I use a kenwood TH77A for my RR receiver. i can set the VHF side to receive the road channel and the UHF side to receive the EOT so I know when a train is near even if there is no activity. Most actually tranceivers will have a better receiver in them than a scanner. A scanner is designed to have a receiver that is wide enough to let everything pass through from 25-950MHz where as a amateur tranceiver is designed (not always) to ley maybe 136-174 and 400-500Mhz pass through and are usually (again, not always) better at rejecting strong adjacent channel signals comapred to a scanner. Example, i operate APRS from my shack with 100 watts, both of my scanners are not only overloaded when a packet is transmitted but they also spit the digital noise out of their speakers, but with my Kenwood radio connected to an outside antenna that is within 5 feet of the scanners antennas (just below the APRS antenna)I can still monitor the local SO channel with just a little desense. My Bendix/King VHF radio does a lot better, it doesent even know a packet was transmitted except when monitoring very weak signals, but the bendix/King works from 148-174MHz and has a noticable decrease in performance when getting down below the 152MHz mark. I don't know how well the Yaesu will work compared to a scanner, but I am betting it will outperform the scanner in receiver quality while the scanner will be faster at scanning. I have always been the type to buy a scanner for a scanner and a 2-way radio to be used as a 2-way radio and if it gets used as a scanner as a secondary use than thats good too.
