WS1025: Brief review

[w1av]

I just got my Whistler WS1025. Been listening to it for 2 days now using the built-in whip antenna. I live in a reasonably high area of town and listen primarily to aircraft and fire/rescue. I am planning on installing a discone antenna up on garage roof for added range.
The first BIG NEGATIVE about this radio is the absolutely SLOPPY and LOOSE squelch. It's pretty useless. Even when turned up to full it doesnt squelch out annoying weak and noisy signals. Audio is rather tinny, but usable. The backlit amber LCD display is pleasing. One more slightly negative thing is the USELESS signal strength meter. No matter what level of received signal strength, the meter will still read full scale. So the meter is basically of no use. The case is pretty durable plastic. The buttons are very good quality with nice, tactile feel to them. Programming is very easy. All in all it is a nice scanner. BUT....monitoring can be frustrating with the crappy squelch because you can't squelch out annoying weak and noisy signals. It might be possible to bring radio to a shop and have them replace the squelch, but its probably a cheap circuit directly soldered to board. Also it might be possible to manually adjust squelch with trim pot inside radio, but pretty much everything now is all surface mounted with no way to adjust. I have a cheap Realistic scanner I bought in 1999 that doesnt have the crappy squelch like the Whistler. Not sure if I would buy another Whistler scanner.

 

[Buttabean]

I just got my Whistler WS1025. Been listening to it for 2 days now using the built-in whip antenna. I live in a reasonably high area of town and listen primarily to aircraft and fire/rescue. I am planning on installing a discone antenna up on garage roof for added range.
The first BIG NEGATIVE about this radio is the absolutely SLOPPY and LOOSE squelch. It's pretty useless. Even when turned up to full it doesnt squelch out annoying weak and noisy signals. Audio is rather tinny, but usable. The backlit amber LCD display is pleasing. One more slightly negative thing is the USELESS signal strength meter. No matter what level of received signal strength, the meter will still read full scale. So the meter is basically of no use. The case is pretty durable plastic. The buttons are very good quality with nice, tactile feel to them. Programming is very easy. All in all it is a nice scanner. BUT....monitoring can be frustrating with the crappy squelch because you can't squelch out annoying weak and noisy signals. It might be possible to bring radio to a shop and have them replace the squelch, but its probably a cheap circuit directly soldered to board. Also it might be possible to manually adjust squelch with trim pot inside radio, but pretty much everything now is all surface mounted with no way to adjust. I have a cheap Realistic scanner I bought in 1999 that doesnt have the crappy squelch like the Whistler. Not sure if I would buy another Whistler scanner.

I've had mine a few days, bought it to monitor ham radio rptrs and such. Analog is pretty much useless for public safety in South Atlanta as everything is digital P25, DMR, NXDN and so forth. But I do have a Whistler TRX-1 that I'm trying to pull in public safety with, my county is encrypted so neighbor counties are all that's left.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

 

[w1av]

Yeah pretty soon the only things that are gonna be left to scan is the weather freqs and burger king drive thru. It's a mixed bag up here. Some police freqs are still analog. The big cities have gone digital. I really only like to listen to aircraft, fire/ rescue and some of the ham repeaters. Trunking is heavy up here but mostly businesses and the state jail. For the most part I like the radio. I am waiting to put up an outside antenna, but weather is very cold and icy. I am looking at a discone. I already got the mounting brackets up on side of garage and a 15' length of mast.