PHOENIX_SCANNER
Member
Well, I couldn't resist. Hearing so many good things about the Uniden-made 162 and so many bad things about how the new GRE scanners from RS (106/197) don't have very good VHF / UHF reception, it was time for a showdown in Phoenix.
Both scanners were fitted with stock antennas, and put on level, stable surfaces in a large room in North Phoenix (my master bedroom), about 8 feet apart. Each scanner had a bank / scanlist created for VHF Phoenix fire (153-155 mhz), AZ DPS (460-463 mhz), GMRS channels 1-22 (462-467 mhz), and select VHF air channels for local towers, ground control, and air to air (118-127 mhz am). I am luck in that I have airport towers around me in all directions, and plenty of air traffic of every kind. I also included a list / bank with all sorts of odd analog frequencies of different things. Both scanners could be assigned the exact same tasks, both with stock antennas. I had plenty of cold beer, lots of free time on a Sunday, and could kick back between the two units and let them rip, observing the results as I read books.
The results:
VHF Air 118-127mhz: Slight advantage to the 162, but not by a lot. Both scanners usually pulled in the same signals no matter how distant, but the 162 had cleaner sound, while the 106 had more static / noise coming out of the speaker on the same transmission, and the 162 clearly sounded better monitoring aircraft, by a fair margin. Here and there the 162 pulled in something the 106 didn't catch. I love airband monitoring, so I spent some time on this phase of testing.
VHF PS - Slight advantage 106. This runs counter to what we have heard until now. We always hear the the 106 is "deaf" on vhf, and so on. The 106 was able to pull in a few more distant signals, though it was a close contest. This was the most in-depth segment of my testing, because monitoring Phoenix Fire VHF is a big part of my scanning experience. I tried using the 800mhz radio shack duck antenna on the 106, and when I did this, the 162 was the winner by a nose. It did degrade VHF performance a bit, for those curious about that.
UHF - Slight advantage to the 162. It was a touch more sensitive, but this one was really close. The 162 picked up a distant AZ DPS site a bit better, and was a touch quicker to pick up weak GMRS / FRS signals.
800 mhz - Equal. I was unable to tell any difference here, but the testing was limited in fairness.
Pro-162 overall impressions: A great analog scanner, though I didn't play with trunking at all. This scanner is a strange hybrid of sorts, Uniden inside, but made to look and feel like a GRE. No quick keys, and regular old banks.
Pros - Great sound and speaker, great reception, big display lettering, separate squelch control (love it), better battery compartment door latching than GRE scanners, good intermod rejection. CTCSS, DCS decoding was fast and reliable. Keys are lighted better than the GRE keys which are harder to read in a dark room.
Cons - Backlight can only be on temporarily, not permanent, VERY annoying. No S meter. Switching which banks are on is annoying, taking too many button presses, but it can be lived with. Software choices are VERY limited. The only really valid choice appears to be expensive Butel software, that does NOT give you a fully functional trial (you can only do two banks). First, I have never been a big fan of their software, but more importantly, I REFUSE to try or buy any programming software that does not offer a fully functional trial. If Microsoft can do it for windows, and Starsoft and PSREdit both offer fully functional trials, then I expect it. And it this was a factor in why my choice for programming my PSR type scanners was always between the two (WIN500 / PSREdit). There is a lot of nuance to programming software like this, and you need to be able to really try it out in full form. It took the full trial periods, and many uses programming ALL the banks and ALL the channels to see which one worked best. Butel must have figured that you didn't have any choice here, so you would just deal with paying them for something you couldn't really take for a full test drive. So guess what? I programmed it by hand in a few hours. End of problem.
Summary: A great analog scanner, I give it my stamp of approval, despite a few quirks. This one should satisfy those airband fans who like the old way of doing things as well. Standard Price: $219, purchased on sale for $149 at RS 1/10/09. For the price, I don't think you can do much better in an analog scanner.
Side note: This testing once again tells me that those who say the 106 / 197 are deaf in VHF may need to look at their setup / settings. I live in a very high RF enviornment (5th largest city in America), and find that these scanners have pretty good VHF performance, despite the hot front end, and they do quite well on UHF, as well as being outstanding on their bread and butter, 800 mhz. Keep in mind I have done extensive testing with multiple antennas, indoor and outdoor, on the 500, 600, 197, and 106. The only think I can figure with those having bad results is that they have an interfering tower nearby causing their issues, and need to look into notch filters, or that other settings need looked at. The advanced settings for these scanners is a world all its own.
Both scanners were fitted with stock antennas, and put on level, stable surfaces in a large room in North Phoenix (my master bedroom), about 8 feet apart. Each scanner had a bank / scanlist created for VHF Phoenix fire (153-155 mhz), AZ DPS (460-463 mhz), GMRS channels 1-22 (462-467 mhz), and select VHF air channels for local towers, ground control, and air to air (118-127 mhz am). I am luck in that I have airport towers around me in all directions, and plenty of air traffic of every kind. I also included a list / bank with all sorts of odd analog frequencies of different things. Both scanners could be assigned the exact same tasks, both with stock antennas. I had plenty of cold beer, lots of free time on a Sunday, and could kick back between the two units and let them rip, observing the results as I read books.
The results:
VHF Air 118-127mhz: Slight advantage to the 162, but not by a lot. Both scanners usually pulled in the same signals no matter how distant, but the 162 had cleaner sound, while the 106 had more static / noise coming out of the speaker on the same transmission, and the 162 clearly sounded better monitoring aircraft, by a fair margin. Here and there the 162 pulled in something the 106 didn't catch. I love airband monitoring, so I spent some time on this phase of testing.
VHF PS - Slight advantage 106. This runs counter to what we have heard until now. We always hear the the 106 is "deaf" on vhf, and so on. The 106 was able to pull in a few more distant signals, though it was a close contest. This was the most in-depth segment of my testing, because monitoring Phoenix Fire VHF is a big part of my scanning experience. I tried using the 800mhz radio shack duck antenna on the 106, and when I did this, the 162 was the winner by a nose. It did degrade VHF performance a bit, for those curious about that.
UHF - Slight advantage to the 162. It was a touch more sensitive, but this one was really close. The 162 picked up a distant AZ DPS site a bit better, and was a touch quicker to pick up weak GMRS / FRS signals.
800 mhz - Equal. I was unable to tell any difference here, but the testing was limited in fairness.
Pro-162 overall impressions: A great analog scanner, though I didn't play with trunking at all. This scanner is a strange hybrid of sorts, Uniden inside, but made to look and feel like a GRE. No quick keys, and regular old banks.
Pros - Great sound and speaker, great reception, big display lettering, separate squelch control (love it), better battery compartment door latching than GRE scanners, good intermod rejection. CTCSS, DCS decoding was fast and reliable. Keys are lighted better than the GRE keys which are harder to read in a dark room.
Cons - Backlight can only be on temporarily, not permanent, VERY annoying. No S meter. Switching which banks are on is annoying, taking too many button presses, but it can be lived with. Software choices are VERY limited. The only really valid choice appears to be expensive Butel software, that does NOT give you a fully functional trial (you can only do two banks). First, I have never been a big fan of their software, but more importantly, I REFUSE to try or buy any programming software that does not offer a fully functional trial. If Microsoft can do it for windows, and Starsoft and PSREdit both offer fully functional trials, then I expect it. And it this was a factor in why my choice for programming my PSR type scanners was always between the two (WIN500 / PSREdit). There is a lot of nuance to programming software like this, and you need to be able to really try it out in full form. It took the full trial periods, and many uses programming ALL the banks and ALL the channels to see which one worked best. Butel must have figured that you didn't have any choice here, so you would just deal with paying them for something you couldn't really take for a full test drive. So guess what? I programmed it by hand in a few hours. End of problem.
Summary: A great analog scanner, I give it my stamp of approval, despite a few quirks. This one should satisfy those airband fans who like the old way of doing things as well. Standard Price: $219, purchased on sale for $149 at RS 1/10/09. For the price, I don't think you can do much better in an analog scanner.
Side note: This testing once again tells me that those who say the 106 / 197 are deaf in VHF may need to look at their setup / settings. I live in a very high RF enviornment (5th largest city in America), and find that these scanners have pretty good VHF performance, despite the hot front end, and they do quite well on UHF, as well as being outstanding on their bread and butter, 800 mhz. Keep in mind I have done extensive testing with multiple antennas, indoor and outdoor, on the 500, 600, 197, and 106. The only think I can figure with those having bad results is that they have an interfering tower nearby causing their issues, and need to look into notch filters, or that other settings need looked at. The advanced settings for these scanners is a world all its own.
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