BC250D: Bc250d

[Punisher1101]

Greetings, I'm new to this hobby and need a bit of direction please. For now all I'm trying to do is listen to the emergency frequencies around me that have p25 and I read on a frequencies map that a bc250d with the i25d card would allow me to do so. I also would like to listen to the Ham bands around me and eventually get the required licenses to actually talk to those around me and America possibly further. So will the bc250d with card allow me to do all of the listening I'm wanting to do? I live in Martin county FL. if that makes a difference. I thank you all in advance for any and all information, direction and help.

 

[trentbob]

Greetings, I'm new to this hobby and need a bit of direction please. For now all I'm trying to do is listen to the emergency frequencies around me that have p25 and I read on a frequencies map that a bc250d with the i25d card would allow me to do so. I also would like to listen to the Ham bands around me and eventually get the required licenses to actually talk to those around me and America possibly further. So will the bc250d with card allow me to do all of the listening I'm wanting to do? I live in Martin county FL. if that makes a difference. I thank you all in advance for any and all information, direction and help.

Yes where you live makes a big difference and that's the way people can tell if your radio will work. I just took a glance at your county and it doesn't look good.

If it means anything I still have my BC 250d, great scanner on conventional objects. First Uniden Bearcat Digital radio.

It looks like the systems serving your county are Phase 1 simulcast systems involving frequencies in the 700 MHz area, thats strike one, your radio is also not the appropriate baud rate. That's strike two.

It looks like I saw a lot of "DE" talk groups, your area might be encrypted.

I just took a glance at the database so plenty of people here to help you who are familiar with this radio, if no one else gets back to you, later on I will do more intensive research on the exact police that Patrol your area and what system they're on. I'm just sitting down to dinner.

You certainly can listen to the ham bands. Let's see who chimes in here.

 

[ka3jjz]

One word - Milcom! That scanner will work quite well for military air-air. And ProScan supports it

ProScan

Computer Aided Scanning Software for the Uniden BC125AT BC250D BC296D BC346XT BC346XTC BC780XLT BC785D BC796D BCD160DN BCD260DN BCD325P2 BCD396T BCD396XT BCD436HP BCD536HP BCD996P2 BCD996T BCD996XT BCT15 BCT15X BR330T SDS100 SDS100E SDS200 SDS200E UBC125XLT UBC126AT UBCD3600XLT UBCD436PT...

www.proscan.org

Get a good antenna into the air (watch for lightning!) and go to town

MIke

 

[Punisher1101]

Yes where you live makes a big difference and that's the way people can tell if your radio will work. I just took a glance at your county and it doesn't look good.

If it means anything I still have my BC 250d, great scanner on conventional objects. First Uniden Bearcat Digital radio.

It looks like the systems serving your county are Phase 1 simulcast systems involving frequencies in the 700 MHz area, thats strike one, your radio is also not the appropriate baud rate. That's strike two.

It looks like I saw a lot of "DE" talk groups, your area might be encrypted.

I just took a glance at the database so plenty of people here to help you who are familiar with this radio, if no one else gets back to you, later on I will do more intensive research on the exact police that Patrol your area and what system they're on. I'm just sitting down to dinner.

You certainly can listen to the ham bands. Let's see who chimes in here

Yes where you live makes a big difference and that's the way people can tell if your radio will work. I just took a glance at your county and it doesn't look good.

If it means anything I still have my BC 250d, great scanner on conventional objects. First Uniden Bearcat Digital radio.

It looks like the systems serving your county are Phase 1 simulcast systems involving frequencies in the 700 MHz area, thats strike one, your radio is also not the appropriate baud rate. That's strike two.

It looks like I saw a lot of "DE" talk groups, your area might be encrypted.

I just took a glance at the database so plenty of people here to help you who are familiar with this radio, if no one else gets back to you, later on I will do more intensive research on the exact police that Patrol your area and what system they're on. I'm just sitting down to dinner.

You certainly can listen to the ham bands. Let's see who chimes in here.

Thank you very much.

 

[trentbob]

Okay original poster, first of all I wanted to tell you that because you are a newbie your post are going to be delayed showing up on the Forum because you are being moderated for the first handful or so posts, you may have already written one and are waiting to be approved.


Remember I may not have seen your most recent post yet but this is the radio system that your local fire, police an EMS are on along with St Lucie County.

Your radio cannot be made to pick up this system and even if it could it looks like you've got a lot of secret squirrels in your parts. All the police in your county are encrypted. Anyway it's a moot point to get fire and police.

As has been said, your radio will still get lots of good stuff. Don't know how close to the water you are but there's marine radio, military aircraft, commercial aircraft, ham radio and other things to listen to.

It's best, especially if you want to become a ham radio operator for you to do your own research, better than having someone just hand you a link, it's important to get used to the radio reference site, learn how to use the database, it will give you all of the frequencies you're looking for for ham radio in your area, there are a handful of repeaters right in your county.

Investigate the RR Wiki, so much valuable information. When in doubt Google something. Try Googling Martin County Florida police frequencies and it'll take you right to the radio reference database for your county, then go to the sub menu and you will see all of the systems that serve your county, you will see the above system I posted.

Also look up your radio in Wiki, there are some programming shortcuts, Google user manual for BC 250d and that will give you the manual if you already don't have it.

Every time you come across something you don't understand what it is, search for it on radio reference or just Google it.

Looking things up and research is how you learn, actually being able to program interesting things you enjoy listening to, is the reward.

 

[Punisher1101]

Okay original poster, first of all I wanted to tell you that because you are a newbie your post are going to be delayed showing up on the Forum because you are being moderated for the first handful or so posts, you may have already written one and are waiting to be approved.

View attachment 163750
Remember I may not have seen your most recent post yet but this is the radio system that your local fire, police an EMS are on along with St Lucie County.

Your radio cannot be made to pick up this system and even if it could it looks like you've got a lot of secret squirrels in your parts. All the police in your county are encrypted. Anyway it's a moot point to get fire and police.

As has been said, your radio will still get lots of good stuff. Don't know how close to the water you are but there's marine radio, military aircraft, commercial aircraft, ham radio and other things to listen to.

It's best, especially if you want to become a ham radio operator for you to do your own research, better than having someone just hand you a link, it's important to get used to the radio reference site, learn how to use the database, it will give you all of the frequencies you're looking for for ham radio in your area, there are a handful of repeaters right in your county.

Investigate the RR Wiki, so much valuable information. When in doubt Google something. Try Googling Martin County Florida police frequencies and it'll take you right to the radio reference database for your county, then go to the sub menu and you will see all of the systems that serve your county, you will see the above system I posted.

Also look up your radio in Wiki, there are some programming shortcuts, Google user manual for BC 250d and that will give you the manual if you already don't have it.

Every time you come across something you don't understand what it is, search for it on radio reference or just Google it.

Looking things up and research is how you learn, actually being able to program interesting things you enjoy listening to, is the reward.

I absolutely appreciate the information and direction. I was doing all of what you have outlined to my best ability to understand. One of the sites that I found gave me a list of departments and frequencies in the talk group in my area. It has the specific radios that can pick up trunked frequencies around me and the only one I found that is within my price range is the bc250d with the card. Yet I don't want to spend the money on the wrong radio.

 

[wtp]

they are saying that the 250 would not be a good choice.
so here is a list of the systems that you can NOT listen to

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Network (PSIC) Trunking System, Various, Florida

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Network (PSIC) Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

 

[trentbob]

I absolutely appreciate the information and direction. I was doing all of what you have outlined to my best ability to understand. One of the sites that I found gave me a list of departments and frequencies in the talk group in my area. It has the specific radios that can pick up trunked frequencies around me and the only one I found that is within my price range is the bc250d with the card. Yet I don't want to spend the money on the wrong radio.

Well if you are able to return the radio if you're still within the window, I would do that. Search on radio reference for radios capable of picking up p25 Phase 2 frequencies. If you Google it it'll take you right to threads that will have the information that you're looking for.

One of the issues that listeners encounter is something called simulcast distortion. Look it up. Some radios that are p25 Phase 2 capable are impacted by simulcast distortion which is broken up transmissions or missed transmissions all together. It's very dependent on your location with regard to transmitting towers. Here is the map of coverage of your system and the location of towers.


Something confused me in the database, the actual talk groups for police on your system were not even published. Fire and rescue was and it did not indicate that it was encrypted. However there was a blanket statement in the database that said all police, fire and EMS in your county was encrypted. Not sure of your system is in a state of flux or not. Doesn't matter what radio you get that's P2 capable, it won't pick up encryption. Another thing to be careful of when searching for data on radio frequencies is, you might find something that's an old listing, that's why it's good to stick with radio reference database as that's kept up to date as much as possible.

One of the things I'm going to do right now and I recommend that you do this research too is I'm going to go to the Florida state forum and see what people have to say there. I'm not going to start a thread I'm just going to look at existing threads and see if I can find out any information from there, I'm not really sure if fire and EMS are encrypted or not but from what I can see I'm pretty sure all police are, so are the highway patrol.

 

[trentbob]

Okay I found a thread in the Florida Forum that said St Lucie County is encrypted on police fire and EMS, Martin County is in the clear for dispatch but Tac channels are encrypted for the fire department. Police are entirely encrypted.

@Punisher1101 Do you mind me asking how much you paid for the BC 250d? It was introduced in 2003.

 

[trentbob]

they are saying that the 250 would not be a good choice.
so here is a list of the systems that you can NOT listen to

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Network (PSIC) Trunking System, Various, Florida

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Network (PSIC) Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

Yep there are several others including the one I listed above that is the poster's system. No the bc250d is not the best choice LOL.

 

[Punisher1101]

Okay I found a thread in the Florida Forum that said St Lucie County is encrypted on police fire and EMS, Martin County is in the clear for dispatch but Tac channels are encrypted for the fire department. Police are entirely encrypted.

@Punisher1101 Do you mind me asking how much you paid for the BC 250d? It was introduced in 2003.

Well I haven't bought anything yet as I am doing a TON of research and ended up here and decided to ask for help. I also sent my local Ham radio group a message asking them as well. My dad always told me to do your research and research your research until you have an educated grip on what your looking at. The radio is the bc250d with the bci25d card which in one form told me I could listen to all however the last time it was updated if I read it right was 05 so I wasn't sure if that information was still valid. I just don't want to spend 200 on something that won't do what I want. I even asked the guy selling it and he said all I needed to do was program it to my area. So I'm still looking into it all. I see that some radios that do what I want are 500+ yet I don't really have that laying around. I was hoping to spend around 200 and then as I became more educated and going to my local group learning I would pay for what I know. Like a base station. However for now all I am trying to do is listen to 700-800 and Ham.

 

[AK4PY]

I bought a 250D and had it shipped to my location in Afghanistan in 2003. It was AWESOME to have on deployment, but man that was a lifetime ago. I wouldn't suggest purchasing a 20+ year old scanner unless it was a $20 yardsale find.

 

[trentbob]

Well I haven't bought anything yet as I am doing a TON of research and ended up here and decided to ask for help. I also sent my local Ham radio group a message asking them as well. My dad always told me to do your research and research your research until you have an educated grip on what your looking at. The radio is the bc250d with the bci25d card which in one form told me I could listen to all however the last time it was updated if I read it right was 05 so I wasn't sure if that information was still valid. I just don't want to spend 200 on something that won't do what I want. I even asked the guy selling it and he said all I needed to do was program it to my area. So I'm still looking into it all. I see that some radios that do what I want are 500+ yet I don't really have that laying around. I was hoping to spend around 200 and then as I became more educated and going to my local group learning I would pay for what I know. Like a base station. However for now all I am trying to do is listen to 700-800 and Ham.

Okay glad to hear that you didn't buy the 21-year-old scanner LOL, yes in 2005 it was a great scanner for Motorola type II smart Zone systems. As I described earlier in the thread it doesn't cover 700 MHz and it's the wrong baud rate.

Here are some radios for you to research. You can look for them used. Your price range is unrealistic but you can see what you can do. I didn't include the Uniden SDS series as it is very expensive and way more than you need but you can certainly look up the SDS 100 and 200 from Uniden. I did not include Whistler P2 capable scanners because quite frankly they don't work very well on Phase 2 at least for me and many others who I know.

So let's recap. There's a lot of information in this thread. You're thinking of getting into ham radio and you want to monitor Hams. You would like to hear Public Service in your area.

All the way in the beginning of this thread I listed the system that serves your county. A p25 phase 2 system for St Lucie and Martin County. I established by looking at the Florida forum that all police fire and EMS are encrypted on the P2 system in St Lucie County and in St Martin County the police are encrypted and the fire dispatch is the only thing in the clear, the tac channels are encrypted.

Research the above radios and see if you can get one for the lowest price used, apparently you will be able to hear fire dispatch in Martin County.

All the radios I listed are very good on conventional frequencies like marine radio, ham radio, military and civilian aircraft and many other things. Again, nothing much you can do about being out of your price range.

I was surprised that you even found a bc250d LOL, I'll never sell mine because for me it's a cult radio, a collector's item. The city I worked in as a newspaper man went digital in 2000 and the 250d didn't come out till 2003 so we had to use Motorola radios to monitor the police for 3 years. It was quite a radio and its day but not something you want to buy for today.

 

[Punisher1101]

Okay glad to hear that you didn't buy the 21-year-old scanner LOL, yes in 2005 it was a great scanner for Motorola type II smart Zone systems. As I described earlier in the thread it doesn't cover 700 MHz and it's the wrong baud rate.
View attachment 163788
Here are some radios for you to research. You can look for them used. Your price range is unrealistic but you can see what you can do. I didn't include the Uniden SDS series as it is very expensive and way more than you need but you can certainly look up the SDS 100 and 200 from Uniden. I did not include Whistler P2 capable scanners because quite frankly they don't work very well on Phase 2 at least for me and many others who I know.

So let's recap. There's a lot of information in this thread. You're thinking of getting into ham radio and you want to monitor Hams. You would like to hear Public Service in your area.

All the way in the beginning of this thread I listed the system that serves your county. A p25 phase 2 system for St Lucie and Martin County. I established by looking at the Florida forum that all police fire and EMS are encrypted on the P2 system in St Lucie County and in St Martin County the police are encrypted and the fire dispatch is the only thing in the clear, the tac channels are encrypted.

Research the above radios and see if you can get one for the lowest price used, apparently you will be able to hear fire dispatch in Martin County.

All the radios I listed are very good on conventional frequencies like marine radio, ham radio, military and civilian aircraft and many other things. Again, nothing much you can do about being out of your price range.

I was surprised that you even found a bc250d LOL, I'll never sell mine because for me it's a cult radio, a collector's item. The city I worked in as a newspaper man went digital in 2000 and the 250d didn't come out till 2003 so we had to use Motorola radios to monitor the police for 3 years. It was quite a radio and its day but not something you want to buy for today.

I thank you for all your time and information. I've been looking at some of your referrals and have come to the understanding that I would spend 250-600 for a good radio. Also im looking into a RLS-SDS dongle set up. However if I can't listen to any of the encrypted stuff then that should limit me to the Ham, marine, air and possibly mil radios. Of which will at least help me to develop my knowledge and equipment as I want to go further in the future. Especially when a storm comes or in the event that SHTF becomes a reality. I've also continued to do research on this sit as well and will continue to do so. So again thank you very much for your time, knowledge, references and direction. Maybe one day I'll get to chat with you. Any other information you feel could help me in this endeavor will always be welcomed and appreciated.

 

[trentbob]

Yeah you're right about the price range, you're right about the fact that you have encryption all around you so you could take a look at a non digital radio like the BC125AT.. I think you'll like the price and it's a good performer. It has its limitations for Public Safety in the area of Florida that you're in. That's the tip of the day LOL.. good luck to you, let people know what you decide.

 

[Punisher1101]

Trenton, I thank you for giving me some education on this radio endeavor I am starting. I

I thank you for all your time and information. I've been looking at some of your referrals and have come to the understanding that I would spend 250-600 for a good radio. Also im looking into a RLS-SDS dongle set up. However if I can't listen to any of the encrypted stuff then that should limit me to the Ham, marine, air and possibly mil radios. Of which will at least help me to develop my knowledge and equipment as I want to go further in the future. Especially when a storm comes or in the event that SHTF becomes a reality. I've also continued to do research on this sit as well and will continue to do so. So again thank you very much for your time, knowledge, references and direction. Maybe one day I'll get to chat with you. Any other information you feel could help me in this endeavor will always be welcomed and appreciated.

looking at more radios starting with the ones you referred to me. I also found a Yaesu ft-60r in my journey and wanted your opinion on that radio. Anyone else please feel free to chime in with your opinions as well as all help will be appreciated.

 

[trentbob]

Trenton, I thank you for giving me some education on this radio endeavor I am starting. I


looking at more radios starting with the ones you referred to me. I also found a Yaesu ft-60r in my journey and wanted your opinion on that radio. Anyone else please feel free to chime in with your opinions as well as all help will be appreciated.

We are talking apples and oranges here and until you actually become a ham radio operator I would avoid buying a ham radio for local scanning.

I actually use a Yaesu ft 65 r for scanning VHF and UHF local public service, mostly rebroadcast of digital Trunked Radio Systems, marine and Railroad, the radio's been modified to extend frequency coverage. I of course have many local repeaters programmed for ham radio use.

If you want to listen to ham radio, the inexpensive BC 125 AT will do that, along with, marine radio, Railroad, Aviation, many other disciplines.. if you travel and come across Phase 1 and Phase 2 public service you won't be able to pick it up, if you want a radio like that, research the ones above and pay the price.

You may be overthinking this at this point.

If I was you I'd be anxious to get started so check out dependable vendors with a 30-day return policy, the last I saw Bearcat Warehouse had the BC 125 AT for $119.99, you will probably do better on Amazon but there is a 30-day return policy with Bearcat Warehouse, you can try Scanner Master or other reputable vendors. You might get cheaper on Amazon just be careful.

Carpe diem or "seize the moment".