Scanning in Europe

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sflmonitor

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Does anyone have information on scanning in Europe? Specifically, I am interested in Austria and Holland. I will be travelling there soon and hate to have my 396 taken at customs.

The StrongSignals site has some information on the subject, but I wanted something more official.

Joe
 

n4voxgill

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the most accurate information would be from www.javiation.com which is a large seller of radio equipment in england. Jonathan could give you current up to date info as many things have changed with the European Union.
 

dgoodson

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I lived in Europe for a couple of years, and took along my scanner. About all I ever heard was Aircraft comms and some 72MHz FM Comms. The really stupid thing I never anticipated was that I didn't speak the language. How interesting could that be? I finally just put the radio away and enjoyed my time there.
 

sflmonitor

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LOL. Actually I am mostly interested in aviation too, so I should be able to hear some stuff. What is on the 72 MHz band out there?
 

n1das

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It might be worthwhile to keep an ear on the PMR446 frequencies. PMR446 is the EU equivalent of the USA's Family Radio Service (FRS) but operates in the 446.0 to 446.1 MHz area. PMR446 has been harmonized across most of Europe. You can buy a PMR446 radio in one country and take it to any other European country that has PMR446 and use it there.

Ch1 446.00625
Ch2 446.01875
Ch3 446.03125
Ch4 446.04375
Ch5 446.05625
Ch6 446.06875
Ch7 446.08125
Ch8 446.09375

Yeah, I know, it's right in the middle of the 70cm ham band in the USA.
440-450 isn't a ham band in many parts of Europe.

Analog, FM, 12.5kHz channel spacing, "narrow" (11k0f3e) bandwidth.
Max TX power is 0.5W. Antenna must be permanently attached to the radio.
CTCSS/PL and DCS/DPL are used. Some radios also have analog audio inversion scrambling.
Legal for anyone to use for all types of 2-way radio usage.
Currently popular for business and personal use.
The main attraction is low cost and no licensing to worry about.
Range is virtually identical to what you can expect with FRS in the USA.

Specs are overall similar to the USA's FRS (462/467MHz) but operates in the 446.0 to 446.1 range. Many of the FRS/GMRS "bubble pack" radios sold in the USA share a common design with its PMR446 couterpart. For example, the Motorola TalkAbout T6220 FRS radio in the USA is also sold in Europe as a PMR446 radio and labeled as a Motorola TalkAbout T6222.

More PMR446 info:
http://www.446user.co.uk
http://www.transmission1.co.uk
http://www.121radio.co.uk
 
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morfis

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You'll probably hear activity on the US FRS radio frequencies as well. Commonly used around US military bases over here (even though the use is illegal) as well as used by people who think the radios are the same as the PMR446 ones and imported.

To see what is where in the European radio spectrum I'd suggest you look at something like:

http://ukspec.tripod.com/specbw.html

It's UK-centric but does have links to details for other countries.
The UK and mainland Europe have similar band-plans (and there is an effort to get things fully in line!).

Aeronautical frequencies are the same as in the USA but with full use of 25KHz steps in the military airband and 8.33KHz channels being used increasingly for some aspects of civil airband.

There are numerous yahoo groups devoted to scanning/amateur radio around Europe at a country level as well as more localised ones. The Dutch and UK ones tend to be the most active.
 

sflmonitor

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I'm already back from my trip. I wish I'd had this information prior to leaving. Did not find much in the area of trunking in Austria. The other conventional stuff was business type transmissions (whatever I could understand). Airband was mostly in English.

Thanks for all of the input. I will keep it handy for next time.
 

Stavro35

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I took a scanner to Greece in 1992 . Scanner's are illegal in Greece. ATC communications were in English,some Greek. I heard what i can only assume was the US embassy in Athens based on the frequency used and the chatter on it.

Ireland:Never could figure out where the police, and fire services, were. I was in small towns so it's not like anything was going to happen anyway. ATC comms at Shannon of course in English. Coast guard/lifeboat station chatter,not much going on there either. :(
 

morfis

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Stavro35 said:
I took a scanner to Greece in 1992 . Scanner's are illegal in Greece. ATC communications were in English,some Greek. I heard what i can only assume was the US embassy in Athens based on the frequency used and the chatter on it.

Ireland:Never could figure out where the police, and fire services, were. I was in small towns so it's not like anything was going to happen anyway. ATC comms at Shannon of course in English. Coast guard/lifeboat station chatter,not much going on there either. :(

Can't talk about scanning in Greece as it gets some UK mialir fans worked up :)

A couple of good internet sites to do with scanning in Eire and NI. The freqs you talk about are are fairly common knowlegde and conform to the bandplan. Coastguard/marine around the Island are very active and interesting...especially at times like now (exercise Neptune warrior).
 
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