Radio Scanners

[nshif]

Thinking of buying one, anyone have any sugesttions? looking to moniter hyway patrol. sheriff, cal fire, USFS. And local fire. around here most time its a mutual respose. looking at a bearcat bct8. any thoughts? Thx in advance

 

[kbrown]

Do you know the operating freq's of those departments? My thought was to make sure that the scanner will receive them as most will operate on an 800mhz trunking system. That means you may only get one side of the dispatch as each can be carried on a different freq but within a given trunk system assigned to that department. Here in SE Mich that has been the problem because as departments moved to the 800, most scanners can't receive that now. Bearcat is good; we use one in our fire department dispatch to monitor our PD and neighboring FD's who have moved to the 800 system.

 

[nshif]

The Bear Cat im looking at is a trunking system and 800mhz so I think Im ok there, and yes I can get the local freqs

 

[flyingcow]

I have the BC8 in my trailer truck. Had a BC7 years ago and the buttons wore out and had to replace with the new BC8. the 7 outperforms the 8 reception wise. Hooked into same antennas and everything. But I digress, I've had good luck with the 8 monitoring about anything out there. I mainly use during the winter months, helps pinpoint problems ahead. Anytime there is a fender bender and everyone has a cell phone to report where they are, works great. It's a valuable tool for me in the winter, don't run without one.
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Get bored and listen to the troopers and their daily grind, makes you appreciate them more. Oh yeah, when they're talking car to car, Slow Down, the troopers up here can go on their local car to car channel and talk only about 3 miles apart.

 

[SlyFerret]

I've had a Radio Shack Pro-93 for years now. It's been a trusty companion, and it still gets used every day while I'm at work. I don't use it at home any more because the county sheriff and the local PD have both upgraded their trunked radio system to use digital voice channels, so my analog scanner doesn't do me any good around the house.

I've had my eye on the Pro-106 over at Radio Shack for a while now. The Pro-106 fixed some of the issues from it's predecessor, the Pro-96, Radio Shack's first digital capable trunk tracker. One of the biggest things they fixed, in my opinion, is the audio quality on the digital channels. It is significantly improved.

All of the Radio Shack scanners are manufactured for them by GRE.

I haven't bought a Pro-106 yet because I haven't been able to justify the price for a digital scanner. Maybe for Christmas... ;o)

-SF

 

[stee6043]

Have you looked online for "free" scanner streams?

I listen to this all the time - free - www.scanmichigan.com

For local scanner channels check out www.scanamerica.us

I resorted to the online stuff after seeing the price on the trunking scanners. The day of the $30 Uniden police scanner from Radio Shack are long gone. Sad...

 

[flyingcow]

Have you looked online for "free" scanner streams?

I listen to this all the time - free - www.scanmichigan.com

For local scanner channels check out www.scanamerica.us

I resorted to the online stuff after seeing the price on the trunking scanners. The day of the $30 Uniden police scanner from Radio Shack are long gone. Sad...

neat site, kinda limited for my state, but can hear it very well.

 

[nshif]

Have you looked online for "free" scanner streams?

I listen to this all the time - free - www.scanmichigan.com

For local scanner channels check out www.scanamerica.us

I resorted to the online stuff after seeing the price on the trunking scanners. The day of the $30 Uniden police scanner from Radio Shack are long gone. Sad...

good site, thanks but a little limited here, lots of good info though. I wont say price is no object but not to big of a deal, its just money i saved burning wood! LOL

 

[fbelec]

Have you looked online for "free" scanner streams?

I listen to this all the time - free - www.scanmichigan.com

For local scanner channels check out www.scanamerica.us

I resorted to the online stuff after seeing the price on the trunking scanners. The day of the $30 Uniden police scanner from Radio Shack are long gone. Sad...

thank you. scanamerica nice site.
i used to listen all the time. i always had the scanner going until last dec running my generator it stopped working. the display says (000000) and thats it. it was a small radio shack. long long time ago i had a bearcat and a regency. don't know if regency is around any more. those were crystal type. picked up well. the rad shack did well but not as good as the old crystal type.

 

[SlyFerret]

Another fantastic site is: http://www.radioreference.com/

-SF

 

[BrotherBart]

Ah yes. Scanners. I decided I wanted one years ago and went and bought a pretty tricked out Uniden. Set it up in my shop and within the hour, while I was working on something, it picked up a portable phone conversation where one of my married neighbors was talking to her boyfriend. VERY graphic conversation that was. :red:

I still have to chuckle when I run into her on an evening walk in the hood twenty years later.

 

[nshif]

Another fantastic site is: http://www.radioreference.com/

-SF

Looks to be the same site as scan america

 

[fossil]

Had an old Sony Air-8, left over from my days as a student pilot. Cool little radio. Used to listen to the Virginia State Police in my workshop when I lived in Fairfax. I happened to be listening to that radio on 9/11 when the third plane went into the Pentagon. (I lived just about 10 miles west of there, and had worked in the building '95-'98). After that, the trunking systems proliferated, and my little old Sony was outdated, so I sold it on eBay and upgraded to a Uniden of some ilk. I'm sure it's very capable, but I haven't even turned it on out here in Oregon. Too much else to do. Rick