Commercial radio for 30-50 mhz monitoring

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r1n10

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Dec 12, 2007
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Hello everyone.

I was wondering if anyone is using and could recommend a commercial radio for monitoring. There are lots of them out there but the ones from hamfests always look like they were salvaged from the last flood somewhere.

I am apartment bound and all scanners are just too succeptable to noise from everything from everywhere.

Also, are lopass or highpass filters useful with noise at these freqs?

Sorry I don't have any freqs to pass along this time but I will later.

Listen while we can!
 

Tommahawk

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If you are talking Two Way "Commercial" Radios, there is really only one I would recommend.... Motorola Syntor X 9000.... 29-54mhz.............

Now if you are talking about receive only radios for scanning... That is a different story
 

fineshot1

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r1n10 said:
Hello everyone.

I was wondering if anyone is using and could recommend a commercial radio for monitoring. There are lots of them out there but the ones from hamfests always look like they were salvaged from the last flood somewhere.

I am apartment bound and all scanners are just too succeptable to noise from everything from everywhere.

Also, are lopass or highpass filters useful with noise at these freqs?

Sorry I don't have any freqs to pass along this time but I will later.

Listen while we can!

There are not many commercial programable radios that cover that entire band split.
In the past a lot of commercial radios have been designed for about 6-8mhz of coverage because they are after all not scanners and are designed to perform well for the limited coverage they have. I am not sure what other make/models besides the Syntor X 9000 cover the entire split but there are not many. Perhaps a old used scanner or older crystal model may be a better choice if you have some specific freqs in mind.
 

n8emr

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r1n10 said:
Hello everyone.

I was wondering if anyone is using and could recommend a commercial radio for monitoring. There are lots of them out there but the ones from hamfests always look like they were salvaged from the last flood somewhere.

Kenwood has a tk-630 that comes in 3 band splits, the -3 will cover the upper end and the -1 will cover the lower end. Thats a big range
 

r1n10

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Thanks

Thanks for all the replies.

The radio would be for receive only (transmit disabled) like the others I have.

I'm just looking for something that does not hear every cable channel and tv within 100 miles.

I will check out the radios mentioned here
 

fineshot1

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I am apartment bound and all scanners are just too succeptable to noise from everything from everywhere.

Also, are lopass or highpass filters useful with noise at these freqs?

Sorry I don't have any freqs to pass along this time but I will later.

Listen while we can!

I too am in this situation. The noise your refer to is most likely oscillator noise from most of the modern
day electronics such as computors with switching power supplies and cordless phones and too many devices I can not list here many of which throw out wide band noise. In most cases you can not filter out wide band noise. Your best bet is to try an locate the receiving equipment or antennas away from the offending noise source. That is the only way I know to deal with that situation.

I know thats not what you want to hear but as far as I know thats the way of it.
 

motorola_otaku

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Be warned: getting the Syntor X9000 programmed is a major PITA. It is not at all like programming newer Motorola radios where one s/w package configures the entire radio and hardware compatibility is intrinsic; you have to have the right firmware and EEPROM size in the radio itself, the right control head with the right EEPROM size, and depending on how many channels or much of that 29-54 split you want various software packages. Oh, and you also need a very old and slow computer with a real serial port to run the s/w on. Many more-recent Motorola RSS packages are more forgiving of computer speed, but Syntor X9000 RSS absolutely can not be run on anything faster than about a 25 MHz 386.

I would strongly advise doing your homework on Mike B's Syntor site before you go shopping for one: http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/

Now, that is not to say that they aren't excellent radios (they are :) ), but it takes a fair amount of effort to get one rolling. If you're willing to compromise on frequency range you can pick from many more modern radios that are much easier to program. The Kenwood TK-630 is an excellent example.
 

SCPD

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Thanks for all the replies.

The radio would be for receive only (transmit disabled) like the others I have.

I'm just looking for something that does not hear every cable channel and tv within 100 miles.

I will check out the radios mentioned here

A GOOD sensitive scanner is Still better than a Commercial radio. You have MUCH greater control over the Search. If you buy or Build a Commercial Grade VHF low band Antenna the doors will really open. Even a programmable Commercial radio will not Identify PL tones or Fire Pagers like MOST scanners will. Uniden scanners are pretty Hot on V/Low as are Older Radio Shack modles.
 
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