Thank you for the response. That is is along the lines of what I have read, that there is no real beginner/intro level anymore. That I would probably need to spend ~$500 to get good enough hardware to listen to anything interesting.
I think he would want to listen to Police/Fire/EMS for Montgomery and Harris county though, if you can comment on specifically that. Thanks!
As you're talking about the Harris & Montgomery County area, I would strongly suggest a P25 Phase II scanner. Most of the public safety agencies in your area (Fire, Police, and EMS) are either on this system,
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) (P25) Trunking System, Various, Texas - Scanner Frequencies, or will be migrating to it.
The City of Houston is mostly using Phase II P25, and a number of their talkgroups are encrypted. The smaller cities are a mix, some using Phase II, others still Phase I P25. Look at the
Mode column on that system I linked.
A
D in the mode column indicates current usage is "Digital", in other words, P25 Phase I.
If the letter in the Mode column is a
T, that talkgroup is used for P25 Phase II transmissions.
An
E in the mode filed indicates that transmissions are usually encrypted, and thus cannot be monitored at all.
From what I have seen noted here in the forums, as well as mentioned on the
HoustonScan Yahoo group, all users on the TxWARN P25 system will be required to shift over to Phase II on the next few years, so while you may be able to get by for a time with a P25 Phase I only scanner, sooner or later Phase II will be the only valid choice.
There are a number of choices available. Uniden has the hand-held (portable) BCD325P2, and it's base/mobile stablemate the BCD996P2, both of which will handle both Phase I & Phase II. They come with a cable for programming, and FreeSCAN software can handle the programming.
Uniden also has other P25 Phase II capable scanners:
The Home Patrol-2 is one of the easiest to program scanners, and has a large easy to read display. This can be programmed using your zipcode, and has the database for the entire country on a memory card.
Two other scanners, the BCD436HP (hand-held) and BCD536HP (base/mobile) also have the database on a memory card, and can be programmed using your zip code. They also have more extensive features than the HP-2, but the display is smaller, and not near as view able. The HP-2, as well as the 436HP & 536HP, come with a programming cable, and Uniden provides their Sentinel software for these scanners (one version for the HP-2 and it's P25 Phase I predecessor, the HP-1, and a different version for the 436 & 536 units).
Whistler makes several models of Phase II capable scanners that also feature the database on a memory card, and programmable using your location. The WS1080 & WS1088 are handheld scanners, with the WS1095 and WS1098 being base/mobile versions. The WS1088 and WS1098 have a numeric keypad, the 1080 & 1095 do not. The TRX-1 (hand-held) and TRX-2 (base/mobile) are the two newest Whistler scanners. These also have the database loaded, and can be programmed using your location.
Whistler also makes the Pro-668 for Radio Shack, and you might be able to find a good deal on this model. However, one caution: Radio Shack has mostly abandoned the scanner market, and no longer supports them with firmware updates or repair services.