air buds for private listening, and no one seems to notice as so many people are using AirPods these days. They probably just think I have an old phone with a headphone jack. It seems every store employee these days has a portable radio, usually on UHF, with an earphone to talk to Suzy in the back room or Katie on the register. While some places have switched to digital or spread-spectrum systems the amount of analog traffic in a mall or shopping center is still high.
I used to get a lot of hits from fast-food places but most of that stuff has moved to wired or spread-spectrum equipment these days.
Some of the most interesting finds over the years have been truckers talking about “That van with the bunch of antennas on it” wondering if I work for some secret TLA (“Three Letter Agency”). I usually just pretend not to notice them so they might continue to talk about me, it is always more interesting that way. More than once, I heard police asking the same thing, again I just listen to see what they say.
Once along a highway 50 miles south of my house in Arizona I got a CC hit on 150.000, PL 100.0. It was a repeater, and the users were speaking Spanish. This was very odd, and I never figured out who or what it was nor what the input to this repeater was. I have not heard it since. At first, I thought it might have been military due to the PL (commonly used for military operations) and the odd frequency. At this point I still wonder.
Other interesting CC hits include police surveillance channels, wildcatting on marine band channels (very popular with truckers out here) and of course CB. Once, while returning home from a trip to my wife’s family she was driving, and the kid was sitting in the back seat while I was playing with the scanners. A trucker came up on Channel 19 and told his buddies to “check out the seat covers on that grey van with the antennas”. The kid (15 at the time) and I busted out laughing and we had to tell my wife (who is deaf) what we heard. At first, she was embarrassed but when we both said we thought it was more of a complement she was less so. She did however close the sunscreen on the moonroof for the rest of the drive.
I live right on the edge of an active MOA commonly used by F35’s and aggressor aircraft for training. There are a couple companies in the area that own and fly aircraft of various types to mimic aircraft from potential enemies. For the first few years I lived here I identified a couple new MilAir freqs each week, many via CloseCall. Low-level flyovers by military fighters (F16’s then F35’s) and the contracted aggressors are daily occurrences here so CC hits in the MilAir band are common. I logged dozens of previously unknown frequencies used in the area.
Another common CC hit I get here are from the local ATV and Jeep clubs. They tend to get cheap ham radios like Baofeng, AnyTone and TID’s. Since I live within blocks of both State Trust and BLM lands we are inundated with ORV’s here, and they mostly have radios. While often they are on GMRS sometimes they choose other frequencies in their frequency-agile radios. I have had hits on them here on several VHF frequencies on or off normal assignments. Sometimes they pop up on 460 MHz. freqs used by the state troopers here, I have also heard them on ham freqs or business band stuff.
Sometimes CloseCall can be weird. I have had hits on repeaters dozens of miles away, sometimes even consistently. Back in Chicagoland I would get hits on a T-Band repeater in Northbrook from Schaumburg. While I can understand this happening randomly this was pretty constant whenever I was in the area. Maybe there was a odd reflection off some building or something.
There are a few tricks that I have found over the years using CloseCall. The first is that the antenna makes a huge difference. An antenna tuned to a specific band makes the CloseCall receiver much more likely to hear traffic at longer ranges. One day I popped on a ¼ wave UHF antenna on the car, and I got a bunch of UHF that I hadn’t heard before. A few days later I swapped out the antenna with a VHF one and started getting a bunch of VHF hits and did not get hits on those UHF channels.
Another trick is to use the Broadcast Screen feature in the “Search/CC Options” menu. This allows you to prevent the CloseCall from hitting on specific band segments such as FM broadcast, pagers, weather channels or even user-defined frequency ranges. This helps prevent annoying hits from always-on stations.
In the car remember that most Uniden scanners do not retain lockouts from searches and CloseCall if you pull the power instead of turning the scanner off first. Even on the BCT15 or 996 series scanners that do not use SD-Cards the lockouts are written into the scanners memory when the power switch is turned off, an impolite shutdown (like pulling the power by turning off the ignition) prevents it from writing to the memory. Of course, this applies to the 536 and SDS200’s as well.
I even went out and bought a BCD996P2 to replace a perfectly good BCD996XT in my car specifically due to the updated CloseCall feature. On the 996XT you had to hit a key in order to see the frequency for the hit. The 996P2 displays the frequency automatically as it receives it. I asked the late Paul Opitz about this when the 996P2 came out and he insinuated it was due to a patent issue but did not elaborate, I didn’t realize how sick he really was at the time. Later I decided to standardize on the BCD536HP with a pair in the car and 4 more at home.
I did have an Optoelectronics Explorer many years ago. Like the Scout, it was a latching frequency counter, but it also had a receiver built into it. At the time it was a bees’ knees but compared with today’s tech it was pretty lame. The speaker was tiny and tinny; the audio was really bad. We didn’t know then how good we would have it now.
If you haven’t tried CloseCall, Signal Searcher or Spectrum Sweeper try it, you’ll like it.
