Newbie here....hello.

[Tommie1]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the site and looking to buy a new handheld scanner for the Longview/East Texas area. I have an old RadioShack analog scanner in the house, but Longview has gone digital. I know nothing at all about the digital scanners, other than what I have researched the last few weeks trying to decide what to purchase. I would like something I can take with me on trips to monitor emergency services while on the road and DPS.

Any help would be appreciated on which scanner works best and how to go about programming in all the frequencies. If anyone is in the Longview area, I would love to visit and try to learn a little something from someone that's been there and done that!

 

[Northzulchrancher]

For ease of use I would highly recommend the Home Patrol 1. I got mine last week and am extremely happy with it. It will do all of your digital and trunking stuff very easily for you. From the time I got mine out of the box until I was monitoring my county and the five surrounding counties in about two hours. It wouldn't have taken so long except I only have dial up internet and it takes a while to down load the database at 24k.
This system comes with an ac adaptor, car plug in adapter and internal batteries that are rechargeable and last around 8 hours. You can also attach a gps to it and as you drive around it will automatically switch to the frequencies that are active in the area that you are in with no programming required. The database that it uses is updated weekly and is free to down load. It has to be one of the simplest systems available on the market today.

Just my 2 cents.

Richard

 

[Tommie1]

Thanks Richard. That scanner is definitely
on my short list.

Can these be programed with an Apple computer?

 

[electronicnut]

HI and welcome, I am new here too. No it will not run on Mac. Here is their webpage.
HomePatrol

 

[Northzulchrancher]

Thanks Richard. That scanner is definitely
on my short list.

Can these be programed with an Apple computer?

As for using an Apple to program it with, I really don't know. You may want to ask this question in the Uniden forum. There is a guy on that forum with the handle of UPMan that really knows his stuff on the HP1. I think he works for Uniden.

I bought this system for Scan Master along with the BNC to SMA adapter so I can use my outside antenna and I pick up over 600 channels here in Madison county. Way Way more than I did with my old Radio Shack Pro51. I also bought the ARC Patrol Software and wish I didn't. The Sentinal software that comes with it does everything I want to do, and to me it is easier to use. I also did not buy the extreme upgrade as I just can't see that I will need those additional functions that true radio enthusiast might want. All I wanted was a simple and reliable system and that is exactly what I got.

One of the other things I like about this radio, is when I go to bed at night I set it to weather mode and it will wake me up if there is a major weather issue in my area just like it did last night when we got our first major rain in months. The only down side that I have seen so far is that you can't monitor weather stations and other frequencies at the same time.

I am nowhere near a radio guru and that is the reason I bought the HP1 is ease of programming. You don't have to manually create trunk groups or anything, it does it all for you.

Richard

 

[KC5EIB]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the site and looking to buy a new handheld scanner for the Longview/East Texas area. I have an old RadioShack analog scanner in the house, but Longview has gone digital. I know nothing at all about the digital scanners, other than what I have researched the last few weeks trying to decide what to purchase. I would like something I can take with me on trips to monitor emergency services while on the road and DPS.

Any help would be appreciated on which scanner works best and how to go about programming in all the frequencies. If anyone is in the Longview area, I would love to visit and try to learn a little something from someone that's been there and done that!

The difference between digital and analog is only how the signal is transmitted and the radio decodes the signal. When the scanner user programs in the frequencies to a digital capable scanner, it will work with some specific exceptions.

The Home Patrol 1, The Radio Shack Pro-18 (Brand new), or Pro-106, or the GRE equivalent radios can be programed on the fly, with out the need for a computer, with the on board RR database.

 

[Tommie1]

Thanks for all the help guys. I will be placing an order in the next week or two. Hopefully I will make the right decision!

 

[texasemt13]

The only down side that I have seen so far is that you can't monitor weather stations and other frequencies at the same time.

Getting the "Extreme Upgrade" would allow you to do just that (as far as I can tell by reading the Uniden page), by manually entering in the weather frequency and adding it to your sanning list.

Tommie, if you're unsure, the HP-1 would be a safe bet. With the upgrade, it can't be beat, that is unless you want a true handheld unit.

 

[loumaag]

RE: the Apple computer question.

If you are running a Intel based Mac (any of them) with at least Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) you can either run Windows in a virtual machine using one of the virtual machine software products (like Parallels) or you can run Windows on the machine directly using Boot-Strap (comes with the OS). Once in Windows you can run any of the programming software products without any problems. The only caveat to that is that the USB to serial adapter required by so many radios (they are mostly serial based) needs to have a Windows driver that will work, not a Mac driver. If you can find one that has both, so much the better, but when in Windows, your Mac would run like a Windoze machine. You know, slow, buggy, etc.

My machine (MacBookPro) is the only machine I am using currently and this works well for me. I first had Snow Leopard but have upgraded to Lion (OS X 10.7) and run Windows 7 Professional under Parallels for all of my "radio" needs. Of course you have to have the Windows OS software available to load.

The HP-1 comes with its own interface cable and the driver for the radio comes with the software for the radio (actually on the radio). So if you go that route you needn't worry about the computer/radio interface. I own one and I can attest that it has no problems with the configuration I use.

 

[lep]

HP-1 has only one receiver

No, you can not monitor weather and scan at the same time, you can do one, or the other but not both.