step sizes other than 5 & 12.5 kHz ??

[Caesar]

ok, i am looking into getting and older base station scanner, for a disc tap and some vhf/uhf monitoring. however i was listening to some movie crews in town and went to program the freq's my bc246 picked up on a pro 2045 and it wouldn't take it b/c it would round the freq to a step size of 5 or 12.5, i think the freq ended like .7375... in any event, iam courious as to what other freq/tranmissions i might be missing out on..i don't believe there would be to many, but wanting to make sure...

thanks,

Caesar

 

[eorange]

My Yaesu VR-500 has steps sizes of 100, 50, 30, 25, 20, 15, 12.5, 10, 9, 6.25, 5, 1, 0.1, and 0.05 kHz.

My BC-780 has steps sizes of 100, 50, 25, 12.5, 10, 7.5, and 5 kHz.

 

[prcguy]

I’ve seen some VHF hi-band government stuff using 6.25KHz increments. If your scanner is within +/- 1KHz, you will never know the difference anyway. If your scanner is several years old it is probably more than 1KHz off freq on UHF and possibly VHF due to crystal aging.
prcguy

 

[Napalm]

You don't miss out on anything with the Pro-2045's, but you're never 100% sure which frequency you're on (in the 5kHz bands).

It annoys me that VHF Hi is 5kHz, but UHF and milair is 12.5kHz.

 

[morfis]

You don't miss out on anything with the Pro-2045's, but you're never 100% sure which frequency you're on (in the 5kHz bands).

It annoys me that VHF Hi is 5kHz, but UHF and milair is 12.5kHz.

Odd that UHF milair is 12.5 given that until recently most US milair was on 50KHz steps

 

[Napalm]

Yep, I guess it's just because they already had 12.5kHz for UHF (450MHz) and it was easier/cheaper to use that.

It's a bit of a pain beacuse it takes longer to search than if I was using the correct step size (obviously ).

VHF Air is the same, 12.5kHz. Otherwise, they're nice little radios (I have two).

 

[BMT]

UHF MILAIR is 25kHz!!!

BMT

 

[morfis]

UHF MILAIR is 25kHz!!!

BMT

No one said it isn't?

 

[morfis]

Yep, I guess it's just because they already had 12.5kHz for UHF (450MHz) and it was easier/cheaper to use that.

I wonder how much would have been added to the cost to actually have the correct settings available? A few cents?

 

[eorange]

That's what I like about the VR-500...any frequency can be any mode, any step. I can listen for CW on 425.0 MHz incrementing in 9 kHz steps!

 

[morfis]

That's what I like about the VR-500...any frequency can be any mode, any step. I can listen for CW on 425.0 MHz incrementing in 9 kHz steps!

No shortage of scanners that will allow you to do that...they tend not to be the ones designed for the American market

 

[Napalm]

Most of my other "proper" radios can do any step size under the sun. My new $90 cheapo-chinese import /\/\otorola copy can do 5-50kHz steps.

But for some reason, my Uniden designed Pro-2045 will only do 5 and 12.5kHz. I've never worked out why the US scanners have 5kHz steps on VHF Hi (138-172). It seems to defy logic.

I wonder how much would have been added to the cost to actually have the correct settings available? A few cents?

Quite possibly... I'd happily do without the CTCSS option to have user-selectable steps. It's the one thing that lets the scanner down IMHO. It's academic anyway since it's long out of "print".

By the way, "BMT" - I'm well aware what the step size is on milair, we're discussing a specific radio and how it uses 12.5kHz between 220-1000MHz.