Why use a Motorola/Kenwood/etc. Radio To scan?

[mkewman]

I'm just wondering, is it worth the cost to get something like a Spectra Mobile for monitoring only.

i mean, you can't change freqs, or make changes without reprogramming the whole thing, and it costs money to get the thing programmed.


but i know a few people have them here and i'd like to know what their reasons are.

 

[K5MAR]

My Motos are dual-purpose. The primary reason I have them is for use on commercial and EM freqs. But that's only a few dozen or so channels on VHF and UHF, so I set up scan groups for ham and PS. The Motos are far superior to any of my scanners in sensitivity and audio quality.

Mark S.

 

[kb5udf]

Agreed

Having used ham gear, scanners, and commercial two way (moto's)
I can agree with the previous post. I've found the differences most notable
in the 800mhz range, where the handhelds I've used (Moto commerical)
are VASTLY superior in reception in real world conditions to the RS series
of scanners.

 

[mancow]

Example:

There's an EDACS TRS I like to listen to but it's about 50 miles out. Both the BCD396T and PRO96 brought it in only on days with exceptional ducting going on. And even at that it was scratchy. With the GE/Ericsson M-RK commercial grade portable it's full quieting when the others won't even see the control channel.

 

[car2back]

I use a dept owned XTS to scan the Tulsa TRS at work and it sucks! the reception and audio are great but the actual "scanning" part leaves much to be desired! I will stick with my Bearcats!! I do own a kenwood VHF walkie but use it exclusivly for FD stuff. Once again great reception, but limited capablity as a scanner.

 

[loumaag]

And of course a real radio is the only way you can monitor EDACS ProVoice.

 

[swest90]

I have used a spectra for about 2 years now for our cities dispatch frequency. Excellent reception and audio. Was using a kenwood TM-D700, moved that over to ch 2 & 3. The Spectra beats the kenwood by far and blows any of the scanners out of the water. I listen to a simplex VHF system and its the only way that I can hear most of the ht's. Deciding on the spectra depends on the system you want to listen to. I would stay with conventional only. A smartnet system can be monitored with it set to not-affiliate but its not a good idea and if the admin has the site controller send a certain command, your radio will affilate and then will be inhibited turning it into a great paper weight. The only (practical) way to get a radio back that has been inhibited is to have the system administrator of THAT system send the command (from the same console) to wake your radio back up. They will NOT do this for you and will probably file charges for computer tresspassing instead, so is obviously not worth it. Motorola upgraded zone watch several versions ago to check for unauthorized radios on the system, so forget about any smartzone systems. The circle m radios are very limited in their scanning ability, you will get a max of 16 conventional frequencies in the spectra. I have a 18 channel dispatch console that I found on eBay a while back, so I dont really 'scan', all of my radios or scanners are fixed on one particular channel or talk group then routed to the console & voice loggers. Someday im going to clean up all the coax and power cords and take some pictures I would be proud of. You will need a local circle m shop to program your radio with the receive frequencies only, or you can go all out and buy the software, rib and cables required ($800+ if buying from circle M). People claim they wont sell you the software, but I didnt have any problems ordering it myself, just fax a few things back and forth, if you need the number I can dig it up.

Shawn

 

[radio10-8]

I like the improved sound quality from a moto vs. a scanner. Also durability, I have dropped my scanner many times and even left one on my bumper for a while. The moto handhelds are very durable and hard for me to break.

 

[ReceiverBeaver]

It will almost always be a dual-purpose situation as some have mentioned above. I live out in small town USA 80 miles away from the big evil city. Everything out here is still on VHF. I'm a ham and my Icom 746 base rig includes 108~174 and scans fast, has selectable features like pl tone search, memory skip, 20db preamp, has a fast scan speed and excellent sensitivity accross the entire range.

My Icom W32A VHF & UHF handheld provides about the same results and get UHF covered with it. It has true dual receive so I can listen to 2 different things at the same time.

So I simply don't need a separate scanner. However the situation would be obviously different if I lived in the big city with all the trunking & digital stuff. Then it would be Scanner City for me by necessity.

So I guess it mainly comes down to where you live, country or city.

 

[K5MAR]

I use a dept owned XTS to scan the Tulsa TRS at work and it sucks! the reception and audio are great but the actual "scanning" part leaves much to be desired! I will stick with my Bearcats!! I do own a kenwood VHF walkie but use it exclusivly for FD stuff. Once again great reception, but limited capablity as a scanner.

I agree, with the additional comment that commercial gear are not designed as scanners, rather they are scanning tranceivers. A different kettle of fish altogether. Of course, the agencies I'm listening to are not as heavily used as Tulsa's TRS, so the slower speed and lack of features I expect my scanners to have isn't a problem.

Mark S.

 

[2112]

Example:

There's an EDACS TRS I like to listen to but it's about 50 miles out. Both the BCD396T and PRO96 brought it in only on days with exceptional ducting going on. And even at that it was scratchy. With the GE/Ericsson M-RK commercial grade portable it's full quieting when the others won't even see the control channel.

Another example:

One of the agencies that I listen to is about 25 miles away.

From my home office, my 780xlt listening through a scanner antenna only hears the agency when the band happens to be up. From my car parked in the garage, under a steel roof, my /\/\otorola MCS2000 on a roof-mounted VHF quarterwave hears it reliably all the time.

Big difference.

 

[trooperdude]

I almost exclusively use Spectras and MA/Com equipment for trunk system scanning in the SF Bay Area.

The consumer scanners have really sucky reception specs on 800 trunking.

You just can't beat 20 microvolts of sensitivity with a nice tight front end on a Spectra.

I can't receive San Francisco's system on anything except a commercial radio from where
I live.