Honest assesment of BC780

[Napalm]

on MilAir, please!

the main thing I listen to is milair from 230 to 400. I'm in need of a new scanner, and I need some no BS reports on the milair performance.

Specifically sensitivity in that band, image rejection (I get a lot of pager and VHF air coming through onto UHF air on my 330T), and searching speed. 90% of my time is spent seaching 230-400, so it needs to be able to do this fast.

Any comments?

 

[mancow]

The 780 is an outstanding Milair receiver. It seems to be very sensitive across that entire range. I get paging interference on other bands but I haven't had any problems in the Milair ranges.

 

[morfis]

No problems with pagers in the milair part of the spectrum but horrible problems from images of several neighbours cordless phones.
Programming is a pain in the backside due to Uniden selling a European model that uses American band-plan/channel steps.
Sensitivity is OK but no where near as good as a Signal R-535, Yupiteru VT225 or Yupiteru MVT7100 on milair.

All radios have plus/minus points. For me the 780 has no plus points on milair that would make me get another to use for that.

 

[Air490]

The problem I found with the VT-225 and MVT-7100 was intermod. They were overly sensitive, which made them less usable.

I have found the GRE made scanners tend to be good on milair. They don't scan as fast as the Unidens, but they are a bit more sensitive.

 

[MacombMonitor]

I've used the BC780-XLT in the past for MilAir. I've probably owned three, or four though the years. No complaints. However, it's starting to show it's age, and they still command a pretty high price for what they are.

If an alpha display is not a concern, consider the BC898T. It's an excellent MilAir scanner, and has a nice large manual tuning knob. If you use a computer with it, you can still have your alpha display too! I use one currently, and I've been impressed with the results I have monitoring Selfridge Air Base in Michigan.

 

[CORN]

I have two of them. Works great on all Milair bands (VHF and UHF) and that's no BS!!

 

[Napalm]

Alpha would be nice for when I'm not in the shack, but only having 500 memories does scare me a little... My 330 I can just fill up with frequencies and not even think about using up all the memories (yet. Only used about 26% so far).

I have a Pro-2045 here which is really nice for mil-air, except for searching when it does 12.5kHz steps, and I can't see a way of forcing 25kHz.