Newbie here in South Florida - some questions

[niceguymr]

Hi all. Thanks for everyone's input on this site. It's nice to have this great resource of information.

I really know nothing about scanners and I've been reading through much of this forum and am having a difficult time understanding all the technical jargon... but I'm trying very hard.

I live in North Dade and all I want is to have a scanner to listen in on the police departments in my area (Aventura, North Miami Beach, Hallandale, Hollywood). I have no idea what kind of systems they use nor do I have any idea about what equipment I should be using.

I went and bought one of those Radio Shack Pro-94 scanners and I get the feeling it's not the best choice. Unfortunately, I don't want to spend the $400-$500 for a digital, but I will if I absolutely have to. I don't seem to be able to find to many frequencies transmitting anything interesting, so I'm wondering if it's my equipment that's wrong or is it something else. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
David

 

[W4KRR]

Hello David,

North Miami Beach and Aventura share an EDACS trunked system. Hallandale is using the Broward County Motorola trunked system. Hollywood is mainly on site number three of the Broward County trunked system, but Hollywood police and fire are all digital. Everything else in your area is analog. Miami-Dade County is EDACS trunked, the City of Miami is Motorola trunked. Any of the currently available trunk tracking scanners should allow you to listen to everything, with the exception of the city of Hollywood, which as I said, is digital. Information about these systems can be found in the RR Database elsewhere on this site.

If you can do without the digital, the new Radio Shack PRO-97 should fit your needs, and is around $220. The discontinued PRO-95 can be had for around $150, if you can still find one. The Uniden Bearcat BC-246T is a good choice also, and costs around $220. If you must have digital, the PRO-96 handheld is around $500, as is the PRO-2096 base/mobile unit. Uniden has the Bearcat BC-296d for about the same price. Or, you could wait for the upcoming Bearcat BC396, but that will cost slightly more.

 

[niceguymr]

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad to know I don't NEED a digital unit at this time.

Do you think you could point me to a link or somewhere like a "programming a scanner for dummies"? I really have no idea what I'm doing.

 

[W4KRR]

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad to know I don't NEED a digital unit at this time.

Do you think you could point me to a link or somewhere like a "programming a scanner for dummies"? I really have no idea what I'm doing.

If you are talking about the PRO-94 as you mentioned in your original post, you might try posting a request for help in the Radio Shack scanners forum, I myself am not familiar with that model.