Pre-buy FAQ / Model comparison

[enine]

I read through the information in the Wiki FAQ but am having troubles picking a scanner. I've downloaded a dozen different user manuals from the various web sites trying to compare and make sure the scanner will work in my area.
Does anyone have any good comparions of what brands/models have what features?

 

[Jimco]

Hi Enine,

I've done quite a lot of research in that area recently, and it seems to me that there are a few differences that seem to matter to many:

Trunking
If you're in an area that has trunked systems, you'll want to get a trunk tracker. Otherwise you won't be able to listen to the trunked systems. To find out if your area has trunked systems, check the RR database or Google your city for frequencies and systems.

If you will be listening to Motorola trunked systems, make sure that your scanner will support rebanding or you'll have an expensive paper weight on your hands. Check the rebanding thread in the RR forums for more info.

APCO 25
While I don't yet know all the technical details, if any systems that you want to listen to are using APCO 25, you'll need a digital scanner that can listen to digital channels. Be prepared to spend a lot more money! I opted to forgo a digital scanner right now since systems in my area are still analog, but with my luck, they'll announce an upgrade next month and I'll be out of luck.

Military Freqs
Some scanners don't pick up military air frequencies. (The one I purchased, Uniden BC-246T is one of them), and so you cannot listen to military pilots at air shows, etc. If this is important to you, keep that in mind.

Frequency Layout
Radio Shack (and others) scanners store memory in banks. On a 1000-channel scanner, you might have 10 banks of 100 channels each. I actually prefer Uniden's approach which is to store channels in systems of no particular number. The reason that I prefer that is that you can only store one type of system in a single bank of a RS scanner. If you only have 4 frequencies that are Motorola Type II trunking systems, the other 96 channels are wasted. In the Uniden system, scanner memory can be fully utilized.


With all of that said, I will tell you that I've been out of the scanning world for about 20 years and all of this is new to me as well. I've been heavily researching for the past couple of weeks to get up to speed (this site has been a tremendous resource), so I'm sure I've left off a lot that others will add.

Have fun!

Jim

 

[trace1]

I'm going "digital"...

I too have been away from scanning for awhile, I started back in 1986 when I was in the Air Force and then on through 1995 when I was a Police Officer. After that I would listen occasionally but recently started getting back into the hobby and I found that many things have changed since then.

Some of the agencies around where I live are using the 800MHz digital systems and some are still using VHF and UHF frequencies. So I’m going to be getting the Uniden BCD396T in order to follow most anything I desire. It looks like Jimco has made some really great points and good luck with your decision and purchase.

 

[ka3jjz]

Another important question to ask yourself is exactly what kind of operations will I do with the scanner I purchase? Will I need to record by channel, do logging, identify unknown frequencies? If so, the RS/GRE models will not serve your purposes. This kind of logging and record creation is not supported by that manufacturer's firmware (think of the brains of the radio...). The only exception to this is the PRO-2052, which is a Uniden product under a GRE name. This radio can create logs (using external software, such as Scan Control) and help identify unknown freqs because the firmware has the instructions to support it.

73s and good luck with your purchase....Mike