I suddenly have a boat anchor in Lawton with my portable police scanner since it will not scan the new digital 800 MHz freqs.
I see that all the usual players like Uniden and Radio Shack make them but does anyone have one that they particularly like? I'll probably still want a portable hand held with my ties to E911.
Sounds like you really need a lot of channels with the way 800 operates and changes freqs daily sometimes.
But my old hand held is in perfect shape but just will not do 800 so if anyone is in an area that still uses the 29-512 MHz frequencies then it's free for the asking when I replace it with a new model.
It still works with some local agencies so I'll not get rid of it until I find a suitable replacement.
uniden. and radio shack units are usually re-badged unidens.
are you sure you need digital, or just trunking?
Maybe trunking is the term I should have used. I just know that it needs to be able to scan the 800 MHz range for our police/fire/rescue channels.
I'm really not sure what all the specs mean.
Deral:
IF you buy a trunking scanner, make sure the county/metro area you live in is not scheduled to be "rebanded". This only applies to certain types of trunking systems, but you have to be careful. If you don't ask that question, you may have another boat anchor when the municipality is rebanded.
If the trunking system is scheduled to be rebanded, make sure you buy the right scanner.
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=2143
Looks like Lawton is on a Motorola Type II Smartzone system, so, trunking but not necessarily digital. One of the Unidens ought to work, and the newer ones support rebanding.
Target and Locked. Thanks so much. Our state just went to the 800 system and we had lots of radio guys supporting our E911 so I concentrated on getting the mobile phone stuff working for locations. I should have paid more attention to the radios.
I really appreciate the information and help.
I'll chime in with my 2 cents worth.. Although I don't know anything about scanners I do know about boat anchors, and unless it's a major base station radio weighing more that 10 lbs it's not going to work as an anchor.
And, without flukes it's going to have to be buried for any holding power.
I'm recommending that you not use it as an anchor!!
Don
Deral:
One more thought: You may want to consider buying the scanner locally, because most of the time the trunking system is "preloaded" into the scanner. You may find something $50 bucks cheaper on the net, but believe me, you'll appreciate having the frequencies preloaded. The talk groups you don't want can then simply be deleted or locked out.
Thanks Target for that. I always purchase locally but I had not thought about them preloading up all the stuff.
The Unidens come pre-loaded, but the programming can be clunky and out of date.
I use a BC246T handheld and a BCT15X base/mobile. There is free software called, appropriately, FreeScan, which will load data from the RadioReference.com database straight into the Unidens. Then you can tweak according to taste and local conditions.
The BCT15X can accept NMEA data from a handheld GPS via serial port, and then do all the button pushing for you (i.e. change talk groups and locks outs based on your location). It accepts a lat/long and a radius for each channel/talkgroup/trunk system and turns things on and off as you travel. Very useful. I wound up making a big CAD drawing for several counties' area and using the 2pt and 3pt circle functions in CAD to figure out the best fit locations and radii. We have a county wide 800mhz trunking system with a bunch of little municipalities within it on their own talk groups or older 150mhz or 400mhz systems, so just to drive 10 miles to school I would cross 3 different jurisdictions, and more like 5 or 6 to cross the city for an LSAW meeting. Some days just hearing what's happening can save an hour or more of stop & go in a traffic jam as you hop off the freeway onto back streets.
Great post Half, Good info.
TNX 1.0E6 Half.
Deral: I have been using a Uniden BC246T (Trunk Tracker III) for a number of years. I use ARC246 from Butel ( http://www.butel.nl/) to load the radio, and get frequencies from radioreference.com. Since I travel a lot, that makes it easy to get local freqs.
I recently THOUGHT that I lost the radio. So, I bought a newer model, BC346T, that basically does the same thing. Then, last week, I found the old one. One difference is that the BC346T has a "close call" function, where if you are close to a transmitter it can pick that out because of the high power.
Anyway, if you want to make me an offer on the old one, let me know.
Just let me know John. For sure.
It does do all the 800 stuff though?
Why are you scanning for emergencies! I have so many of my own I couldn't possibly deal with more!
(Sorry - couldn't resist!)
BTW there are a lot of scanner websites that stream audio from police/fire/etc.
Comanche County via RadioReference.com
Check for an app for your phone I use Scanner Radio
Don't have a smart phone Blake. I just want to keep up with our local stuff and know when to log onto our emergency website when needed or to be able to go to the field with mobile maps and such and follow along and see where help is needed.
They have an app for your Ipad
Scanner Radio for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store
Dang. This has been a most informative day. Thanks all.
http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=bc246t
Give me a call if you are interested
412-341-5620 (on NGS webinar for next couple of hours IF they get started!)
