Scanner or GPS

[YTCD]

For my personal christmas present I'm going on black friday to get a GPS for a good price. But I recently thought how bad I've wanted a Scanner, and am trying to figure out if I should get a GPS unit or a Digital Scanner. And the problem is nobody is going to put a scanner on sale. And I was looking at spending less than 500 dollars. So i'm in a crunch trying to figure out what I should get

[AirMoore]

Well they are for two totally different things (as you well know), so its all what you are into it for?



Personally if you don't have any GPS I would say go with that. Its not only useful for countermeasure applications, but in general it is SUCH a help (though not an all-out replacement) for a map...


Its such a useful device, it really is. (A GPS) on so many levels.


I am not a huge scanner buff, but I think more and more LEO departments are going digi-encrypted style, so picking them up is out of most peoples league. Though they do seem to be a cool device to have, I would suggest a GPS before a scanner any-day.

[bmrboy41]

agree on the gps, just load it red light cameras and speed traps

[Motor On]

The following is assuming you're looking for a gadget for fun, rather than an outright countermeasure.

If you're doing a lot of cross country travel, get the GPS, the POIs of fuel, food, etc and ability to enter addresses make it worth while. If you stay within the same 200mi geographic area and your sense of direction isn't horrific then get the scanner.

You can find something like this for right at $500 with a little searching, setup with RaidoRefrence and software for your local frequencies and a little google search should get you the codes pretty easily. I set my "banks" up by county (police fire businesses mixed) and break the state police into slightly larger areas over a few (3-4 banks) and setup one for aircraft listening and one that's got the FRS and CB type channels. With the supplied rubber duck 20min on the computer for setup you'll be pulling in all the comms for 5-15mi, down the road you can pickup a car adaptor and antenna (the higher freq scanner andtenna's are really subtle, esp compared to the CB options) but even just sitting in the cup holder running on batteries you'll get over 20hrs scan time, know about accidents when they happen (traffic savior when the snow storms hit) and you can just as easily pull it into the house, know what the fire truck going down the road is responding to, listen to the underage kids having a party down the street get busted, the lazyness of the department store employees trying to pull for the early lunchbreak, airshows getting called out, busy airport operations, military operations if you're in the right place, even the VASCAR and speed details and the PD car to car channels and if you listen closely you'll even stumble across those humorous "slip ups" Scanning like RDs is rapidly a hobby unto itself, a little learning in the begining ad it can be a wealth of entertainment.

I've a mobile/base 996t and a handheld radioshack 164 I much prefer the Uniden layout and use with the computer, the RS seems to be better with slow keypad programming which I decided was impossible with the uniden. A digital trunking handheld wouldbe ideal IMO (And RR thread on digital handhelds Portable Digital Scanner Purchase - GRE PSR 500 vs RS Pro 96 vs Uniden BCD396 - The RadioReference.com Forums)

GPS is an upgrade of tools, scanning is a hobby unto itself. I vote scanner barring the aforementioned caveat.

[YTCD]

Yeah i was lookin at the Uniden digital trunking scanner, but also was looking at the handheld. Which is easiest to use and you would say is better wise factoring in the stuff you give up for handheld and the same for trunking?

[bkrell]

If you really get to enjoying scanning, you may feel inhibited by a base/mobile style unit. With a handheld, you scanner is always with you.

But really, this is an apples and oranges decision. A GPS is a much more useful piece of equipment in a car than a scanner. But a scanner is neat to listen to, especially in an urban environment with lots of fire/ems/police action. State police/highway stuff is, I'd have to say, the least interesting thing on my scanner. Having a scanner running in the city, though, is like having Rescue 911 and COPS on 24/7. The crap you hear is amazing.

But with a GPS, you have a countermeasure tool if you really need it. But you also have instant access to any route you could think of to anywhere you want to go. No more writing down stupid directions, just get an address. Or, heck, if you have a good POI database, you don't need an address for anything commercial or public.

If I had to pick one or the other for driving, I'd say GPS. I love the ETA feature more than anything on mine. Gives me an idea if I need to speed up or just keep crusing along.

But if I had to pick one to have around at home AND in the car, it'd be the scanner. Just fascinating stuff going on on that thing. Today, for about 30 minutes on the way home, I followed a car wreck and susequent medevac. Made the trip a lot more enjoyable than listening to all the Wall Street crap.

As to which scanner to pick, if you do go that route, look on radio reference to see what your local frequencies are. Then look in the state forum that covers your state and try to make contact with someone in your area. Chances are they can tell you if/when you're going to go digital or if you're even trunked. You may not need a digital scanner and that will save you a few hundred bucks. I have a conventional Uniden handheld scanner and am following a 25 channel analog trunked system quite nicely, although none of the geniuses at radioreference 1,000 miles away from my city choose to believe me. But if you want to invest for the long run, one of the digital scanners is the best choice by far.

If you go the scanner route.....

[fire65]

Get the scanner. You can get a GPS later on. The scanner is the big buck item. GPS just keeps getting cheaper. You can buy a good GPS for 125 to 150 and will do a great job for you. Just remember you will have to put some kind of antenna up for the scanner to do its job.

[Motor On]

Yeah i was lookin at the Uniden digital trunking scanner, but also was looking at the handheld. Which is easiest to use and you would say is better wise factoring in the stuff you give up for handheld and the same for trunking?

Well I checked RR before my recommendation and you'll need something that carries the digital as you've P25 in the Virginia beach area.

With the handheld it does everything the same, except there is less storage room. *I* am willing to sacrifice some of the quieter talk groups in order to hear my usual active groups where ever I feel like being. Unless I were to replace my car stereo with my 996T the 996T will never get the use I feel it deserves and I'm still a little too addicted to the iPod. With the handheld the scanner is with me whenever I feel like listening to it, with the 996, I've got to be in the car, so it's not always the most convenient. However when I had it going with a proper mobile antenna I heard EVERYTHING I wanted to listen to.

[bkrell]

If you DO get a digital scanner, take a look at Radioshack.com. They had their to own-branded digital trunkers on sale for $379. The handheld is already sold out but the base/mobile is still in stock.
I've got my conventional running right now, listening to an incident where a poor LEO evidentally just got slammed while directing traffic around a pedestrian that got drok kicked by an auto as well.

Note to self, never walk across intersection of N. Market and Ravendale at night......

[YTCD]

Yeah i have a gps that does the job (cell phone, verizon wireless) but wanted a nicer one. I would love to get a scanner, but they are expensive. I think I'm going to try and get a scanner.