What scanner would be easiest to program and use for Orange County Fire?
Thanks, Tom
Thanks, Tom
Orange County Fire scanner recommendation requested
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FreqOfNature
Member
This is kind of a loaded question because people who are familiar with one brand of radio scanner will find it easier to program than another brand.
Any scanner you purchase is going to be time consuming when it come to manually programming a trunked radio system. Look for a radio scanner that is computer controlable or atleast computer programmable. You can then purchase software or download freeware to program your radio scanner. The Strong Signals web site has an excellent compilation of these radio scanner softwares.
http://www.strongsignals.net/access/content/software.html
Personally I use a BC245XLT and a BC250D to monitor Orange County's trunked radio system. The BC250D is prefered over the BC245XLT because it has the feature of programming alpha tags for each talk group. I could not find any software that I liked much to I ended up writing my own custom software for these radio scanners so I could use standard MS Excel spreadsheet files. It takes about five minutes to program these radio scanner using the software compared to several hour and sore thumbs to manually program them.
Any scanner you purchase is going to be time consuming when it come to manually programming a trunked radio system. Look for a radio scanner that is computer controlable or atleast computer programmable. You can then purchase software or download freeware to program your radio scanner. The Strong Signals web site has an excellent compilation of these radio scanner softwares.
http://www.strongsignals.net/access/content/software.html
Personally I use a BC245XLT and a BC250D to monitor Orange County's trunked radio system. The BC250D is prefered over the BC245XLT because it has the feature of programming alpha tags for each talk group. I could not find any software that I liked much to I ended up writing my own custom software for these radio scanners so I could use standard MS Excel spreadsheet files. It takes about five minutes to program these radio scanner using the software compared to several hour and sore thumbs to manually program them.
you might want to break this down further into easiest to program, afford, monitor, etc.
if you're interested in just the OCFA and/or city fire departments, then any analog Motorola trunking scanner will do. Due to the nature of the system, a non-trunking scanner will make it frustrating to monitor, at best. As for ease, its really a matter of perspective. the 785 has been blasted many times as being hard to program: I had no problem.
Now, if you're interested in monitoring the whole system that fire is on, that's really a whole other animal.
if you're interested in just the OCFA and/or city fire departments, then any analog Motorola trunking scanner will do. Due to the nature of the system, a non-trunking scanner will make it frustrating to monitor, at best. As for ease, its really a matter of perspective. the 785 has been blasted many times as being hard to program: I had no problem.
Now, if you're interested in monitoring the whole system that fire is on, that's really a whole other animal.
Eng74
Member
If you want to go with a Radio Shack scanner I would go with the Pro-95 or if you could find one a Pro-93. You didn't say if you wanted a hand held or base. You can get free software with WIN95 or Win93 to program the scanner. I have both and they have worked good for me when I am in Orange County. I have never been able to get my Pro-92/2067 to work on OCFA system. Which ever brand you go with Pro or a BC get one that has text tags so you can see what talk group is on not just the numbers. It is so much better. I have a Pro-94 and I never know which group is which.
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