Time to upgrade?

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steve031372

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May 14, 2007
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25
Hi all

I own a Radio Shack PRO 99 scanner and feel it is time to upgrade. It has just gone in for repair for the second time this year.
I live in Antioch, Illinois 60002.
My question is this. Is it a good idea to go digital or stick with analog and would i need trunking.
My apologies for my naievity on this matter.

Regards

Steve
 

N9JIG

Sheriff
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Dec 14, 2001
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Location
Far NW Valley
In your area the Lake County Sheriff uses an analog EDACS trunking system, you can listen to that on just about any Trunking scanner.

Also in your area most State agencies use StarCom21 and a bit to the west the McHenry County Sheriff is soon to switch over as well. For that you will need one of the current generation Digital Trunking scanners from Uniden (BCD396T or BCD996T), Radio Shack (PRO2096, Pro96, covers these sites but not the 700 MHz. sites used in southern Cook and other locales) or GRE (PSR500, PSR600).

Each of those scanners will monitor the Lake and McHenry County systems. The Unidens have some issues with the digital decoding as they are not quite the actual APCO25 standard but the current release of firmware seems to work much better.

Other operations in your area, such as Antioch PD, Antioch FPD, and the CN Railroad all use VHF or UHF conventional channels, so just about any scanner will work.

If I were you I would invest in the digital trunking scanner of your choice so that you can listen to all the local action. My personal fave is the BCD396T but check each out and chose the one you think is best. You can download the user manual for each from the respective websites. This will help you figure out the easiest to use.

Also consider coming out to the next CARMA Meeting in July. Each of these scanners will be present, we will be happy to give you some hands-on time.
 

steve031372

Member
Joined
May 14, 2007
Messages
25
Thanks for the quick reply. The BCD396T was the scanner I was looking at and thinking of purchasing, more to be future proof for at least a while.
All I need to do now is shop around for the best price as these scanners are not cheap.
I will certainly look into attending the next CARMA meeting as I believe I could learn alot from experienced scanner enthusiasts.

Thanks steve.
 
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