A formidable task ahead

[NoiseLimited]

Greetings fellow aficionados of the ether. I've been through several of the articles here on RR, trying to get up to speed. I'm one of those old retired guys who decided to return to scanners after a long hiatus. The last scanner I bought was a Bearcat 800XLT in the mid 80s. This was before the cell-block law and it covered the 800MHz band continuously. I had that scanner on daily for about 6 years. Then life happens and your attention moves elsewhere. The 800 is still here, in a closet - not powered on in 15 years or so.

Things have changed dramatically though and I'm definitely out of touch. I noticed Bob Grove shuttered Monitoring Times and it seems Rich is no longer doing his thing. I used to see and talk to both of them at various hamfests here in the state. Time is not our friend.

I did something unusual for me and ordered a scanner without the normal 3 or 4 weeks of research. A Uniden SDS200 optioned out should arrive this week. I understand radio receivers, feedlines and antennas, but digital radio - APCO, P25, DMR, NXDN, trunking, EDACS, LTR, et al gives me heartburn. The whole database thing here is news to me. I am so out of touch with everything that has been happening. Reading through the forums, there seems to be a cadre of well-informed and experienced folks here. I am so thankful for that. I will most likely be one of those people who asks one of those questions that has an answer that's obvious to everyone but me. I'll try not to be annoying.

Thanks to all the knowledgeable folks here who keep the rest of us out of trouble.

 

[w2lie]

Welcome back to the hobby!

Yes - things have certainly changed in the last few years, but you will figure it out.

It is true that MT is done, but most of the authors are writing for a new digital magazine called The Spectrum Monitor.

Radio Reference is the place to ask all the questions you might have. The SDS200 is a great radio, and that should get you up and running faster if you purchased a radio that did not support the home patrol database. With the HP programming, it pulls the data right from the RRDB. If you had a scanner that didn't support that, you would need to have a better understanding of trunking before you started programming.

Enjoy the hobby! It's a great time to be here with all the SDR developments as well.

 

[seth21w]

You did your research well the sds200 is the best base station radio to be had! Enjoy it once you set the day and time hit the zip button and enter your zipcode it will scan 10 mile radius default. Then start reading how to use sentinel and update firmware database and program your scan list.

 

[Jon57]

You might also want to check out the Podcasts Archives - Scanner School, Phil (W2LIE) does a fantastic job explaining these digital modes.

 

[RogerH11]

Greetings fellow aficionados of the ether. I've been through several of the articles here on RR, trying to get up to speed. I'm one of those old retired guys who decided to return to scanners after a long hiatus. The last scanner I bought was a Bearcat 800XLT in the mid 80s. This was before the cell-block law and it covered the 800MHz band continuously. I had that scanner on daily for about 6 years. Then life happens and your attention moves elsewhere. The 800 is still here, in a closet - not powered on in 15 years or so.

Things have changed dramatically though and I'm definitely out of touch. I noticed Bob Grove shuttered Monitoring Times and it seems Rich is no longer doing his thing. I used to see and talk to both of them at various hamfests here in the state. Time is not our friend.

I did something unusual for me and ordered a scanner without the normal 3 or 4 weeks of research. A Uniden SDS200 optioned out should arrive this week. I understand radio receivers, feedlines and antennas, but digital radio - APCO, P25, DMR, NXDN, trunking, EDACS, LTR, et al gives me heartburn. The whole database thing here is news to me. I am so out of touch with everything that has been happening. Reading through the forums, there seems to be a cadre of well-informed and experienced folks here. I am so thankful for that. I will most likely be one of those people who asks one of those questions that has an answer that's obvious to everyone but me. I'll try not to be annoying.

Thanks to all the knowledgeable folks here who keep the rest of us out of trouble.

Welcome back to the hobby! Oh, Rich Wells God Bless Him as he had the premiere site before RR. The simple days when Uniden was crap and only GRE would do on USA side, as AOR, ICOM, and Yupiteru were the radios to have. I imported all mine as I didn't want any crippled scanner and they blew away everything state side other than Pro 43 and Pro 2004-2006. Uniden always had poor audio and annoying as hell, long squelch tails. Trunking came then ruined getting top-of-the-line radios imported from Finland and UK. AOR and ICOM scan speeds were slow but the top "gadget" at the time was a bandscope LOL! CTCSS was an optional board you had to install. Uniden has come a long way but their first trunking radios had the hated telephone battery packs and could either trunk or conv, not both. Then the first that did both 245XLT held onto the trunking bank for over 5 seconds then did a quick conv scan where you'd miss mostly anything anyway. I hated those days having to rely on Uniden cuz of trunking and GRE had only 1 that tracked via sub-audio-tones rather than CC.

Anyway, you're in for a big surprise going from a 800XLT to a SDS 200. Like going from a horse and buggy to a rocket ship as there are now so many options and menus it may be overwhelming. I guess you can punch in your zip code so you don't really need to program it at first. I just ordered a SDS 100 which will be my first radio ever where I will not program myself as there is just too much alpha text to punch in today. It will be easy compared to jumping into a GRE/Now Whistler Object Scanning radio which about drove me nuts trying to program it like scanners of old in terms of banks and channels, instead of objects to scan in each bank. I would not recommend Whistler Object to old timers although software may have made that not too bad now? I really like the looks of your SDS 200 but I need/want portability and if power goes out, I want to hear what's going on. I'm half afraid of what kind of or lack of audio I'll get in a portable which is the biggest con. One review didn't look promising for such a costly radio. Sure, I've paid more way back for Yupiteru, but bad audio was never an option let alone a worry. Even the tiny ICOM R2 audio blew away anything domestic back then. I got a lot of hate back in the day at Rich's site for ranting over the audio of their flagship at time 780XLT having "tiny" audio.

The 780XLT brings back lots of memories of Rich and Glenn from Scanners Unlimited (God Bless His Soul!) who use to be close to Rick's site and offer specials there. I pre-ordered a 780 XLT and paid for it months in advance. He only got in 10 before Christmas and I was 11 or probably 12 on the list. I lost my job so was bummed that I wouldn't have a gift let alone that. Some guy from Texas ordered 2 out of the 10 so Glenn got one from him by offering free shipping on both, then UPS Red Labeled it to me on Saturday which must have cost a fortune as its 3000 miles in less than 24 hours, so I'd have a gift as Sunday was Christmas. Its too bad he retired or I'd never get a radio anyplace else. He also got the new radios the fastest as being on the coast I assume, right off the ship? Sorry to digress, but seeing Rich's name brought back memories of our old haunting grounds.

 

[Nasby]

Great reply Roger. You brought back some great memories. Trip down memory lane for sure! I had forgotton the evolution of scanners to where we are today. And I experienced much of what you posted.

 

[N4DJC]

@NoiseLimited

Welcome back....it’s a new world for sure.