Looking for a Good Scanner

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squirrel911

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Ok so i am looking to buy a good scanner for my office. I was thinking about buying 3 different ones so i can use one for each agency ( One for Local Fire, One for Local Police, and One for Local Ambulance). That way they dont over talk on the scanner. I also thought about broadcasting them over the site. Can i do all of this? Is it possible?
 

eaf1956

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Scanner

Ok so i am looking to buy a good scanner for my office. I was thinking about buying 3 different ones so i can use one for each agency ( One for Local Fire, One for Local Police, and One for Local Ambulance). That way they dont over talk on the scanner. I also thought about broadcasting them over the site. Can i do all of this? Is it possible?

A scanner by definition SCANS mutiple frequencies. It seems a waste to buy a SCANNER for each individual frequency. Unless each agency has mutiple FREQ or Talkgroups and you don't want to miss any action. But hey, if you got the money go for it. The problems I see is 3 radios = 3 power leads plus 3 antenna leads. But then again some of the SHACKS I see on here have several scanners. But you need to give some IDEA of where and what you want to hear. Be it VHF simplex traffic or Trunked digital systems.
 

dracer777

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I don't want to underestimate your knowledge, so please don't feel that I am if you do, in fact, know you need/want 3 scanners, however, 3 scanners in colorado would give me reliable scanning in about a 30-60 mile radius. Typically, you don't need even need to consistently monitor EMS since FD gets dispatched to almost everything that medical goes to. So you kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by monitoring fire.

I have had one scanner for 2 years and have been able to monitor my county(Weld) and reliably hear almost everything.

As the eaf1965 said, if you have the money, buy as many radios as you can :p

Let us know where you are and what "local" is to you, as that could vary your price estimate on 3 scanners from 150-1,500 dollars(conventional vs P25 digital).
 

guitarbrian30

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Bismarck ,ND
3 is a crowd? doubtful!

I have 5 scanners now! I only listen to two of them and they are both set up the same identical way. One is the GRE -psr-600 and the RS pro-106.

I use my Uniden bc895xlt for just analog freqs. mil air and gen aviation. I only listen to this one of air guard weekends! :)

The pro-96 is just taking up space and so is the pro-93 or 95. which ever it is.

Depending on the scanner setup you could have one doing all the work, Using scan lists, pause and priority functions. Also depends on how busy your area is. I live in a rural area with a large city next door. So I could be flooded by just listening to the city talk-groups.

Good luck on picking out the scanners. The new unidens do sound so nice. But, I think I am a GRE man now. Boy they sure are fancy with all there LED's and other sounds you can make them make! :) I have a sneaking suspicion that GRE will be coming out with a new Digital line soon. I can feel it! :)

To each there own and I can respect that. Just do not leave me in a room with one of those unidens :)

Are you thinking about portables or desktops? Take a look on the rest of the Forums in the show off section. I have seen some really, really nice setup's. There you can get a feeling of what your office space to look like.

Happy scanning! and good luck with what-ever your choice is.
 

N8IAA

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Ok so i am looking to buy a good scanner for my office. I was thinking about buying 3 different ones so i can use one for each agency ( One for Local Fire, One for Local Police, and One for Local Ambulance). That way they dont over talk on the scanner. I also thought about broadcasting them over the site. Can i do all of this? Is it possible?

My first question, being that Tullahoma and McMinnville are located quite a few miles apart and in different counties, which is the primary one you wish to monitor? Coffee county has a limited amount of frequencies for SO and FD. Two conventional scanners would work to run separate feeds. Haven't checked for Warren county.
HTH,
Larry
Oh, in the evening, and on the weekends, I run a minimum of 3 scanners in the shack while home:D
 

squirrel911

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Well i will be wanting to listen to just Tullahoma agencies. And from what i know FD doesnt run all medical. But hey i could be wrong. I want base stations. I have an office in my house so i thought about trying to do a fancy setup like i see on here. I also thought about once i get my HAM license putting a base stations in there also. I understand I will need multiple anntana. Is there a distance i need to have between them?
 

eaf1956

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Multicouper

Well i will be wanting to listen to just Tullahoma agencies. And from what i know FD doesnt run all medical. But hey i could be wrong. I want base stations. I have an office in my house so i thought about trying to do a fancy setup like i see on here. I also thought about once i get my HAM license putting a base stations in there also. I understand I will need multiple anntana. Is there a distance i need to have between them?

Oh a good multicoupler and you can get by with one antenna. Good luck on the Ham Exam! Maybe we'll hear you on the bands one day. Good luck with the Office setup. I wonder what that one guy meant by don't leave me in a room with them UNIDENS? (Hides my Uniden BCD 996T and BCD 996XT) Seriously you need to find out if any of the systems you want to hear are digital. I have heard that the GRE line does APCO 25 better than UNIDEN but I don't own one so I couldn't say.

KC9LVX Evansville, In and Henderson, KY feeds
 

N8IAA

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Right now, RS is having a sale on the Pro-163. You may want to pick up a couple. Unless the EMS is busier than the FD, you may want to have a separate scanner for that. It never hurts to have more than one scanner:D It would be smart to run them on individual antennas. Distance shouldn't be a problem when just receiving. I've had mine as close as 18" without a problem. Transmitting is a different thing. Make sure that you get the USB programming cable and Win97 software to program the 163's.

Larry
 

squirrel911

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Estill Springs/Decherd/Winchester/Franklin County
Oh a good multicoupler and you can get by with one antenna. Good luck on the Ham Exam! Maybe we'll hear you on the bands one day. Good luck with the Office setup. I wonder what that one guy meant by don't leave me in a room with them UNIDENS? (Hides my Uniden BCD 996T and BCD 996XT) Seriously you need to find out if any of the systems you want to hear are digital. I have heard that the GRE line does APCO 25 better than UNIDEN but I don't own one so I couldn't say.

KC9LVX Evansville, In and Henderson, KY feeds

Will the multicoupler work for UHF and VHF? And how does one come to find out about if the are digital or not? I was wondering the same about the UNIDENS guy. I thought about maybe doing like the remote heads scanners and placing the heads on the desk and the rest of the scanners in like cabinate or something. I want it to be nice looking. I have been studying for the exam. I am just waiting to take it till i know i am ready. I already bought two hand held HAM radios. A good friend had them and i told him i wanted to get my license so he sold them to me cheap (or atleast i thought so). They are just sitting in my desk right now.
 

N8IAA

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Will the multicoupler work for UHF and VHF? And how does one come to find out about if the are digital or not? I was wondering the same about the UNIDENS guy. I thought about maybe doing like the remote heads scanners and placing the heads on the desk and the rest of the scanners in like cabinate or something. I want it to be nice looking. I have been studying for the exam. I am just waiting to take it till i know i am ready. I already bought two hand held HAM radios. A good friend had them and i told him i wanted to get my license so he sold them to me cheap (or atleast i thought so). They are just sitting in my desk right now.

A multicoupler will work fine to hook up the two radios to one antenna. You could pick up a diplexer(ham multicoupler) that will split the VHF and UHF signals.
Larry
 

N8IAA

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can i only use to scanners on a multicoupler?? I would really like to have three.

It depends on what multicoupler you get, and how many ports on the coupler. You can get them with two, three, etc, ports. So, you can have three scanners hooked up to one antenna:) I, myself, prefer separate antennas for separate radios. Just a personal thing.
Larry
 
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