radioblake
Member
How Much Longer will it be till every Police fire station will all switch to digital Radio systems?
Will Analog Scanners become Obsolete?
- Thread starter radioblake
- Start date
- Status
7498 days :lol:
Yes, analog will become obsolete one day, but we will also be able to catch a ride to the moon for the day. The hard part is being able to say when each will happen.
Yes, analog will become obsolete one day, but we will also be able to catch a ride to the moon for the day. The hard part is being able to say when each will happen.
N
N_Jay
Guest
About the same day sails are gone from boats and people stop riding horses.
zzdiesel
Member
I think they'll stay useful in smaller areas, but what hurts them now is so many stations being put on the same freqs. I say you need one with at least tone squelch.
SquierStrat
Member
even when they do analog scanners still wont be obsolete. i doubt trains and airplanes are making the switch any time soon
zzdiesel
Member
I do know that our Sheriiff's dept will only go digital if they get a big enough grant to do it. Our city upgraded earlier this year to a new VHF system that is mostly in the clear but they do occasionally switch to what they call dtac. I hope it is unscrambled digital.
Last edited:
DPD1
Member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2005
- Messages
- 1,994
I remember everybody saying HF was going to be dead any second over 30 years ago. I don't think any technology ever completely goes away. There's probably some guy out there driving around with his 8 Track playing right now.
Dave
www.DPDProductions.com
Antennas & Accessories for the RF Professional & Radio Hobbyist
Dave
www.DPDProductions.com
Antennas & Accessories for the RF Professional & Radio Hobbyist
kc7mwp
Member
obsolete radios
FWIW, where I live they haven't even gone to trunking yet. This only happens when the airwaves start to get constipated with everybody and their brother using a radio.
EdC
Show Low AZ
FWIW, where I live they haven't even gone to trunking yet. This only happens when the airwaves start to get constipated with everybody and their brother using a radio.
EdC
Show Low AZ
MOTOROLANUT
Member
scanner
Just buy a new valve and screw it on the back like your propane tanks...LMMFAO
Just buy a new valve and screw it on the back like your propane tanks...LMMFAO
lars128
Member
I imagine the next round of rebanding will kill of much of the analog traffic, as digital may be the best way to effectively transmit and receive on 6.25 kHz spacing. However that is probably 10 years down the road or so.
Next wave??..There is only 1 rebanding taking place & rebanding has NOTHING to do with digital???. More uninformed people like you spreading misinformation. are you sure you are not withe the news media????
ohiodesperado
Member
It depends on what you listen to
It really depends on what you like monitoring. If you are a straight public safety guy, and only monitor big cities, then yes, there is a chance that your local citiy will at some point go to digital. If you are monitoring other thins like aircraft, ham radio, and commercial business radio, probably never. Aircraft is AM so going digital would require a major upgrade to every plane, including a large number of small private planes that the owners are not going to be willing to purchase the new radios for. With all the legacy equipment installed it's simply easier to NOT change the manner in which they communicate.
Ham radio has digital, but it's sold only one system D-Star, and while it's a good technology, the same reason that Ham Radio will never go away, being again the number of radios in the market and in use, the analog communications on ham radio will never go away. Imagine the ham bands being deregulated, it would turn into what CB freebanding is now.
Lastly, small departments with little funding will take a long time to change. Everyone in the county I live in except like two small depts are on high band VHF, those two small depts are on 39 MHz, so everything that goes on is rebroadcast on 39 MHz so that dept can hear it. also the low band will carry farther than high band.
It really depends on what you like monitoring. If you are a straight public safety guy, and only monitor big cities, then yes, there is a chance that your local citiy will at some point go to digital. If you are monitoring other thins like aircraft, ham radio, and commercial business radio, probably never. Aircraft is AM so going digital would require a major upgrade to every plane, including a large number of small private planes that the owners are not going to be willing to purchase the new radios for. With all the legacy equipment installed it's simply easier to NOT change the manner in which they communicate.
Ham radio has digital, but it's sold only one system D-Star, and while it's a good technology, the same reason that Ham Radio will never go away, being again the number of radios in the market and in use, the analog communications on ham radio will never go away. Imagine the ham bands being deregulated, it would turn into what CB freebanding is now.
Lastly, small departments with little funding will take a long time to change. Everyone in the county I live in except like two small depts are on high band VHF, those two small depts are on 39 MHz, so everything that goes on is rebroadcast on 39 MHz so that dept can hear it. also the low band will carry farther than high band.
N1GJB
Member
Crystal scanners are still used by many. I'm going to break one out of the basement today and dust it off...
Analog scanners will still be useful for many many years...
Analog scanners will still be useful for many many years...
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
Let's set the record straight on rebanding (which is only impacting 800 mhz) and refarming - from our wiki...
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Rebanding
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Refarming
Basically speaking if you have a newer analog radio that can hear NFM and tune with the required step sizes independent of the frequency, you have a radio which, at least for the short term, will not have many issues with refarming. There are many older analog scanners that won't be able to accomodate this change, and as such, will likely need to find new uses for them - such as supplying discriminator or speaker taps for ACARS, UniTrunker and other decoding utilities. Sort of like what is happening now, frankly.
73 Mike
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Rebanding
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Refarming
Basically speaking if you have a newer analog radio that can hear NFM and tune with the required step sizes independent of the frequency, you have a radio which, at least for the short term, will not have many issues with refarming. There are many older analog scanners that won't be able to accomodate this change, and as such, will likely need to find new uses for them - such as supplying discriminator or speaker taps for ACARS, UniTrunker and other decoding utilities. Sort of like what is happening now, frankly.
73 Mike
ElroyJetson
Getting tired of all the stupidity.
I sense a lack of knowledge about some specific points here.
ANY scanner that can receive a current "wideband" signal will be able to receive a narrowband signal on the same frequency. The audio level will be lower, that's all. Just turn up the volume.
But not all scanners can tune to the center frequencies of the narrowbanded channels. When channel spacing moves from 25 KHz to 12.5 KHz, some scanners can't handle the splinter channels. The same
will apply with 6.25 KHz channel spacing.
Your scanner will have to be able to tune in 500 Hz steps, really.
Elroy
ANY scanner that can receive a current "wideband" signal will be able to receive a narrowband signal on the same frequency. The audio level will be lower, that's all. Just turn up the volume.
But not all scanners can tune to the center frequencies of the narrowbanded channels. When channel spacing moves from 25 KHz to 12.5 KHz, some scanners can't handle the splinter channels. The same
will apply with 6.25 KHz channel spacing.
Your scanner will have to be able to tune in 500 Hz steps, really.
Elroy
To add to that point, you might be lucky and have a change to narrowband without moving to a new frequency. My county has a few fire/EMS repeaters that got the change and as Elroy has stated, I just have to crank up the volume (glad the Saber has a lot of volume 
)
)rabidmoose57
Member
Lots of " stuff"
Even if all the police, and fire departments go digital, there are still hundreds if not thousands of things that won't. It all depends on what you want to listen to.
Even if all the police, and fire departments go digital, there are still hundreds if not thousands of things that won't. It all depends on what you want to listen to.
Don_Burke
Member
I doubt there is anyone on the board who will live long enough to see it.
- Status
Similar threads
