I got mine on monday, and have been playing with it non stop
today I heard my first "armed and dangerous" call. some guy stole some guns from his parent's. later today I heard an update, they determined he has a 9mm and .30-06 and hasn't been caught yet
also have heard about accidents, and then 20 minutes later heard on the AM radio that there is a traffic backup, so I can see the use that will have in the car

this is the only thing I find odd. cellular bands are blocked, in part due to it being illegal to listen in on phone calls, but the 900mhz range is open. without even really trying I've heard parts of 3 phone conversations from people with cordless phones.
why do they block one range but not the other?

In a word: "Congress".  Cordless phones are rather short-distance.  They didn't worry much about that.  But cellular phones are more widely heard.  Congress passesd the law to keep people from recording their crap and turning it over to the news.

Not too many people use analog phones now anyway.  Most of the original "blocked" cell band is now unused.

Stupid short term law.  Digital Scrambling was the best way, not passing a law.

so whats a good scanner for a begginer i always wanted one.

Because cellular communications fall under a different regulation than cordless phones.  Cordless phones are Part 15 devices, which means A) you have to accept interference from higher-priority services, B) they're power-limited, and C) the extent of the "legal protection" you have is that as a listener, you're not supposed to divulge what you hear to a third party..but it's legal to listen.  Not so with a cellular phone call.

I got the radio shack pro95. seems pretty good. supposedly RS will program it for free right now in store, but I read some newsgroup posts saying that was hit or miss as most stores have clueless employees, so I used a free program called Win95 to do it.
the website I got my frequency list from
nf2g.com/scannist/index.html
says that in a car in NY if you are a licensed amature radio operator or a cop you can have one. well, my ham license came in the mail monday about an hour before the scanner arrived. so I'm good to go

i got a "armed and dangerous" one but it whas not on a scaner! it two truckers who where talking about a lot of cop cars and one of them had a scaner and there whas a guy yelling for the other oficers to get down and retrurn fire to a black guy who had shot up a house with a pistol but you coud hear the gun shots whle they where yelling

Yeah, cellular is in the high 800MHz range.  That's analog cellular. The digital ones are up around 2.5GHz I think?  Doesn't matter, most of the new stuff is digital/spread spectrum anyway now so even if you could pick it up on the scanner it wouldn't make any sense.  I think pretty much anything except the strictly cellular bands are fair game.  

the only drawback I've found so far in the pro95 is that the frequencies for TV audio are blocked, as well as AM and FM radio stations. when I get around to getting a ham unit though I shoud be able to find one that covers those frequencies

What brand name and model is it?
Can you scan aircraft bands?

If so wait till you start getting in to the military freqs!
I lesson to refueling and bombing missions all the time, cool Sh!t!.

The scanner is always on in my house!



Try these Freqs
311.00-384.00 MHz- Military aircraft
225.00-287.80 MHz- same
108.00-136.98 MHz- Civilian aircraft

Just do a scan trough those freqs and see what you get.

it'll do aircraft, not sure to what extent(edit, looks like just civilian, the military range listed is blocked). next time I go to the mall (in the flight path of the airport, don't tell the terrorists as the planes get really low due to the runway being a mile or so from the mall) I plan on taking the scanner and sitting in the parking lot

it's  Radioshack Pro95, not sure which company actually made it for them

Quoted: it'll do aircraft, not sure ot what extent. next time I go to the mall (in the flight path of the airport, don't tell the terrorists as the planes get really low due to the runway being a mile or so from the mall) I plan on taking the scanner and sitting in the parking lot it's  Radioshack Pro95, not sure which company actually made it for them

Because the aircraft frequencies are more or less "line of sight" you should be able to get in the aircraft transmissions if you are anywhere near the airport (I can pick up jets coming into the area and I'm probably 40 miles from Seatac) because the jets are way up in the sky, but you might not be able to pick up the tower, if you are too far away or if there are mountains in the way.  I can hardly tell what the pilots are saying anyway, they mumble everything!!

Good scanner!
My Dad is a director for a military scanning forum. It's called Mil-Com. check it out.

almost forgot
around 5 I went to arby's for their bacon cheddar melt, damn good
anyway, on the drive home I heard that there was a van on the highway that was weaving around. dispatch was talking to onstar from the car behind the van. thought that was funny

How long ago did they start making scanners that block certain frequencies anyway?

Been blocking cell since shortly after they came out, I'm thinking I remember blocking as early as 90 or so.

Most scanners aren't purposefully blocked except for cell these days.  In the past the technology and costs was such that  the receiver was made to listen to various bands that carried the signals most listeners wanted, business band, RR, Marine band.  Receivers today  are wide band enough that you can basically go from the lowest to the very highest in one unit.

Where you may find shortcomings are that Aircraft  Bands are still analog AM signals (I think) and most other scanner listened to signals are some kind of FM, and the wide band receivers are susceptible to getting overloaded by  powerful signals, they are sometimes made to reject broadcast band signals.  In other words a radio that is designed to pluck a very minimal  strength from a 5-50 watt transmitter is likely to get a little testy when exposed to a 50,000watt radio or TV station.  Plus a lot of the newwer Police/Fire/gummint radios are digital encrypted that scanners can't handle.

But (and this is a sore subject , not unlike local/state gun control) nominally Federal law says you can listen to anything  except cell phones, you cant divulge to 3rd parties or use for illegal purposes.  States and Counties and some cities have made local laws against scanners or certain other radios and/or mobile use.  Those laws generally fail when appealed to higher courts and/or are not rigorously enforced.  Easiest way to get around them is to get your Ham ticket, almost all the restrictions exempt Hams.  Amateur radio is clearly regulated by the Feds and so any local restrictions are almost immediately struck down .

You can get a unblocked receiver if you have it exported to another country and they send it back to you but this is illegal. All my scanners go back to 1987 in manufacture so nothing is bypassed. I also have the ICOM PCR1000 that is PC controlled via Serial port and that is pretty slick too but it does have cellular block out. I buy my stuff from Universal_radio.com. They have a very good selection of serious receivers and scanners if your into that stuff.


ed: Note on my Radio Shack scanner, clipping a resistor was all that was required to unblock the cell band. Bill Cheek has a book on scanner mods and what is required on certain models to unlock the cell band. This only applied to earlier versions of scanners though because the old ones where too easy to bypass

I am a big fan of Uniden scanners. As far as the model, it depends on the intended use. For instance, if you want one only for the home, go with a base model and get an external (mounted outside the home antenna). The antenna is a must if in more rural areas. Also, if you live in a more populated area, a 300 channel scanner might be the best option. On the other hand, less channels may be needed if in a rural area. Find out whether or not there are trunked systems in use in your area and if so, get a scanner with trunk tracking ability. And if you intend to use it on the go, get a portable model.