Professional handheld radios vs scanners for monitoring

[mitbr]

My Unication pager is not a two way radio but out performs my scanners by along shot. The one thing that sold me was its size, fits easily into my shirt pocket. I have a large p25 phase 2 simulcast system that is new and in the next county over. I can listen to it inside my home on its little stubby antenna and the system is over 30 miles away. Occasionally I like to listen to distant p25 systems when the band is open on my 800 mhz yagi antenna the Unication does well with this.
Tim

 

[redbeard]

Ooooooo..... red.

And a Tetra antenna too...

 

[mikegilbert]

And a Tetra antenna too...

It's an 800mhz SMA off my old R750 iDEN handset.

 

[GlobalNorth]

How many unconcerned citizens know the difference between a Kenwood TH-K20A and a Motorola XTS5000? Not many and even fewer care. Want to wear one to the local hamfest? Knock yourself out, but in these days of outright unprovoked violence against cops, anyone who wants to go about in public like Wilbur Whacker on patrol might be an outright fool to do so.

Whatever your tool of choice, be discreet.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

How many unconcerned citizens know the difference between a Kenwood TH-K20A and a Motorola XTS5000? Not many and even fewer care. Want to wear one to the local hamfest? Knock yourself out, but in these days of outright unprovoked violence against cops, anyone who wants to go about in public like Wilbur Whacker on patrol might be an outright fool to do so.

Whatever your tool of choice, be discreet.

I totally agree with you about being discreet with what ever type of radio you chose to use.

 

[Falcon9h]

I use a scanner out of financial necessity, being rural without intermod troubles and practicality. It's local LE/Fire/EMS, railroad and not much else. I'd still love to have a commercial radio now because, face it, scanners are built like crap and chintzy, don't have the audio, and they don't have the heft of a Motorola. I'd *never* go out wackering with it.
I've photographed trains since 1970 and for rail communications it's *all* fringe area. So I made it a mission to find the most sensitive receiver I could-and did- the Motorola MX-300's with the preamp option. I had an MX-360 8 freq which was a big deal then. Huge-a real baseball bat. 🙄 Nothing could come close to that receiver. In the dense North Jersey area not one peep of intermod. That MX got me a lot of pictures!
You should've seen the looks on other foamer's faces when I got out of the car at a spot and the MX was hearing stuff five by and their cheap scanners weren't even breaking squelch. 😁 So, for my purposes, it was a tool-but a damned fun one. Wish I still had it.

 

[redbeard]

It's an 800mhz SMA off my old R750 iDEN handset.

Ah I was thinking it was this one:

PMAE4097 - Motorola Solutions EMEA

Antenna, whip 120mm (350-470MHZ)

www.motorolasolutions.com

 

[Scan125]

Well I'm probably a little bit of an odd ball here but I have three scanners (well two scanners and Airband Tansceiver)

UBC125XLT, UBC75XLT and a Yaesu FTA250 which will quite happily scan airband.

Now for me Airband, MIL Air and Marine is all I'm interest in (here in UK most other stuff is digital and encrypted anyway) so for Airband the FTA250 is a professional, certified bit of kit. It is rugged, weatherproof, lithium rechargeable batteries, will take good quality headset, etc. etc. etc.

That said the audio on FTA-250 speaker is not quite as good as the BC125AT/UBC125XLT/75XLT, but still quire acceptable and excellent on external.

Yaesu FTA-250L Handheld VHF Transceiver

Prices: FTA-250 @ £199 vs UBC125XLT @ £150 to £175

I think the point I'm making is that for the small price difference and if you are only interested in Airband then the more professional FTA-250 would be your better choice. I'm sure there are other pro makes of airband tranceivers that can compete as well.

If you are into Marine then I think you will find similar pro Marine kit that will be better, more reliable, rugged etc. than a general-purpose scanner.

 

[Falcon9h]

Well I'm probably a little bit of an odd ball here but I have three scanners (well two scanners and Airband Tansceiver)

UBC125XLT, UBC75XLT and a Yaesu FTA250 which will quite happily scan airband.

Now for me Airband, MIL Air and Marine is all I'm interest in (here in UK most other stuff is digital and encrypted anyway) so for Airband the FTA250 is a professional, certified bit of kit. It is rugged, weatherproof, lithium rechargeable batteries, will take good quality headset, etc. etc. etc.

That said the audio on FTA-250 speaker is not quite as good as the BC125AT/UBC125XLT/75XLT, but still quire acceptable and excellent on external.

Yaesu FTA-250L Handheld VHF Transceiver

Prices: FTA-250 @ £199 vs UBC125XLT @ £150 to £175

I think the point I'm making is that for the small price difference and if you are only interested in Airband then the more professional FTA-250 would be your better choice. I'm sure there are other pro makes of airband tranceivers that can compete as well.

If you are into Marine then I think you will find similar pro Marine kit that will be better, more reliable, rugged etc. than a general-purpose scanner.

Does the Yaesu scan multiple channels though? How fast? And how does sensitivity compare to the 125AT? I use that for airband and it works great with an RH77 antenna... I compare receivers with 128.575 'round here, since the ground station is close enough that I can hear both sides of the conversation, and far enough away that it's weak enough to weed out poor receivers.

 

[pb_lonny]

It seems to be about the "coolness" factor in a lot of cases

 

[Scan125]

Does the Yaesu scan multiple channels though? How fast? And how does sensitivity compare to the 125AT? I use that for airband and it works great with an RH77 antenna... I compare receivers with 128.575 'round here, since the ground station is close enough that I can hear both sides of the conversation, and far enough away that it's weak enough to weed out poor receivers.

Sorry, late reply....

Yes the FTA250 does scan multiple channels but it is **slow** compared to normal scanners. Approximately 30 seconds to scan 118.000 to 119.00. Full scan from 118 to 137 takes 10 minutes 25 seconds. (8.33 channel operation)

Whilst this is not a good scan speed compared to other scanners is does mean that it sits on any given channel longer thus less likely to miss any transmissions. As we know airband transmissions are by nature short and sweet and to the point and rarely longer than that.

Airband enthusiasts also tend to be more knowledgeable and specific in their scan range focussing on the frequencies applicable to their location.

As for sensitivity I've not noticed any real difference. Looking at the specifications they are quoted differently between the Yaesu and Uniden models.