Why multiple radios?

[ecps92]

Multiple reasons, some already mentioned, others
a. Eliminate the source of an unknown as an image
try a different IF, Scanner Make/Model or even an Amateur Radio for RX
b. Searching for the input or output (non standard band plans) Lock one radio on the channel and SEARCH
c. (Federal) searching for other Repeaters in a Wide-Area or Vote-Scan Net
d. Trying to find other associated channels
Lock onto Ch.01 in one Radio and search for Ch.02-Ch.?? when they say switch to... xyz

Then of course the previously mentioned,
radio a - Local Fire
radio b - Local Police
radio c - Fire Interops
radio d - Police Interops
radio e - DPW/Water/Electric
radio f - Federal VHF (137-151)
radio g - Federal VHF (162-174)
radio h - Federal UHF (400-420)
and the list can go on, all depends on what Flavor you are interested in

And as long as some interests remain Analog (or AM) then the older radios remain active

So I’m not that wet behind the ears when it comes to scanning, but have not been in the hobby for some time. So there is a lot of things I need to catch up on. Why do some have multiple scanners going at once? Are you trying to monitor specific things on each scanner? Are some of the scanners lest active and you have one dedicated just in case something pops up?

 

[garys]

Back when there were a lot of spot news photogs i knew a lot of the Boston area guys. I did some installs as well. Some guys had as many as 6 or 7 scanners going at on time. Some might only be programmed for a couple of channels. The really old guys had some single channel radios for really important agencies.

The good old days.

When I was a news photographer, I had 3-4 scanners in my vehicle:

• One for PD and Law Enforcement agencies
• One for Fire and Forest Service
• One for misc agencies (FBI/SS in the days before encryption), out of area agencies and tac channels and some air
• One handhed for when I'm out of the car

The scanners were also programmed with redundant banks of tac channels. At a major incident, for instance, I might lock the PD scanner on the primary incident channel and scan PD tac channels on on another radio. Most of the time I didn't monitor PD dispatch channels since there was a lot of routine calls and DMV requests (SoCal area)--anything significant would appear on a tac channel.

I also monitored the competition (we all monitored each other) and sometimes we'd cross talk through the scanner to coordinate around road blocks or for situational awareness.

 

[ladn]

Back when there were a lot of spot news photogs i knew a lot of the Boston area guys. I did some installs as well. Some guys had as many as 6 or 7 scanners going at on time. Some might only be programmed for a couple of channels. The really old guys had some single channel radios for really important agencies.

The good old days.

I resemble that remark!
I my news photographer mobile, even though the scanners had lots of channels, I'd only actively monitor a handfull of channels on each radio.

My all time favorite mobile scanner was the BC-101. Yes, it was big, difficult to program, required AC power and had only 16 channels, but it was soooo easy to flip the channel switches off and on while driving. The more modern digital display scanners that followed (BC-250, 760 XLT, etc) were more capable, but the channels were difficult to lock out/activate while driving.

Fortunately, during my time in the field, I didn't have to contend with trunking.

 

[eaf1956]

Well, say your trunking System you monitor has 15 Talk Groups. With a single scanner you could miss a transmission on a TG. With 15 scanners each on a different TG you would hear everything.

 

[trentbob]

I resemble that remark!
I my news photographer mobile, even though the scanners had lots of channels, I'd only actively monitor a handfull of channels on each radio.

My all time favorite mobile scanner was the BC-101. Yes, it was big, difficult to program, required AC power and had only 16 channels, but it was soooo easy to flip the channel switches off and on while driving. The more modern digital display scanners that followed (BC-250, 760 XLT, etc) were more capable, but the channels were difficult to lock out/activate while driving.

Fortunately, during my time in the field, I didn't have to contend with trunking.

As you know Rodger we live in a parallel universe. I also monitored very specific things and still do, often one or two talk groups/ frequencies per radio. As a newsman, you don't want to be listening to a out of town car stop while you're missing a bank robbery down the street LOL.

My favorite radio of all time was the Electra Bearcat 101 also. Got my first one in early 1975. Yes it was AC only and I had my converter on the floor behind the driver's seat so I could reach around and toggle the switch on and off. Everything else at that time was crystal control but the 101 was the first programmable scanner that I owned and was amazing!

 

[letarotor]

As you know Rodger we live in a parallel universe. I also monitored very specific things and still do, often one or two talk groups/ frequencies per radio. As a newsman, you don't want to be listening to a out of town car stop while you're missing a bank robbery the street LOL.

My favorite radio of all time was the Electra Bearcat 101 also. Got my first one in early 1975. Yes it was AC only and I had my converter on the floor behind the driver's seat so I could reach around and toggle the switch on and off. Everything else at that time was crystal control but the 101 was the first programmable scanner that I owned and was amazing!

My first programmable scanner was a Regency M100 and my second was the Bearcat 100XLT. I loved that Bearcat 100XLT so much I bought a second one. The Regency M100 was a base/mobile 16 channel programmable scanner and when the Bearcat 100XLT came along, wow, 100 programmable channels and a handheld that went up to 512 MHz haha. You could hear everything back in those days in the late 1970s / early 1980s on those scanners

Brian
COMMSCAN

 

[garys]

I liked the 101 too, once Electra fixed the over heating problems the early ones had. I didn't do any mobile scanning until the early '80s.

BTW, I have a Uniden 370CRS that has my town PD and FD programmed in and nothing else. Cost me a whole $3.00 at a flea market.

 

[TailGator911]

I imagine we're all on the same page with the reply to the OP's question - we don't want to miss anything. A single scanner dedicated to a Talk Group in a trunk system. Others dedicated to single analog emergency frequencies such as 121.500, etc., or the simulcast callout to the fd station that serves your neighborhood. Your local PD dispatch channel. The local DMR repeater and/or hotspot. The more you think about things, the more scanners you can add. It never stops.

 

[WB9YBM]

So I’m not that wet behind the ears when it comes to scanning, but have not been in the hobby for some time. So there is a lot of things I need to catch up on. Why do some have multiple scanners going at once? Are you trying to monitor specific things on each scanner? Are some of the scanners lest active and you have one dedicated just in case something pops up?

Let's say for example you've got a 200 channel scanner with 10 banks of 20 channels each. You separate your services you're listening to to different banks (let's say local PD, bank 1; local FD, bank 2, aero, bank 3 and so on). For those who are impatient, especially if the scanner's fully loaded with frequencies, it's going to take too long to scan all 200 channels sequentially. So someone who might be impatient might have one scanner for banks 1-10 & the second scanner for banks 11-20. Never mind that--especially when we've got a lot of scanners going--the brain can't process all those different audio sources (especially with traffic going on all at once, on every scanner).

Another possibility is that for casual scanning, our old-yet-useable scanner might be good enough (why throw it out if it still works?), but then when we want more "serious" scanning, we'll turn on scanner #2 which is more modern with more features & etc. Then when the girlfriend drops by and we REALLY need to impress someone we pull out scanner #3 which not only does what scanners 1 & 2 do, but also has tons of shiny chrome, blinky lights, knobs (who's only function is to impress people) and shoots out fireworks.

 

[trentbob]

I liked the 101 too, once Electra fixed the over heating problems the early ones had. I didn't do any mobile scanning until the early '80s.

BTW, I have a Uniden 370CRS that has my town PD and FD programmed in and nothing else. Cost me a whole $3.00 at a flea market.

Sweet!

As far as using multiple scanners especially in a mobile application you always have to think about safety. The reason the Electra Bearcat 101 was a favorite scanner was the easy safe way of changing frequencies while driving. A row of 16 diodes with a tab under each one. You could easily toggle a channel on and off.

 

[hfxChris]

I have three main scanners (and a Kenwood mobile, can't remember the model number off hand) at my desk, but I don't usually have them all going at once. It's nice though to have the extras there in case there's a major incident I want to follow.

As an example, during some large brush fires here last summer, I had my BCD996XT held on the fire department operations talkgroup, my BCD325P2 scanning the provincial DNR fire talkgroup, EMO talkgroups used for evacuations, and a couple of other support talkgroups, and my BCT15X mostly monitored the aero frequency used by the DNR water bombers.

Under normal listening I (usually) only have one scanner going, and that's the BCT15X, scanning VHF fire paging, coast guard and if I'm in the mood, aero or rail. The BCD996XT is primarily for scanning the P25 trunked system, but with police and EMS all encrypted it stays off most of the time, at least until I hear an interesting fire page and I'll switch it on to monitor, or for example during a snow storm, all of the provincial plows and city transit supervisors are on P25, and they can be interesting to listen to. The BCD325P2 is mostly used for tracking down new DMR/NXDN systems, and of course for mobile use in the car. I also have a Pro-137 that I keep full time in the car, just in case I'm out and bored, as well as a Pro-96 and Pro-2055 I don't really use anymore, but I keep because... I don't know why.

The Kenwood is really only used when I want to monitor VHF from neighbouring counties, it's a bit better at pulling them in than the Unidens. It's mostly off though.

 

[KB2GOM]

Dedicating a scanner to a small group of frequencies in essence increases the efficiency of the scanner because it takes so little time to cycle through that small group of frequencies.

So, for the Commuter Assistance Net in the Capital District of New York, I run one scanner on the NY State Thruway UHF frequencies, another scanner on VHF State Police frequencies, and a third scanner to LEO, EMS, and fire in my county. The first two cycle really fast because they are each scanning just a handful of frequencies.

 

[W1KNE]

I have four...
1)BCD996XT MSP Search/and/or "large incident in my city and I want to JUST monitor one"
2)BCD536HP Various uses, normally lives on my north facing UHF Yagi to pick up Boston area
3)BCD796D Local Only scanner, and/or "large incident in my city and I want to JUST monitor the other one"
4)SDS200 DX/Primary. Goes between the UHF for Boston business searching and the old Scantenna for RISCON monitoring.

 

[hexagon_keyhole]

I have two. I use the SDS100 for simulcast/digital stuff, and the BCD436HP for analog stuff. Going to be trying airband stuff as soon as I can get my discone antenna up, and maybe a desktop scanner.

 

[garys]

In the truck there's a SDS200 and I also have my Icom 2730A set up to scan a small number of public safety frequencies in addition to the amateur stuff.

 

[4436time]

It's called FOMO (fear of missing out) and it's usually contracted by listening to only one radio. Most here have it and the only known cure is to add more radios. My advice would be to first purchase a good multiband antenna followed by an 8-port multicoupler so that the framework is there for when you begin to feel it emerging.

 

[spacellamaman]

I will use New Years Eve as an example. Typically, I have two Uniden 436HP radios going; however, one of them died the other day from blunt force trauma.

If I had my two scanners, I would be using two over-the-ear earphones, one per ear. Since I have my radios programmed with Start Up Keys and Favorites set to toggle on/off, it depends on what is happening. Since I am married, I try to keep my radios silent for "Precious." However, this is one of my favorite scanning nights of the year. In Texas, folks like to drive drunk a lot. Hence, it is rather entertaining. "Precious" is nice enough to go into the other room after being fed raw meat with a pole.

In addition to the two scanners, I will have three browsers going in different time zones for live action. Of course, this year is rather unique since Time's Square will not be the same due to COVID-19.

Trust me, if I had the money, I would have at least four or six scanners going. If I lived in a larger city, I would have twelve, LOL.

But, I am happy with the two I own.

heh heh if Precious ever happens to read any of your posts, you may be front and center for the "live action"!

yeah every news years around where i live starting around 23:30 on the 31st til 0100ish on the 1st, its non-stop dispatches for gun-fire and fireworks complaints, far more than there are availible officers to respond.

based on their tone of voice responding to dispatch, a rather flat, non-commital, annoyed undertone, i get the distinct impression the patrol cars never change course, but an MDT says investigation complete

oddly july 4th doesnt have much with regard to complaints, which usually gunfire and fireworks get started around sunset on the 3rd and roll on till early morning hours of the 5th.

 

[JimD56]

FOMO for me was missing a party back in the day, and yup now I cure it with more radios.

 

[radiopro52]

If you listen to both digital and analog, its best to have a dedicated analog scanner in addition to your digital scanner to listen to analog. I have an SDS200 that I use at home to listen to my states P25 system, but there's still a lot of analog in use in my area so I recently picked up a BC346XT and it receives analog better than the SDS200. The BC346XT is also handheld so I can easily carry it with me anywhere to listen to any low power mobile radios anywhere I go. This also allows the SDS200 to be the dedicated digital scanner, which is its primary focus anyway.

 

[prcguy]

I though I was sick, but this is really sick.

And for best results, each scanner needs its own dedicated antenna
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