Another Newbie Needs Help

[greenstuffs]

Hi all,
I've been reading for quite awhile this forum for a radio purchase. I live in Oklahoma, Cleveland County but would travel around the metro and Edmond area. So far if i get digital i would probably go with the PRS500 or BCD396T if i don't need digital i think some radio shack or uniden BR330T are quite attractive for half the price.
My question is that is it really worth to get Digital living in Oklahoma, I really like to know the options out there. Then after getting the radio i guess the fun part is to program it.
Thx

 

[foster_006]

Hi all,
I've been reading for quite awhile this forum for a radio purchase. I live in Oklahoma, Cleveland County but would travel around the metro and Edmond area. So far if i get digital i would probably go with the PRS500 or BCD396T if i don't need digital i think some radio shack or uniden BR330T are quite attractive for half the price.
My question is that is it really worth to get Digital living in Oklahoma, I really like to know the options out there. Then after getting the radio i guess the fun part is to program it.
Thx

Hello! And welcome to Radioreference Oklahoma Forums!

I can't tell you the benefits of owning a digital scanner, because I do not own one. Although I can tell you there is not enough digital traffic around this area to interest me in buying a digital capable scanner. There is some.. and I'm sure there is some good monitoring to be had.. but I will wait for more agencies to transition to digital before I fork over the extra money.

As far as the agencies currently utilizing any form of digital that you would be able to monitor with a digital capable scanner, I'm sure you can find a few in the database. I know some operations at Tinker AFB use digital.. and that's about the only thing, right now, that I would want to listen to.

I hope this helps! And I'm sure more people will reply!

Again, Welcome!

 

[n5usr]

The only people using digital that I want to hear is OKC FD - and that's not gonna happen anyway, so to me no real point in the extra cash for digital right now. Most people who I've talked to with digital scanners only mention Tinker and some other federal stuff, which I'm not very interested in.

As to scanner models, I bought a Radio Shack PRO-164 a while back and it's been great. The only issue, which is an issue many models will have, is there's not enough room in the Talkgroup ID Tags banks for the DPS trunked system - you'll have to pick and choose what talkgroups you want to give text tags to, the others will just display the TGID number.

That is one tempting reason to get the PSR-500/600 - it has a completely different way of programming things, and you can actually get all the IDs in there. That different way of programming has a lot of other features that sounds quite good to me. I just haven't decided to shell out for one yet!

 

[SABRE46]

The only people using digital that I want to hear is OKC FD - and that's not gonna happen anyway, so to me no real point in the extra cash for digital right now. Most people who I've talked to with digital scanners only mention Tinker and some other federal stuff, which I'm not very interested in.

As to scanner models, I bought a Radio Shack PRO-164 a while back and it's been great. The only issue, which is an issue many models will have, is there's not enough room in the Talkgroup ID Tags banks for the DPS trunked system - you'll have to pick and choose what talkgroups you want to give text tags to, the others will just display the TGID number.

That is one tempting reason to get the PSR-500/600 - it has a completely different way of programming things, and you can actually get all the IDs in there. That different way of programming has a lot of other features that sounds quite good to me. I just haven't decided to shell out for one yet!

I will second this statement. I work at Tinker and the only time I listen to them is if we have a jet in the air. I have a PRO96 and a 97 and by far I like my 97 better as far as reception and being user friendly. But I cant listen to digital with it so I have the 96 as well. I am still thinking about the PSR 500 as well. Seems to be a pretty decent scanner.

 

[fireant]

I love the PSR 500 having both it and the 396. I can tell you that both scanners have their pro's and con's. The way of programming the PSR 500 I am able to have the all the talkgroups programmed in one system which, I love. I personally will not buy no more analog scanners as I feel digital is the way to go if you have the extra money. If you can hold out and save some extra $$ get a PSR 500 you will not be disappointed.

If you get a chance we should be having our July scanner meeting soon if you are in the Metro area drop buy there will be people their who have 396's and PSR 500's that you can check out and see which one you like best. Look for a thread the July meeting soon, I am sure someone will get one started up.

fireant

 

[greenstuffs]

Thx for all the help. I will keep in mind these comments.

 

[WX5JCH]

Digital is good for listening to Texas DPS. and the VA security in OKC, and a few federal prisons, that's about all. for now...

 

[KX5MOT]

Tinker has plenty of active digital, i can listen to them here in Norman, they stay pretty busy.