Newbie From NorCal Reporting In

[EarthDayOilSpill]

Hey all:

Am looking to get into the scanning/radio hobbies (plan on going for my ham license at some point) and was looking to see if you had any pointers re: a good setup/resources.

I'm located in the SF Bay Area (South Bay/Silicon Valley to be specific), CA, and from the RR database it seems that most systems around here are digital trunked - so I'm looking in that area of the scanner world - was looking at the Unidens. I'm trying to decide whether to go with a handheld or mobile.

Any advice would be appreciated!

-KJS

 

[mciupa]

I'm trying to decide whether to go with a handheld or mobile.
-KJS

Hi EarthDayOilSpill, welcome to RadioReference

Where do you see yourself doing your listening?

Will you be at home, because there you could have it connected to an external antenna and have a greater listening range.

or... in your vehicle?

or...

Do you want to take it on the go wherever you happen to be?

You'll just need some extra batteries with you, just in case.:wink:

 

[OsloViking1975]

If you do a lot of driving a mobile is good to have and it looks nice in the car. But if you have a handheld you can take anywhere in out of the car.

 

[cmallen99]

Most systems in silicon valley are NOT trunked

... from the RR database it seems that most systems around here are digital trunked -

Although the higher end digital trunking radios include other features like alpha tagging, I'm doing fine with a cheap UnidenBC95XLT and 72XLT that are analog only.

Calif Highway Patrol is analog. Santa Clara County sherrif is analog, as is county fire. Most city police and fire are analog.

The city of Santa Clara does have a trunking system, but there is so little traffic on it that I can generally follow the conversations by just plugging in the 5 or so 800MHz channels that handle the voice traffic.

Charlie