manufacturers of digital scanners

[Elinor McLennon]

Are the only digital scanners available the uniden model at approx. $500 and the radio shack model approx. $499 the only ones available on the market.

Also, how long until the analog scanners are obsolete? I think OKC police still simulcast somewhat with analog....at least for now.....i pick up some of their traffic.

Bottom line....if you don;t own a scanner is it worth getting an analog at this point....if you found one at a good price?

I guess I am also a bit confused about who will go digital in the near future?
All police/fire/ems, etc?

Then here's my last concern: some of the emergency frequencies are encrypted....does this mean that in the near future alot of emergency frequencies will be encrypted and digital will be obsolete.

I have read alot on here about scanners but I'm still a bit confused.

How is all of this going to affect ham radios?

Sorry about the ignorance and I'd truly appreciate some insight.

 

[Robert Bone]

Elinor,

You can find lots of information on this at: http://www.radioreference.com on their main page, in their forum and on their Wiki page. There is even a lot of information on the OKC system if you look through the Oklahoma forum there. Not too much is encrypted yet, but things are heading that way. Most of EMSAs traffic is digital/encrypted now. I don't know a lot about the City of OKC system but I don't think you'll be able to listen to much of it on anything currently available on the consumer market. Hope this helps.

 

[Elinor McLennon]

Thanks.....thought about visiting some local pawn shops......they say people are bringing in everything lately to help pay for gas. I guess something is better than nothing for now. I just can't stomach 500.00 and up for a scanner.

 

[david diehl]

The digital system that law/fire/EMS is using will not affect amature radio, however there is now digital radios for ham.

Count yourself lucky that you can use the digital scanners. My area is going to the Open Sky system, Uses frequencies in the cellular band. so no scanner available for quite some time for that