Complete NOOB

[jimnmaine]

Hey fellow Mainers, I am trying to read and soak in as much as my lil brain can from the load of info here. I have a couple questions for knowledgeable Mainers. I am in the Lisbon area and would love to listen to surrounding areas (from Portland to Augusta for the most part) PD, Fire, EMS. I have yet to purchase a scanner since I am so new that I have no idea what to look for. As I said above I am trying to learn as much as I can from this site but may be reading well ahead of what I should be at this point and becoming overwhelmed with all this info. I believe I saw on here that some of the systems I would like to listen to are digital while some others are trunked. If that is the case, are all digital scanners capable of picking up trunked and analog systems? Im going thru the FAQ section and am hopeful to get into this soon. Thanks in advance, Jim

 

[MarkWestin]

Portland is trunked (analog but could be digital in the near future). Augusta Police and Fire are digital. Lewiston and Auburn Police are digital. Androscoggin County Sherriff is digital. Biddeford Police are digital. The State Police are going to a new statewide system which will be digital. It is supposed to be operational by the end of 2012. All the digital scanners that I know of also work with analog trunked systems. As far as the scanners go, there are three (two really) brands available. Uniden, GRE, and Radio Shack(which is made by GRE). I don't know much about the newer GRE and Radio Shack units, but the older Radio Shack units that I have (made by Uniden or GRE for Radio Shack) work fine. All my newer scanners are Uniden, but that doesn't mean that the others are bad products. The Uniden Radios had the features that I wanted when I was looking for them.

Mark

 

[jimnmaine]

Lot of good info there Mark, thank you. So it looks like digital is def the way to go. Now for more reading on the site here. Thinking a base / mobile unit would be way I would like to go maybe even with exterior mount antenna on the house. Just SO MUCH info to learn... lol.

 

[94caprice9c1]

Mark is absolutely correct. Going digital is not cheap, but you are probably going to be happier going that way. With respect to the State Police, it is still unclear how much you will be able to monitor, you may want to take a look at the thread on that. Welcome to Radio Reference and enjoy!

 

[94caprice9c1]

This is the thread I mentioned above: http://forums.radioreference.com/maine-radio-discussion-forum/180202-mscommnet-project-25-trs.html

 

[Viperguynick]

Jim,

I grew up in Lisbon Falls, and now live in Auburn. I run a Radio Shack Pro-106 Digital Handheld. I absolutely love it, Lew/Aub and Andy Co Scherrif come in so clear on the digital system. I still visit my parents in Lisbon Falls quite often and can still clearly receive the above mentioned frequencies. There is plenty of activity to monitor in the area. You will not be able to listen in to Portland or Augusta without a good external antenna. Since Portland re-banded, I have to be very close to the Portland area to be able to hear it on my factory antenna on the mobile unit.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

Nick

 

[Adenosine]

This is great, we can always use more people from Maine on here. Welcome to the forums. Good luck down there getting setup, maybe one day you will look at setting up a feed. We desperately need an Augusta feed. Although from Lisbon, that would be a reach.