Another option is the baofeng 2 way radio that can be programmed with vhf frequencies and can scan police and or amateur radio, some are dual band radios. This is another option it also can scan, using a special cord and a program called chirp
Yeah I have a couple of the UV5Rs and have programmed them with CHIRP. There is a new version called "CHIRP next" or something out now. I will look into the tethered scanning though, that sounds useful.
I've also got a couple of the RTL-SDR USB radios I've been using with HDSDR software but there is a lot of other software out there I haven't explored yet.
