newbie here from Ottawa

[stephgrandam]

looking at the frequency database for Ottawa, most things seem to be in the 800Mhz range.

I was wondering which scanner would be best for my location. my principle usage will be AIR (YOW airport) I live 10km away. other use will be anything interesting in my area hopefully FD, local stuff...

I was looking at pro-83, pro-135, pro-433... any suggestion would be great.

anything used for sale also would work... looking at around $100 - $125 range (just getting started and don't want to buy useless stuff to get stuck with...)

thanks

 

[bpsmicro]

Air is all conventional (and not 800 MHz), so any scanner that covers Air is good for that. But if you want other things, you need to think about your specific list, because most of the popular stuff is all trunking, and in the case of OPP, digital (Ottawa Police is not scan-able, so don't ask). So now you're looking at trunking scanners, which is going to bump up your costs.

In the ScanOnt & EaternOntarioScanning Yahoo groups, 'cam_ont' (who's probably here too) is selling a Uniden BC780XLT for $175. That's an excellent choice if you want a "base" scanner (and don't want digital). I'm not up on the GRE lines, though I think the Pro-433 might be good.

Check out the For Sale groups here too.

 

[roots]

like bpsmicro said, for only air monitoring it's a a really basic scanner but if you need trunk, digital, etc... then it's going to cost more!!!

with a trunk scanner you will be able to listen to anything in the DB that's not digital!

 

[SuperTex]

Trunktracker

I would have to concur on the choice of BC-780xlt... You can still pick up a lot on these oldie but goodie units. I bought one brand new in 2001 when they were released, and just made a deal for another one this week. It's a little quirky on the programming but once you get the hang of it, it's a snap. Pretty well the same with any unit you will buy these days. Use the Wiki here to help you, excellent resource.

Everyone started out as a Noob, welcome to the hobby. It's very addictive.

 

[stephgrandam]

thanks

thanks everyone... will be looking at a trunking scanner i guess. (like I had siad, i did not want to buy stuff and want better right away so thanks for the information...)