In search of a scanner for Elderly man

[billkater]

I am in need of suggestions for a scanner for a elderly man. He has had a Radio Shack hand held forever. But the City and County police in our area have switched over to Digital. And all his is is analog.

The City and County have switched to P25 band and he also wants Illinois state Police which I think is StarCom21. He needs no special features, The simpler it is the better. I will program it with my computer and Win500.

And there is a rumor that they plan to scramble or encrypt the County and City in the future.

Any suggestions? He has limited funds also.

He lives in Illinois state, Richland Co.


Thanks for any help you can give

 

[VASCAR2]

I have had a similar situation with a couple of older people for which I keep their scanners working. One solution I found was to keep the analog scanner to listen to any agency that is not going digital or trunked. With one person I programmed a 396XT and lock the key pad. The user can turn the scanner up and down but can't change any of the programming.

To my knowledge the table top scanners do not have the ability to lock the key pad. When I program the trunking for SC 21 I get specific info on what the person wants to hear. I then program those talk groups into the scanner and set the scanner on ID scan. This limits the scanner to only those talk groups programmed into the scanner and not locked out.

On my Bearcat 996XT I can push the lockout button if someone is talking (temorary lockout). This locks the channel or talk group out but when you turn the scanner off and back on the channel is then unlocked and you hear the traffic as usual.

I live close to Richland County and would be glad to help. I have programmed the Radio Shack handheld and table top scanners plus the Uniden Bearcat trunking digital scanners. I have always programmed the Radio Shack & Uniden scanners manually and alpha tag each channel or talk group. I just recently programmed a Radio Shack digital scanner for a friend to listen to Richland County. I also have the new P25 Digital info for Richland co.

Send me an IM if you need some help.

 

[doctordialtone]

Generous Offer

Send me an IM if you need some help.

Nice of you to help out. Being new to the site, he won't be able to "IM" you yet until "Member"appears under his name. I'm sure you can catch him some other way.

396XT sounds like an ideal solution.

 

[VASCAR2]

I tried to send him an IM with my contact info. If he can't receive IM's yet I'll see if he responds to this thread and work something out.

Thanks I didn't realize the situation with new members.

 

[awattam]

Forgive me...

But if the OP wants to use Win500 to program the new scanner then he is limiting himself to the GRE PSR-500, PSR-600, Radio Shack PRO-106 or PRO-197 as the software wont program Unidens. Those 4 scanners it will program are pretty good and easy to program.

 

[billkater]

We broke down and bought the radio shack base for him. We like to support the local business. Now I just need to know which channels are the working ones for richland co. I used win500 and loaded from the data base but get a lot of static on most of them.

U can email me if you want.

Billkater@yahoo dot com

Thanks for the help

 

[gewecke]

The pro-197 works great on starcom21 here in illinois, and here's the data on your county ,

Richland County, Illinois (IL) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

73,
n9zas

 

[doctordialtone]

New "Member"

We broke down and bought the radio shack base for him.

Oh look! You're a member. Looks like you passed the stringent background checks.

Good luck. There are plenty of people who might be willing to help you get it going and even share files for your area.

 

[billkater]

Could you suggest a antenna to use with this scanner in my area? Richland County is relatively flat. The antenna will be mounted about 25'-30' high with 75' of cable running in. 25-35 mile radius would probably do.

Stations i monitor are from 31.860000 - 465.575 in conventional channels. And StarCom21 for State Police.

Have been told Radio Shack Disclone aint that good. Any suggestions.

Also suggestions on lead cable.

 

[VASCAR2]

Could you suggest a antenna to use with this scanner in my area? Richland County is relatively flat. The antenna will be mounted about 25'-30' high with 75' of cable running in. 25-35 mile radius would probably do.

Stations i monitor are from 31.860000 - 465.575 in conventional channels. And StarCom21 for State Police.

Have been told Radio Shack Disclone aint that good. Any suggestions.

Also suggestions on lead cable.

I sent you a message reference the frequencies but they are now updated on the database here on RR. Currently I'm using an old magnetic mount cell phone antenna stuck next to a window. I had to take my tower down but this works good on High Band and 800.

Reference using an outside antenna you have to use low loss cable. My old VHF HI/LOW antenna with RG 58 coax was terrible in 800 because of the signal loss through the cable. My Bearcat 996XT works really good on the pull up antenna but location is everything with the supplied antenna.

I've read RG 6 cable can be used but I haven't tested any antennas with this cable. this cable is used with new satellite & TV antennas.

 

[gewecke]

I sent you a message reference the frequencies but they are now updated on the database here on RR. Currently I'm using an old magnetic mount cell phone antenna stuck next to a window. I had to take my tower down but this works good on High Band and 800.

Reference using an outside antenna you have to use low loss cable. My old VHF HI/LOW antenna with RG 58 coax was terrible in 800 because of the signal loss through the cable. My Bearcat 996XT works really good on the pull up antenna but location is everything with the supplied antenna.

I've read RG 6 cable can be used but I haven't tested any antennas with this cable. this cable is used with new satellite & TV antennas.

Check the various loss figures on RG6 quad shield cable. I use this on one of my receive only antennas.

73,
n9zas