looking for something i can bring to the races and get police fire ems ect .is the bc246t any good
bc246t
- Thread starter jasongiard
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captclint
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an excellent scanner for your purpose, but the SC230 is an identical scanner without trunking. It runs around $150, and has many racing frequencies pre-loaded.
Now for the hard part. Police/Fire/EMS can be trunked, and can be digital. You would have to know this before you purchase any scanner. There is also an excellent tutorial article on the Uniden site that will help you understand programming your scanner for trunked systems.
If you provide your state and county, we can give you a quick estimate of what you might need.
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auburn ma.
captclint
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Massachusetts State Police and Worcester Public Safety are trunked. SP are primarily analog(not digital), but it looks like there are plans to add some digital. A digital scanner costs around $500, but the BC246T will do fine for both these systems right now, as well as your local Auburn area. Depending on how much you want to provide for the future, you may want to inquire on the MA forum about SP plans to go digital, and any other system that might influence your choice.
You should also consider software. Programing trunked systems is a lot easier with software. Here is a list of software: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/BC246T#Supporting_Software My favorite is ARC246 by BuTel. It allows a automatic download of any or all frequencies in your county and state from this site, and sets up trunking TGID's & para's(this is a big help). It is $40, but well worth it. It has a neat virtual control panel that works your scanner from the keyboard., but the best part is that it logs all the information(freq & PL) and lets you see your scanner window in a much larger scale that you can actually see clearly. The logging is great when searching, but it is also handy for normal scanning. Often, I do not look up in time to see what agency was just talking, so I just look at the log. See the the examples on their web site http://www.butelsoftware.com/ You can download it on a free trial basis to see if you like it.
There are also free programs, such as FreeSCAN and BCtool, that do the same thing. Also, if you have a new PC or lap top, you will need a serial to USB converter from Uniden http://tinyurl.com/2cqyu4 or Radio Shack: http://tinyurl.com/2gpbsp . Another source is http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10311&cs_id=1031104&p_id=2276&seq=1&format=2, for quite a bit less. It is reported to work.
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thanks a lot for your help and i will be in touch jason
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