?'s Purchasing new Radio; Monitoring Culver City Police Dep.

[US4465]

Hey fellas, I'm a newb trying to figure out the right hand held scanner to get so i can monitor specifically Culver City/ West LA police Dept's I read that..

"The Los Angeles Police Department uses a digital radio system. The cities of Beverly Hills, Burbank, Culver City, Glendale, Montebello, Pasadena, San Fernando, San Marino and the Verdugo Fire Center all use the digital Interagency Communications Interoperability System (ICIS) for police and fire communications and a digital scanner is thus also required for these cities."

I found a good deal on a " Motorola ASTRO Saber III " but am not sure if this will work for what i want to use it for i was wondering if anyone had any input on these? I'm trying to choose between this Astro saber or a $460 Uniden Bearcat BCD396XT Scanner I'd appreciate any help i can get Thanks.

 

[scanner99]

Why not use an xts5000 instead of an astro saber?

 

[US4465]

Why not use an xts5000 instead of an astro saber?

Im so confused i dont know jack about anything i feel lost :/ i have no clue what to look at in a scanner i just need one to be compatible with ccpd i found an astro for $300 i found an xts5000 on ebay for $400 and that uniden for $460 :-? are there like any techs in the LA area that work on radios that can give me some schooling or somethin :-?

 

[Ben96cal]

Do you want a scanner or a full fledged radio? The XTS's and Saber's are commercial radios. If you want a SCANNER look at uniden or GRE

 

[US4465]

Do you want a scanner or a full fledged radio? The XTS's and Saber's are commercial radios. If you want a SCANNER look at uniden or GRE

Ok thanks, yea im looking for more of a scanner than a working radio something i can take to other countys and tune into there channels to listen to communication

I was looking at this site and it gave me these three options of radios

- View and Compare Your Scanner Options

what do you guys suggest?

I also found someone sellin this online who says is already programmed just not for culver city..

"For sale is 1 Motorola AStro Saber Radio, the same kind that LAPD, Santa Monica PD, and other agencies used. This radio is currently set up to LISTEN ONLY to all LAPD and LA Co. Sheriff dispatch channels, and ALMOST every other police agency in LA county.

You will receive a COMPLETE PACKAGE; the radio, antenna, charger, and good condition battery. The radio looks and works GREAT!! You won't be dissapointed!

The radio is flashed for P-25/Digital Operation and Digital ID Display, has THE NEWEST firmware, A GREAT flashcode and tags on the back of the radio! Won't last, so act fast!

Radio specs; R07.71.06, DSP I08.03.05, H04SDH9PW7AN, 1 MEG, 509001-000000-9,

PRICE IS $500 FIRM**WILL NOT GO LOWER / NO TRADES**"

Is that a fair price?

 

[scanner99]

Local help

US4465 send me an email at aro1124@gmail.com and i might be able to help you out locally. I also have a radio that you might be interested in also.

 

[brianearlspilner]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; DROID2 GLOBAL Build/4.5.1_57_D2G-38) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Hey fellas, I'm a newb trying to figure out the right hand held scanner to get so i can monitor specifically Culver City/ West LA police Dept's I read that..

"The Los Angeles Police Department uses a digital radio system. The cities of Beverly Hills, Burbank, Culver City, Glendale, Montebello, Pasadena, San Fernando, San Marino and the Verdugo Fire Center all use the digital Interagency Communications Interoperability System (ICIS) for police and fire communications and a digital scanner is thus also required for these cities."

I found a good deal on a " Motorola ASTRO Saber III " but am not sure if this will work for what i want to use it for i was wondering if anyone had any input on these? I'm trying to choose between this Astro saber or a $460 Uniden Bearcat BCD396XT Scanner I'd appreciate any help i can get Thanks.

If u are new to this a commercial radio will be no fun! Get a GRE or Uniden scanner, and a RadioReference subscription, and your life will be easy. Case closed.

 

[Code20Photog]

I don't know how I ever lived without my BC396XT. There's just about nothing I can't listen to and with the Butel ARC-XT programming software, it's unbelievably easy to program.

 

[W6KRU]

I don't know how I ever lived without my BC396XT. There's just about nothing I can't listen to and with the Butel ARC-XT programming software, it's unbelievably easy to program.

My 396XT is miserable on the RCS system down here in SD. RCS is a simulcast Moto II system and the digital decoding is awful. I have a lot of unintelligible garbage audio.

 

[Clark]

?'s Purchasing new Radio; Monitoring Culver City Police Dep

Ok thanks, yea im looking for more of a scanner than a working radio something i can take to other countys and tune into there channels to listen to communication

I was looking at this site and it gave me these three options of radios

- View and Compare Your Scanner Options

what do you guys suggest?

I also found someone sellin this online who says is already programmed just not for culver city..

"For sale is 1 Motorola AStro Saber Radio, the same kind that LAPD, Santa Monica PD, and other agencies used. This radio is currently set up to LISTEN ONLY to all LAPD and LA Co. Sheriff dispatch channels, and ALMOST every other police agency in LA county.

You will receive a COMPLETE PACKAGE; the radio, antenna, charger, and good condition battery. The radio looks and works GREAT!! You won't be dissapointed!

The radio is flashed for P-25/Digital Operation and Digital ID Display, has THE NEWEST firmware, A GREAT flashcode and tags on the back of the radio! Won't last, so act fast!

Radio specs; R07.71.06, DSP I08.03.05, H04SDH9PW7AN, 1 MEG, 509001-000000-9,

PRICE IS $500 FIRM**WILL NOT GO LOWER / NO TRADES**"

Is that a fair price?

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You want a scanner, not a modified two-way radio.
I live in the Mar Vista, Venice, Culver City area and prefer and use Uniden BCD XT models. I monitor
Culver City almost continuously, works great. Also LAPD, not Santa Monica (its encrypted) and other
agencies.

Clark

 

[US4465]

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You want a scanner, not a modified two-way radio.
I live in the Mar Vista, Venice, Culver City area and prefer and use Uniden BCD XT models. I monitor
Culver City almost continuously, works great. Also LAPD, not Santa Monica (its encrypted) and other
agencies.

Clark

Thanks for the heads up I'm going to order a Uniden BCD396XT within the next few days, cant wait to get it quick question tho Why is Santa Monica encrypted? Are there cops up to no good that they dont want anyone listening to what there saying :-? is there anything out there that can decrypt them?

 

[SCPD]

The choice between the Uniden and GRE radios is similar to a Ford vs. Chevy typet of decision. I've seen a lot of objective reviews from various sources that state the P25 audio of the GRE's is much better than that of the 396. I've owned both brands of radios prior to the use of P25 and my last Uniden was a big disappointment. I received some lousy service from Uniden as well when I ordered some simple parts to fix something that should have lasted the life of the radio. I love the two PSR-600's and one PSR-500 I own. I use the Starrsoft software and love it. I transfer the data between my PRO-92, PRO-96, PRO-2067 and the GRE's.

The GRE radios I have are very sensitive and work great in the rural area I live in. The disadvantage to this is listening to the federal VHF band (162-174 MHz) while mobile in the L.A. area. In many spots, such as most of the San Fernando Valley, I have to lock out the bank or list as GRE calls them, that I have most of my federal frequencies in, with all of those being natural resource agencies (USFS, NPS, BLM and USFWS). I get a lot of interference on nearly every frequency to the point I had to program attenuation on each federal VHF frequency I listen to. This and full squelch does not eliminate the interference, even though it is significantly reduced. Once I stop the car (running and off) I don't have the problem. I don't have the problem when I hook up a discone placed on the roof of my late mother's house. Finding the reason for this is only a mild curiosity as I only have one more trip down there and likely no more after. My mother's house is in escrow and the drives down to fix it up have ended.

This sensitivity is quite useful up in Mono County as I'm able to pick up 800 MHz from a repeater located 50 miles away with one ridge of 8100 feet and another at 8300 feet in between. I also pick up some very distant VHF repeaters over in Nevada and one on the west side of the Central Valley through Mammoth Pass. I haven't had as good of a radio with my GRE's since I used my PRO-2006 for more than I do now.

I haven't had the same mobile operation issue with the federal band interference in smaller cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.

With the PSR in mobile operation I pick up the LAPD P25 frequencies very well, even in marginal locations. Starrsoft software is more expensive than Buetel and Arco, but itI really works nicely. This especially with the GRE 500/600's since Don Starr wrote the firmware for each.

 

[donkeypunchn22]

Anyone have a ASTRO SABER III they want to sell..... want to use as "scanner" to monitor LA County LAPD/LASD. Thx

PM me if you want

 

[pepsima1]

Stay away from UNIDEN they have horrible tech support if none at all. They just came out with a new firmware upgrade for the digital side and it did not do anything for me with LAPD or any of the other P25 systems. Plus the price is so crazy. I have a bcd396xt and I dont even really use it anymore.

I bought a GRE PSR 600 a couple of months ago and I love it. It works so awesome and the P25 digital decodes perfect.

Then I bought the GRE PSR 800 and I love it too. I can pickup ICIS with full bar strength out in San Bernadino County at the Chino Airport with no trouble. Also, I can pickup LAPD too.

The digital decode is perfect. Plus you get lifetime database upgrades weekly from RR. Plus the radio is almost a hundred bucks cheaper. Go onto Amazon.com and pickup the PSR 800 and you will never look back.

Just wait until the PSR 900 comes out and I am buying one of them too. Also, stay away from commerical radios. Just buy a true ditigal trunking scanner and your happy times are coming.