Greetings everyone!
I know I mentioned having a question, but it'd be rude of me to not introduce myself first. If you're just looking to help a newcomer, just skip to the end. Otherwise enjoy the small read!
I sit here and wonder "where did it all start?" I only have a few gray hairs, and they're easily hide able. It shouldn't be that hard to remember when it all started. Was I a teen, or was I still a young child? I believe the idea of radio communications really hit me when I was 8 years old. My father had a CB in his truck and we used to turn it on in the evenings and see what we could pick up. Most of the time, it was just truckers on the highway close to us trying to get home to their wife and kids. Unfortunately, it was short lived. He sold the truck and never installed the system into anything else.
A few years later, he had gotten a scanner from radio shack. He pressed a few buttons and then we were listening to police and fire departments. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! They spoke in codes and I had no clue what was happening, but it was awesome! Google didn't exist then. Yahoo didn't either. Come to think of it, I don't believe we could ask jeeves either! About an hour and a half worth of waiting later, we finally had 10 codes printed out. Regardless, it still confused me.
The years pass on, I get interested in aviation. I listen to funny atc recordings on youtube, monitor local airport streams, and got back into radio communication. Then one day, I left the heavily populated area, and moved to a place much more quiet. I stopped listening to atc streams and started pursuing other passions. But, I was still in driving distance of a few areas that could spur up newsworthy events, so I installed a scanner on my phone and set alerts up on it. Great, now I can listen to a stream like the good old days....but I could only listen to one thing at a time.
This all leads up to recent events. My father bought a base scanner for $50. "Great deal," we both thought. I traveled the 2+ hours to help program it and get it setup. I look at the manual a bit, press a couple buttons, and bam....weather. It works!!! I press another button, and start hearing police. Score. Then my father utter's 3 words that have been the bane of my existence. "What about trunking?" Back to the manual I went to see how to program it. Looked up some frequencies and set it, and then made it scan. All we got was static whenever something came on. "Oh just have to lock it out" He gave me his old scanner, you know....the one from way back when, and a pc cable and sent me on my way. At least I could connect it to the computer and do it in a easier way, or so I thought.
I mentioned it was an old scanner right? It doesn't have a connection on it! The cable was for his other handheld, one much more up to date. So there I was, reading a manual online trying to figure it out. I went to program in the trunk frequencies when I noticed the magic letters "P25." All of a sudden, everything dawned on me. I pulled up the reference pages for the scanner I had, my father's base, and the other handheld. I look at everything and realize that most of what we had was junk for us! Only 1 of the 3 supported p25 phase I. The others were limited to motorola type I & II. Hours, then days, of research later, I figured it all out.
While I can't listen to exactly what I want to, I've managed to put the old scanner to a different use, listening to the ham repeaters! I've managed to snag one successfully so far and was enthralled by the conversation. They aren't extremely active, and a few might just not be in range(haven't checked physical locations), so I turned my sight upwards. It's been a short adventure so far, thus unsuccessful. I won't be giving up easily tho!
Onto my question:
My knowledge of connectors is sparse at best. I have a scanner(if you didn't read my intro) that has a bnc connection for its antenna. I'm looking into making a diy antenna, and all the plans I look at seem to use a coax connection. I've read that bnc and coax is basically the same, but I'd rather be safe and get it right the first time. Given the previous statement, am I to assume I can use them interchangeably via an adapter or a bnc end on the wire?
Cheers and I hope everyone has a great day!
I know I mentioned having a question, but it'd be rude of me to not introduce myself first. If you're just looking to help a newcomer, just skip to the end. Otherwise enjoy the small read!
I sit here and wonder "where did it all start?" I only have a few gray hairs, and they're easily hide able. It shouldn't be that hard to remember when it all started. Was I a teen, or was I still a young child? I believe the idea of radio communications really hit me when I was 8 years old. My father had a CB in his truck and we used to turn it on in the evenings and see what we could pick up. Most of the time, it was just truckers on the highway close to us trying to get home to their wife and kids. Unfortunately, it was short lived. He sold the truck and never installed the system into anything else.
A few years later, he had gotten a scanner from radio shack. He pressed a few buttons and then we were listening to police and fire departments. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! They spoke in codes and I had no clue what was happening, but it was awesome! Google didn't exist then. Yahoo didn't either. Come to think of it, I don't believe we could ask jeeves either! About an hour and a half worth of waiting later, we finally had 10 codes printed out. Regardless, it still confused me.
The years pass on, I get interested in aviation. I listen to funny atc recordings on youtube, monitor local airport streams, and got back into radio communication. Then one day, I left the heavily populated area, and moved to a place much more quiet. I stopped listening to atc streams and started pursuing other passions. But, I was still in driving distance of a few areas that could spur up newsworthy events, so I installed a scanner on my phone and set alerts up on it. Great, now I can listen to a stream like the good old days....but I could only listen to one thing at a time.
This all leads up to recent events. My father bought a base scanner for $50. "Great deal," we both thought. I traveled the 2+ hours to help program it and get it setup. I look at the manual a bit, press a couple buttons, and bam....weather. It works!!! I press another button, and start hearing police. Score. Then my father utter's 3 words that have been the bane of my existence. "What about trunking?" Back to the manual I went to see how to program it. Looked up some frequencies and set it, and then made it scan. All we got was static whenever something came on. "Oh just have to lock it out" He gave me his old scanner, you know....the one from way back when, and a pc cable and sent me on my way. At least I could connect it to the computer and do it in a easier way, or so I thought.
I mentioned it was an old scanner right? It doesn't have a connection on it! The cable was for his other handheld, one much more up to date. So there I was, reading a manual online trying to figure it out. I went to program in the trunk frequencies when I noticed the magic letters "P25." All of a sudden, everything dawned on me. I pulled up the reference pages for the scanner I had, my father's base, and the other handheld. I look at everything and realize that most of what we had was junk for us! Only 1 of the 3 supported p25 phase I. The others were limited to motorola type I & II. Hours, then days, of research later, I figured it all out.
While I can't listen to exactly what I want to, I've managed to put the old scanner to a different use, listening to the ham repeaters! I've managed to snag one successfully so far and was enthralled by the conversation. They aren't extremely active, and a few might just not be in range(haven't checked physical locations), so I turned my sight upwards. It's been a short adventure so far, thus unsuccessful. I won't be giving up easily tho!
Onto my question:
My knowledge of connectors is sparse at best. I have a scanner(if you didn't read my intro) that has a bnc connection for its antenna. I'm looking into making a diy antenna, and all the plans I look at seem to use a coax connection. I've read that bnc and coax is basically the same, but I'd rather be safe and get it right the first time. Given the previous statement, am I to assume I can use them interchangeably via an adapter or a bnc end on the wire?
Cheers and I hope everyone has a great day!
