Posted: 11/21/2010 4:15:22 PM EDT
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What does the Hive Mind think the best bang for the buck is?
$100–––––– $200–––––– $300–––––– and why? |
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Ask in the ham radio forum.
There are basic scanners, trunking scanners, and digital scanners. Look on radioreference.com to figure out which one you need. Radio Shack has $100 off their scanners for black friday, so figure fast. Get a handheld, don't get a desk mounted one. This is the opposite of ham radio, where handhelds are hind tit. Power in a scanner is completely meaningless, so go with portability. |
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FYI, the Radio Shack Black Friday scanner sale is on right now, and they have $100 off the PRO-106 and PRO-197, which are the same thing as the GRE PSR-500 and PSR-600, respectively. For $299, they are tough to beat and can do nearly anything you would ever ask a scanner to do.
Edit to add link: http://www.radioshack.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=2032072&pg=2 |
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Weighing in at $500, but I recommend the Uniden Home Patrol, especially for someone who is not used to wading the complications of tracking down frequency information and button mashing or software for programming.
It holds the entire DB from Radio Reference in it. It can be updated via firmware and database updates over the web. The interface is really intuitive. No programming! Runs on AAs Can use a GPS to determine what channels to load. I had one for a couple of weeks, but returned it because I got lousy reception of the things I wanted to listen to (DC Metro police) in my new apartment (not the radio's fault). I listened to it every night in Seattle, and it performed really well. |
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Quoted: Weighing in at $500, but I recommend the Uniden Home Patrol, especially for someone who is not used to wading the complications of tracking down frequency information and button mashing or software for programming. It holds the entire DB from Radio Reference in it. It can be updated via firmware and database updates over the web. The interface is really intuitive. No programming! Runs on AAs Can use a GPS to determine what channels to load. I had one for a couple of weeks, but returned it because I got lousy reception of the things I wanted to listen to (DC Metro police) in my new apartment (not the radio's fault). I listened to it every night in Seattle, and it performed really well. How was battery life? |
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I did something a little different. I bought a cheap android tablet ($159) running android 2.1 and installed a scanner radio app on it. As long as I have wifi access, I can stream scanner radio audio from all over the country. I velcroed it to the wall in my shed, and turn it on while working on projects out there. |
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Problem with those is that they have very limited source material. This one is pretty nice. Gets 2300 feeds around the world. http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/entertainment/scanner-radio_gler.html |
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What kind of chatter can you get from a scanner these days, the last time i had a scanner everything could be heard but ten years later a friend told me they are pretty much useless.
Are scanners still a usefull tool today I picked one up on a whim a few years ago (Cheap handheld radio shack model) and I couldnt get it to pick up anything.Curious about getting a good one if they are usefull? |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Weighing in at $500, but I recommend the Uniden Home Patrol, especially for someone who is not used to wading the complications of tracking down frequency information and button mashing or software for programming. It holds the entire DB from Radio Reference in it. It can be updated via firmware and database updates over the web. The interface is really intuitive. No programming! Runs on AAs Can use a GPS to determine what channels to load. I had one for a couple of weeks, but returned it because I got lousy reception of the things I wanted to listen to (DC Metro police) in my new apartment (not the radio's fault). I listened to it every night in Seattle, and it performed really well. How was battery life? I had mine at work and it ran about 10 hours till the battery warning popped up. I've owned the unit for about a month |
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Thanks |
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Quoted: What kind of chatter can you get from a scanner these days, the last time i had a scanner everything could be heard but ten years later a friend told me they are pretty much useless. Are scanners still a usefull tool today I picked one up on a whim a few years ago (Cheap handheld radio shack model) and I couldnt get it to pick up anything.Curious about getting a good one if they are usefull? CT is still mostly non-encrypted, but the larger agencies are digital many local PDs, FDs, are still analog the "hotline" that is used to communicate between agencies is still analog |
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you need to post this in the HAM Radio forum. so if I post it over there will you have an answer? No, I don't have any scanners I gave up on them and decided to get my HAM license, but there are a group of guys over there that are scanner experts. |
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Quoted:
FYI, the Radio Shack Black Friday scanner sale is on right now, and they have $100 off the PRO-106 and PRO-197, which are the same thing as the GRE PSR-500 and PSR-600, respectively. For $299, they are tough to beat and can do nearly anything you would ever ask a scanner to do. Edit to add link: http://www.radioshack.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=2032072&pg=2 Just heads up, the online sale price for this has dropped to $249 through 12/11/10 if anyone missed out on the Black Friday deal. |
| Make sure you get a trunking one, if not its useless. I made that mistake and took it back asap. I got the triple trunking one from Radio shack for $199. Works great, love it. Scanners are a crucial piece of survival gear IMHO. If something is happening you will hear it, its amazing what you can hear. And mine has weather as well, so in a heartbeat I can check weather. |
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Make sure you get a trunking one, if not its useless. I made that mistake and took it back asap. I got the triple trunking one from Radio shack for $199. Works great, love it. Scanners are a crucial piece of survival gear IMHO. If something is happening you will hear it, its amazing what you can hear. And mine has weather as well, so in a heartbeat I can check weather. eTh, make sure you have it set up to receive your local RACES/Skywarn amateur radio repeaters. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=repeat Those are where tornado spotting skywarn folks usually work in Tarrant and Dallas counties, so if you listen to those, you'll hear severe weather reports minutes before they appear on local news, if they get there at all. |
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Quoted:
Make sure you get a trunking one, if not its useless. I made that mistake and took it back asap. I got the triple trunking one from Radio shack for $199. Works great, love it. Scanners are a crucial piece of survival gear IMHO. If something is happening you will hear it, its amazing what you can hear. And mine has weather as well, so in a heartbeat I can check weather. That all depends on location. Around here the only trunked agencies are Asheville PD and NCSHP- neither of which are on my "must listen" list. I actually just opened the $12 ebay win Radio Shack PRO-36 scanner. Older than dirt, but dead simple to run, and 20 channels is enough to cover most of what is here. I have much higher end stuff, but a cheap analog unit has its place. This one will be a loaner, but for someone who lives in my county it would be more than suffcient for most users. |