Need scanner advice

[Jesse Risley]

If you're going to get a 2 meter rig, I would suggest the Icom IC-V8000, which has 75 watts of transmit power should you choose to pursue the ham license. It has three modes of scan and will monitor all VHF chase frequencies. As I previously stated, two meter rigs generally will not receive UHF or 800 MHz public safety frequencies, but most dual band (2m/70cm) ham rigs will.

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/fm_txvrs/4080.html

 

[Damon Poole]

Yes definitely you'd do well to go digital. APCO 25 trunking systems are popping up all over the place. In Arkansas, there is AWIN which handles much Emergency traffic, including Emergency Management. There are still many non-APCO-25 systems out there, but APCO is increasing, especially as agencies develop interoperability, or the ability to talk between different agencies on different frequencies.

 

[Darren Stephens]

Is programming a scanner with your computer very difficult? I have never seen this done. It looks like if you have the frequencies from one of the many scanner websites you just plug them in, upload and start scanning, right? Or would cloning a buddies scanner be a better option?

 

[Jesse Risley]

Is programming a scanner with your computer very difficult? I have never seen this done. It looks like if you have the frequencies from one of the many scanner websites you just plug them in, upload and start scanning, right? Or would cloning a buddies scanner be a better option?

It's not hard if you're computer saavy and familiar with the software. For folks who have never used a computer to program radios, it can be confusing. If you have a buddy that has what you want to listen to, clone the baby for the sake of simplicity.

 

[Eric Friedebach]

If you want to stay away from programming a scanner, you might consider a pre-programmed one that has all the public service frequencies already entered in. Just select your State and the service you want to scan. I have a Uniden BCT7 that does this.

The BCT15 that replaced it is even more advanced, with trunking capability (although not APCO 25).