Clueless, Need Help Replacing Pro-2050

[tonydi]

We've got an ancient Radio Shack Pro-2050 that seems to have the constant squelch problem others have reported online. I wouldn't know where to take it to be repaired, and that might not be cost-effective anyway, so I figured maybe it's time to replace it. Maybe that's wrong and there's someone local and it's a simple fix, so I'm open to that too.

We live in San Jose and listen to Police, Fire and CHP. Because we're in an unincorporated area, we need SC County Sheriff channels too. We're casual listeners so we don't need a lot of bells and whistles, just a basic desktop scanner that can handle those channels. IOW, we don't want to spend a lot of money .

I've tried reading through the forums and apparently the technology is changing and perhaps we need to buy for the future, but that seems to indicate that our goal of keeping the cost down might not be possible.

Any suggestions?

 

[gmclam]

Santa Clara County

I listen to Santa Clara county from here in Sacramento county at night, and when traveling. If you just want CHP, fire and sheriff dispatch, you can get away with something cheap. But everyone is slowly going digital, which will cost you closer to $400+.

Take a look at the "mode" column here, if it is a channel you want and is listed as P25, it requires a digital scanner.

Recomendations are a little more complicated. There are really only 3 brands to choose from: Uniden, Whistler, GRE. GRE went out of business a year or so ago and Whistler now has their IP. I'm not sure they're up to speed yet. I am personally monitoring with GRE-made models (PSR-500, Radio Shack PRO-197), but since they're no longer made; the only place to get them is used. However, you might find one that way which fits your budget.

 

[tonydi]

Thanks so much for the info. I've looked at the list and there are only a couple of digital frequencies in use now, although who knows how much that will change in the near future. Turns out we'd forgotten about an old Uniden 220XLT we had tossed in a drawer. So we're going to put that into service for the time being.