cigator said:
I think so. I'm shopping for one and have held both the bc296 and pro 96 in my hand, and have a hard time rationalizing $500. Non-digital with many of the same features can be had for $100 - 200. I could see $300 -350, but $500 is too much. I'll keep waiting for a sale or price reduction.
WAITING? The PRO-96 has already been on sale for $399 in the past. As for justifying the cost, it's not like they have to pay per-unit license fees on their non-digital models like they do with a digital vocoder. That's why they can sell them so 'cheap'. It USED to be common electronics.
You should look at it as it's ONLY $500. That's ONLY 2.5 - 5 times as much, going by your figures. In the commercial world, you can get analog portables for about $400 while some of the trunking digital portables cost $2500 or MORE. That's STARTING about 6 times as much for the same 'channel' capacity. The PRO-96 has at least 5-times the channel capacity as the earlier analog models. If we were to draw the same comparison between commercial and scanners, the digital scanners should cost well over a grand, and the PRO-96 'should' cost over $1500. Fortunately, memory is cheap and not subject to licensing fees. (but then, why does higher channel commercial cost so much more????) :?
Now, what was that you were saying about cost? Digital is expensive. That's life. Governments don't care because most of them think it's their money they are spending anyway, and they have a constant supply from the taxpayers - kinda like a money tree. If you want to keep up, it will cost. But, as shown, analog vs digital scanners don't cost as much as the difference between analog and digital commercial portables. As I said - digital is expensive, but it's all the rage these days.
Have you priced a HDTV these days? I haven't lately, but I bet they still cost a lot more than the analog ones most people have. Yet, we are being given no choice there - we are being pushed into digital by the FCC. And no, that's not a political slap - BOTH parties have been involved in the push to HDTV.
Governments, on the other hand, are being talked into digital by the manufacturers who make a higher profit selling the high end radios. My local county was bragging (yes, BRAGGING) about how the new digital radios are going to be compatible with a system 300 miles away :!: Yea - like they have EVER, or will EVER have a need to talk to them! (and NOT that either areas radios are programmed for the 'other' system)
But HEY! It's
DIGITAL OOOOOOOHHHHHH :!: :roll:
Joe M.
