Advice for new scanner purchase Wichita Co Tx

[edwftx]

I am wanting to get a new scanner and want some advice and a couple of questions answered.

I know I will not be able to monitor Wichita Falls P.D. unless someone can sell me a pro voice capable portable with proper code input, but fire is analog 800 EDACS trunked and all the surounding cities and counties are still conventional VHF. D.P.S. might go digital.

My question is what scanner to buy that will get these couple of agencies that are digital/analog 800 and still use the same scanner to get my good old conventional systems, or will I have to have 2 or 3 scanners to get all I was getting before Wichita Falls went EDACS

 

[DPS8504]

Scanner for Wichita County

Ed

I would go ahead and get a digital capable scanner. Digital is on its way to this area.

Scooter

 

[hiegtx]

Probably the BC396T. It covers everything you indicate you want, plus the likely changes (except Pro-voice; nothing helps us on that). The dynamic memory set up is very flexible, allowing for easy programming changes or customization. I can't quote from long experience yet, since my 396 just arrived last Thursday. But so far, I'm impressed. Using one of the Radio Shack 800Mhz rubber duck antennas, I'm getting good range on 800Mhz systems as well as on surrounding suburbs that are still VHF high band.

I believe that the BC296 would also cover what you want, but difference in prices new is insignificant, whereas features of the 396 are much better. I'm not as familiar with the Radio Shack lineup, but the Pro-96 appears to be a rough equivalent of the BC296, except that it does not cover the military aircraft band, if that interests you. Both the 396 & 296 do cover milair. These are all hand-helds. The BC796D is an approximate desktop eqivalent of the BC296. The desktop counterpart to the Radio Shack Pro-96 appears to be the Pro-2096. I noticed on the RS webpage they have now dropped their price by $50. There are some of the BC296's and others showing up in equipment for sale as more people get the new BC396.

Frequency rebanding is on the horizon. Nothing is set in stone, but Uniden is more confident sounding that reflashing and reprogramming will keep the 396 , 296 & some other models in the ball game than Radio Shack has been so far. Nothing will be known for sure till some live, rebanded, systems are out there to be guinea pigs.

 

[doug408]

Re: Advice for new scanner purchase Wichita Co TX

There are lots of considerations here. One is whether you want a hand-held unit or something better suited for tabletop or vehicle use. (Obviously when size constraints are a major issue, the engineers may have to make different tradeoffs re technical merit vs. space, sound quality vs. space, readability of display vs. space or battery life, etc.) Only you know the environment you would most often use a scanner in.

The Uniden 296 and 396 sound like quite good choices for hand-held use if there is a probability that you will need a digital unit in the next few years. I've been very pleased with the BC796D for inside use. I understand that all three of these are among the ones likely to be reprogrammable to compensate somewhat for the 800 MHz rebanding - something that you'd want to seriously consider when shelling out that kind of money. Unfortunately it sounds like owners of some older models may be out of luck when rebanding occurs.

If you're looking at the 396, beware that this is a very new unit that still seems to be undergoing some growing pains. I've seen some very good initial reports on it, but have also seen reports of things like keypad silk screening wearing off prematurely. To their credit, Uniden seems to be very actively working with end users to identify and address 396 issues as they are reported. I'm confident that they will quickly be able to fix the early issues in later production runs.

 

[edwftx]

thanks guys,

I am gonna get a digital scanner not sure if it will be RS or Uniden my main concern was if the digital scanner will still be able to get the small town conventional systems that will probably be in operation the next few years. I really dont want to have to have two scanners going at the same time... one for the EDACS trunked systems in my area and the good old conventional that has worked just fine for the last 50 years.

 

[doug408]

I doubt you have much to worry about in that regard. I'm not aware of any digital scanner than can't also scan conventional frequencies. As a practical matter, the conversion to digital in any given area would likely take many months, if not years. Factor in the fact that many scanner users will want to listen across jurisdictional boundaries, each likely with different deployment schedules and budgets, and it seems like a very safe bet that being able to listen to conventional channels would be a pretty fundamental design requirement for any digital scanner for quite a few more years.

 

[hiegtx]

Speaking only of the BC396T, it's sensitivity on the conventional systems is better than the average sensitivity compared to my other, non-digital, scanners. I have a half dozen others ranging from a semi ancient Regency HX-1500 to a BC250D, with the most recent, other than the 396, being a BC246T.

Currently, I have it programmed with 15 trunked systems (1 digital, Grand Prairie), and 17 non-trunked, including one (Tx DPS) that has a mix of digital and non-digital usage). So far, I have only used 12% of the available memory in the scanner.

Bottom line, you don't need more than one scanner, unless you want more than one, to cover what you are wanting to hear.

 

[mam1081]

You'll probably want the P25 digital capability now to listen to Sheppard AFB. They are running a P25 400 MHz system in your area.

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=817