disappointed in Montgomery county

[submisery]

I bought a uniden bearcat BC246T. I just found out that Montgomery county is using the SAFET program and I think its digital. Will my scanner pick this up? If not is there anything I can do such as add a digital card? Or should I just return it where I purchased it? If so can you give me suggestions on a good model that will cover this SAFET PROGRAM? THANKS

 

[Viper43]

Look at the bearcat section in Wiki and you'll find out what scanners will and won't scan the SafeT system..... and yes, SafeT is digital, and if your really unlucky they will be encrypted and you can't get those....but those are few and far between.

V

 

[cubn]

There's no digital card that you can add to the 246 to make it decode digital. Here's a list of digital scanners: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Category:Digital_Scanners Any scanner on that list can receive SAFE-T because SAFE-T is a 3600 baud system. Some of those scanners aren't made anymore so you may be able to track one down on the used market for a more reasonable price than a brand new $500 one. For new portables, the 396 or Pro96 are very popular, but the new GRE 500 looks very promising. For base operations, the most popular are either the 996 or Pro2096. I like the features on the 396 way better (it's just easier to use and more flexible) but the sound is slightly better on the Pro96. The Pro96 probably wouldn't be that difficult if I'd bother to read the manual instead of just punching buttons and seeing what happens.

 

[kadetklapp]

FYI, Montgomery County Police are NOT on digital at this time. While we use digital capable radios, we are still using the old Motorola Type II analog system. Crawfordsville Police and some Crawfordsville Fire traffic is on digital. We do not talk encrypted, either. You should hear us fine using a regular 800 mhz scanner that decodes motorola trunking.