Right - it's not my first scanner and is an apple-to-oranges kind of thing compared to my 996 and 396 - and others.
Power: Fluke meter says it sips about 130ma squelched, and up to about 250ma for full-blast unsquelched / signal audio. So easy to power with whatever you have around - 8-10 AA case, small AGM batteries etc etc for portable use.
My need was basically to monitor a local amateur 927 mhz repeater. Let's just say I'm totally impressed with the front end compared to some other more expensive scanners at 3 times the price, that um, left me whistling in the dark.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much but am totally surprised at how well it has been holding up at home and mobile here in L.A.
Triple conversion, and I'm assuming a nice selection of bandpass filters. Wish I knew what they are.
Of course there are limits if you want to push it, but I'm not going there.
METAL case when I expected plastic (aside from the front-panel of course). Popped it open and saw some great build quality, good solder (especially critical with the ROHS requirement), and even some electrolytics that I might change out to non-polarized types if I feel bored and want to improve the audio a tad (yes, even scanners deserve non-polarized caps, metal-film resistors on the dc-rails and audio circuits - but that's me.
Most of my use will be pre-programming the "private" bank. Since the Marine freqs are not in use in my area, I locked out about 75 of them and use that as a secondary private bank so to speak. I suppose I could lock out all the Marine for a scan speedup on that bank. I haven't timed how much of a speedup I get when I lock out all the Marine channels. Am careful to make sure I toggle JUST the marine bank when I want my secondary faux-private bank active.
Audio power - It's ok, but sure wish there was more. Face down against a surface it acts much like weaker laptop speakers that rely on a reflective surface underneath. Time for an external speaker, especially mobile.
Still, the scanner seems so "cute", I love having it in use - with realistic expectations. The front end at 800/900 mhz blows me away though. I'm very happy and having a blast. Should have picked one up years ago.
Power: Fluke meter says it sips about 130ma squelched, and up to about 250ma for full-blast unsquelched / signal audio. So easy to power with whatever you have around - 8-10 AA case, small AGM batteries etc etc for portable use.
My need was basically to monitor a local amateur 927 mhz repeater. Let's just say I'm totally impressed with the front end compared to some other more expensive scanners at 3 times the price, that um, left me whistling in the dark.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much but am totally surprised at how well it has been holding up at home and mobile here in L.A.Triple conversion, and I'm assuming a nice selection of bandpass filters. Wish I knew what they are.
Of course there are limits if you want to push it, but I'm not going there.
METAL case when I expected plastic (aside from the front-panel of course). Popped it open and saw some great build quality, good solder (especially critical with the ROHS requirement), and even some electrolytics that I might change out to non-polarized types if I feel bored and want to improve the audio a tad (yes, even scanners deserve non-polarized caps, metal-film resistors on the dc-rails and audio circuits - but that's me.
Most of my use will be pre-programming the "private" bank. Since the Marine freqs are not in use in my area, I locked out about 75 of them and use that as a secondary private bank so to speak. I suppose I could lock out all the Marine for a scan speedup on that bank. I haven't timed how much of a speedup I get when I lock out all the Marine channels. Am careful to make sure I toggle JUST the marine bank when I want my secondary faux-private bank active.
Audio power - It's ok, but sure wish there was more. Face down against a surface it acts much like weaker laptop speakers that rely on a reflective surface underneath. Time for an external speaker, especially mobile.
Still, the scanner seems so "cute", I love having it in use - with realistic expectations. The front end at 800/900 mhz blows me away though. I'm very happy and having a blast. Should have picked one up years ago.
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