Wrong Investment?

[ccurzio]

Hey folks. I have a bit of an early history with scanners, having borrowed my dad's old scanner on more than one occasion while I was growing up, but that kind of fell by the wayside after I moved out many years ago.

I decided to get back into it, but I think I made a mistake in my choice of scanner. I went with the PRO-651 from RadioShack which, while a solid unit, seems like it was less than a great choice for the area where I live (Marietta). I can't seem to pick up much beyond the NOAA weather station, and I suspect it's because Cobb is using P25-II which this scanner can't pick up.

Is this a pretty accurate assessment, or am I way off the mark here? Is this scanner useful for anything at this point, or should I bite the bullet and move to a P25-II capable unit?

Thanks much.

 

[bailly2]

the cobb county p25 trunked system uses simulcasting, so either get a yagi antenna for 850mhz or even better put a short antenna through a hole in the side of an empty paint can, blocks out the other towers

 

[MTS2000des]

I decided to get back into it, but I think I made a mistake in my choice of scanner. I went with the PRO-651 from RadioShack which, while a solid unit, seems like it was less than a great choice for the area where I live (Marietta). I can't seem to pick up much beyond the NOAA weather station, and I suspect it's because Cobb is using P25-II which this scanner can't pick up.

The problem is all consumer scanners are absolute garbage at receiving P-25 LSM (linear simulcast). It's a well documented issue and the two dominant players refuse to use more modern circuit design (I/Q demodulator) to recover accurate symbol rates.

The Cobb/Bartow system is already running in DDM, so yes, a phase 2 capable receiver is needed. Unication makes a hell of receiver (the G5), but TDMA is not officially supported yet. I have a beta unit in my hands as we speak, and it has just as good a front end as my issued APX8000. But then the Unication is a professional tool not a garbage pail plastic toy like a consumer scanner. So it doesn't have a large scan list and is purpose built as a paging receiver which can also scan and search but it isn't easy. For monitoring of select trunking talk groups, it does a stellar job.