Posted: 9/14/2014 10:20:55 AM EDT
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I am in the market for a new scanner. My old Uniden can't do the new Trunking and Digital stuff the state police use. I want to buy a new one and can't make up my mind. I do know I want portable.
What are you guys using to listen? |
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Quoted:
I am in the market for a new scanner. My old Uniden can't do the new Trunking and Digital stuff the state police use. I want to buy a new one and can't make up my mind. I do know I want portable. What are you guys using to listen? Same issues here What's good and affordable? |
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I didn't realize that scanners were available that could follow a trunked system. My dept uses a trunked system. Police and fire have priority over street, parks, and the refuse dept.. I never looked into it, but I suppose that with todays technology, anything is programmable with the proper codes.
Even with priority, I've had problems getting a clear channel at times of heavy traffic. It sucks in an emergency situation. Mike |
| If I had the coin to throw down right now, I would get one of these. Pretty much the latest and greatest. I have a Uniden 396 XT I bought about a year ago and does good around my area. ETA: New London County... |
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I didn't realize that scanners were available that could follow a trunked system. My dept uses a trunked system. Police and fire have priority over street, parks, and the refuse dept.. I never looked into it, but I suppose that with todays technology, anything is programmable with the proper codes. Even with priority, I've had problems getting a clear channel at times of heavy traffic. It sucks in an emergency situation. Mike Trunked systems have been around for a while and can be monitored fairly easily. Some of the more sophisticated systems use a revolving control channel, but once you have the frequencies, it is pretty easy to change the settings in your scanner and listen. Many agencies are going to encrypted comms, which sucks, it is almost impossible to listen in on those. One of the biggest drawbacks of trunked systems is that you have multiple users, using a set number of frequencies in the system. Before, everyone had their own channel or a number of channels to use, with a dispatcher monitoring them all. Everyone could talk on their own frequency without interference and the dispatcher would hear it. In a trunked system everyone uses the same frequencies, depending on what channel is open at a given time. Say you have a six channel system. One is the controller, and there are five to use. PD is on one, Fire is on one, Public Works is on one, Shcools is on one, Building officials are on one, and the Ambulance needs one. The ambulance has to wait until a frequency is open, before they can talk. |
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I use a radio shack Pro-106. It was pretty inexpensive for a digital scanner($300 on sale), but it's out of production now. But it is a sonofabitch to program. You pretty much have to hook it up to a windows computer (lol no I'm 100% apple) , subscribe to the radio reference.com database,and learn a wacky way of thinking to get the damn thing to follow talk groups. I got mine working well, but I dread the days that the systems that follow change their trunking allocations.
Save yourself a ton of frustration and have a good dealer sell you the scanner pre-programmed, or get the uniden home patrol HP units. The unidens are much higher quality than the radio shack/ GRE units. I look at the RS/GRE units as disposable these days having gone through three in 7 years. But sales kept bringing me back. If the new unidens were out the times I was in the market, I'd get those. Well worth the price. These units pretty much load everything in the country right off the radio reference.com database and then run what is local to your GpS coordinates. Setup and adjustments are super easy compared to 5he RS/GRE stuff or non home patrol uniden stuff. Locally, Lentini in Newington are very good to deal with. They are not cheap, but they are experts with a well earned reputation. Outside of that, scannermaster.com out of cape cod is really good. Again, not cheap, but they will program and also provide mounts and external antennas and all that shit if that's your thing. There is another local shop in willimantic. They sell all of the flashing blue lights to whacker volunteer fire police and other public safety equipment. I bought a few antennas off of them. They seem pretty good. And their comms stuff is certainly aimed more at public safety, where as Lentini is mostly a HAM shop that also does some public safety stuff. Which makes sense as Marcus is the big fish in that little pond. |
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Trunked systems have been around for a while and can be monitored fairly easily. Some of the more sophisticated systems use a revolving control channel, but once you have the frequencies, it is pretty easy to change the settings in your scanner and listen. Many agencies are going to encrypted comms, which sucks, it is almost impossible to listen in on those. One of the biggest drawbacks of trunked systems is that you have multiple users, using a set number of frequencies in the system. Before, everyone had their own channel or a number of channels to use, with a dispatcher monitoring them all. Everyone could talk on their own frequency without interference and the dispatcher would hear it. In a trunked system everyone uses the same frequencies, depending on what channel is open at a given time. Say you have a six channel system. One is the controller, and there are five to use. PD is on one, Fire is on one, Public Works is on one, Shcools is on one, Building officials are on one, and the Ambulance needs one. The ambulance has to wait until a frequency is open, before they can talk. Quoted:
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I didn't realize that scanners were available that could follow a trunked system. My dept uses a trunked system. Police and fire have priority over street, parks, and the refuse dept.. I never looked into it, but I suppose that with todays technology, anything is programmable with the proper codes. Even with priority, I've had problems getting a clear channel at times of heavy traffic. It sucks in an emergency situation. Mike Trunked systems have been around for a while and can be monitored fairly easily. Some of the more sophisticated systems use a revolving control channel, but once you have the frequencies, it is pretty easy to change the settings in your scanner and listen. Many agencies are going to encrypted comms, which sucks, it is almost impossible to listen in on those. One of the biggest drawbacks of trunked systems is that you have multiple users, using a set number of frequencies in the system. Before, everyone had their own channel or a number of channels to use, with a dispatcher monitoring them all. Everyone could talk on their own frequency without interference and the dispatcher would hear it. In a trunked system everyone uses the same frequencies, depending on what channel is open at a given time. Say you have a six channel system. One is the controller, and there are five to use. PD is on one, Fire is on one, Public Works is on one, Shcools is on one, Building officials are on one, and the Ambulance needs one. The ambulance has to wait until a frequency is open, before they can talk. Anything encrypted can be decrypted........ 
I remember reading recently a out someone coming out with a commercial decoder for whatever that thing is that Motorola uses on a lot of their systems, and even could read the non-IP packet CAD data. Hell, back in the 80's my grandfather had a decoder for the old "Donald Duck" voice inversion devices when the townies were all VHF. But then again, he got a lot of neat things in the LE realm. |
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I'd recommend the BCD436HP by Uniden or the WS1040 by Whistler. The WS1040 is a bit cheaper.
There are a few places where you can buy these but as a few have noted below you'll probably want to get this pre-programmed which you can do here. Full disclosure - I work at Zip Scanner. Feel free to reach out to us for anything. Cheers |
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I want one that can pick up the Connecticut State Police. Will the BCD436XT pick up the CSP?
Otherwise the rest of the stuff I want I can get with my old Uniden BC200XLT. @Zap. Thanks for the info. The Whistler 1040 seems like the equivalent of the BCD396XT and the 1080 matches the BCD436HP? |
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I want one that can pick up the Connecticut State Police. Will the BCD436XT pick up the CSP? Otherwise the rest of the stuff I want I can get with my old Uniden BC200XLT. @Zap. Thanks for the info. The Whistler 1040 seems like the equivalent of the BCD396XT and the 1080 matches the BCD436HP? No You need a digital scanner Next rung up the ladder |
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I get some CSP down here in New London County. Mostly just traffic, every now and then I will get something from the casino units. For the most part its pretty quiet.
Go to this Broadcastify Link, there are a bunch of CSP scanners online you can listen to. I would check the ones out in your area before investing in a digital scanner. Perhaps the online ones will suit your needs. |
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Matt the BCD436hp is the top rung for Uniden. Say digital trunking in specs. Does anyone monitor the state police? I must had been looking at the wrong item. Yeah any digital should hear them. I have them on now. Digital is weird to listen to. As long as you have one of the troop transmitters near you, you should be able to hear quite a bit. But it depends on what talk groups are active and they change assignments randomly. Sometimes you can hear stuff simulcast from all over the state, but mostly local. are you familiar with https://www.radioreference.com this sub forum will give you a better idea of listening issues in CT. http://forums.radioreference.com/connecticut-radio-discussion-forum/ |
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I must had been looking at the wrong item. Yeah any digital should hear them. I have them on now. Digital is weird to listen to. As long as you have one of the troop transmitters near you, you should be able to hear quite a bit. But it depends on what talk groups are active and they change assignments randomly. Sometimes you can hear stuff simulcast from all over the state, but mostly local. are you familiar with https://www.radioreference.com this sub forum will give you a better idea of listening issues in CT. http://forums.radioreference.com/connecticut-radio-discussion-forum/ Quoted:
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Matt the BCD436hp is the top rung for Uniden. Say digital trunking in specs. Does anyone monitor the state police? I must had been looking at the wrong item. Yeah any digital should hear them. I have them on now. Digital is weird to listen to. As long as you have one of the troop transmitters near you, you should be able to hear quite a bit. But it depends on what talk groups are active and they change assignments randomly. Sometimes you can hear stuff simulcast from all over the state, but mostly local. are you familiar with https://www.radioreference.com this sub forum will give you a better idea of listening issues in CT. http://forums.radioreference.com/connecticut-radio-discussion-forum/ I have gotten frequencies off the site but did not realize there are forums. I just do not want to drop $500 to find I can't listen to anything other than what I get with my old bc200xlt. |
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I have gotten frequencies off the site but did not realize there are forums. I just do not want to drop $500 to find I can't listen to anything other than what I get with my old bc200xlt. Quoted:
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Matt the BCD436hp is the top rung for Uniden. Say digital trunking in specs. Does anyone monitor the state police? I must had been looking at the wrong item. Yeah any digital should hear them. I have them on now. Digital is weird to listen to. As long as you have one of the troop transmitters near you, you should be able to hear quite a bit. But it depends on what talk groups are active and they change assignments randomly. Sometimes you can hear stuff simulcast from all over the state, but mostly local. are you familiar with https://www.radioreference.com this sub forum will give you a better idea of listening issues in CT. http://forums.radioreference.com/connecticut-radio-discussion-forum/ I have gotten frequencies off the site but did not realize there are forums. I just do not want to drop $500 to find I can't listen to anything other than what I get with my old bc200xlt. There are reviews too. The digital scanners WILL pick up CSP. Some are easier to use than others. But they all are best by getting a membership and downloading directly from the database. You don't want to even think about trying to key in trunked talk groups in digital. Again, the "HP" Home Patrol units are worth it. Watch the video clips on youtube. Really couldn't get any easier. |
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Pulled the trigger last night on a Uniden BCD436HP. I hope it works well. Reviews seem to be mostly very positive. If it works my old scanner goes on eBay to recover some cash. 
You'll be pretty happy. The sensitivity improvements since the old BC200XLT are amazing. Offer the old one to Modrapos. He needs one for the shop. He's always bugging me for updates. Scanners tend to hold their value fairly well, so don't undercut yourself. I have an older 90's Uniden SC150 that people pay a lot for because the things can still pick up the old "cellular" band, before it was made illegal to make scanners that could pick that up. LOL Pre-ban Scanner, no shit.  But there is no more cell traffic on that band, and hasn't been for almost 10 years.
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