Thinging about buying a new redio a Uniden Bearcat model BP-250

[Brales60]

Pay once, cry once. I learned that lesson.

 

[rcla39652]

what radio would you reconmend for my county?

 

[Brales60]

SDS100 (portable) or SDS200 (base). I have the 200, and it's a rock star.

 

[dave3825]

That's amusing.. May have been a floor model or store return..

Yeah like 20 years ago maybe..




That scanner may only work on certain trunked systems.

 

[Ensnared]

I have never heard of this model (doesn’t mean a lot) and all I find when I search on it are replacement battery packs (probably a clue that this unit will require a new battery).

I detest those batter packs. Advice: If you have one of these older scanners, don't throw the battery pack away. I took my pigtail to Batteries Plus and they made me one that worked and fit quite well in my BC245XLT.

I use my analog scanners for following Skywarn since I am in Tornado Alley.

 

[garys]

The BC250D was ground breaking back in 2002 or so. It's day has come and gone. Even the BC296D was marginal on 9600 baud trunk systems.

 

[mass-man]

what radio would you reconmend for my county?

In the most nicest way, but telling you the truth, if you want to monitor the cops/fire/ems/etc in Montgomery Co it should be the SDS 100 portable or SDS200 fixed base unit. The county system is new technology and no old technology scanner is gonna work. That said, much of your area is ENCRYPTED which means no scanner out there is going to let you hear the encrypted signals.
You could move away from hearing the cops/fire/etc and go with something to hear ham radio repeaters, weather channels, civilian/military aircraft/railroads and you've got choices. There might well be something reasonably priced on Fleabay or elsewhere that will work for that. An Uniden BC125AT would fill the bill for hearing the other stuff nicely.
The hobby is moving away from being to listen to the police/fire/ems in a hurry.
Hope this helps...

 

[DeeCeee]

In the most nicest way, but telling you the truth, if you want to monitor the cops/fire/ems/etc in Montgomery Co it should be the SDS 100 portable or SDS200 fixed base unit. The county system is new technology and no old technology scanner is gonna work. That said, much of your area is ENCRYPTED which means no scanner out there is going to let you hear the encrypted signals.
You could move away from hearing the cops/fire/etc and go with something to hear ham radio repeaters, weather channels, civilian/military aircraft/railroads and you've got choices. There might well be something reasonably priced on Fleabay or elsewhere that will work for that. An Uniden BC125AT would fill the bill for hearing the other stuff nicely.
The hobby is moving away from being to listen to the police/fire/ems in a hurry.
Hope this helps...

EMS and Fire are in the clear on a Montgomery County P25 system. A few of these talkgroups are rebroadcast on TxWarn. There is exactly NO law enforcement that can be received in Montgomery County due to encryption. Heck, even Harris County can only talk to Montgomery County on only one channel because they have not updated their radios (by and large) even though its the same system. HPD and the Troopers have the ability to talk on those encrypted channels. Is it a safety issue? Yeah.