Starion
Member
I currently at the Springfield interchange, near west Alexandria, VA (where I-495, I-95, I-395). The scanner I am currently using is a Radio Shack Pro-651. It has poor reception on VHF. Reception is decent on 800 MHz but I have a hard time hearing Washington, D.C., Prince William County and Prince George's county trunked radio systems. I can hear Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax county TRS just fine. I have poor reception with Virginia Stars even with a 21 inch antenna near a window. The handheld scanner does great outdoors away from buildings. Scanner receives analog signals just fine. I do hear some static though. I hear static when I listen to the buses on Fairfax County (P16) Trunking System, Fairfax County, Virginia - Scanner Frequencies I hear static on when I listen to the buses on WMATA system too. Airband and railroad reception is decent. NOAA weather radio sounds a bit scratchy. It would be a bit difficult for me to mount an outside antenna.
Ok, I guess I need to save some $$ to buy a used base/mobile scanner on Ebay. I guess the poor handheld can't cope with the strong radio signals overloading the receiver. Thanks for reading.
Ok, I guess I need to save some $$ to buy a used base/mobile scanner on Ebay. I guess the poor handheld can't cope with the strong radio signals overloading the receiver. Thanks for reading.