Looking for decent scanner

[sivy08]

Hey im looking around for a decent scanner to go with my v1 pop2 and was just curious as to is anyone could point me into the right direction, please only post of you own one personaly. Thanks, P.S. please have experience too.

[methusaleh]

First let me say that I am partial to RS products only because I have a friend who works there who gets me deep discounts.

That said...

If digital and rebanded transmissions aren't a concern, I think the PRO97 is the best bang for your buck out there now. You get lots of features for about $149.

The PRO83 is on sale for $70 if you need a very simple, non-trunking scanner with Signal Stalker. However from what I've heard the audio leaves much to be desired.

If you must go with digital capable and/or something that can be rebanded, the PRO96 treats me well and I love it. If the price tag is too steep for you, shoot me a PM and I can try to help you get it for cheap.

[vw242]

Take a look at the RS Pro96 if you need digital or the Uniden BC246T for non digital. Both of these units should survive rebanding.
Look here for reference material:

http://www.strongsignals.net/index.cgi

or

http://www.radioreference.com/


Have fun and happy scanning!

[pipinos1976]

I have some rather difficult and strange questions. I found recently a new hobby and a new opportunity to learn by studying about Scanners, Ham radio, CB etc, so now I have some practical questions.

I found some interesting scanners, like those from icom that they even receive TV broadcast. But, I think the top manufacturer is Uniden.

1. Is there any scanner that scans, locks, and decrypts GSM or similar cellular networks? I know all about network analysers, but they cost a lot and it's not for a hobby, but to play spy and I don't want that.
I'm not so much interested in listening GSM, it was just the question of a curious person. I know some techniques to "crack" GSM, even with a low cost equipment (certain advertisement claims you can do it with a 150$ machine) but I'm not so much interested, just being curious if there is an all in one, easy to use solution.

2. Is there a scanner capable of listening to TETRA, at least the unencrypted channels ? It's used now in Europe from police, fire service etc. The old VHF radios are only used to minor cases so more or less they are useless. I understand that this kind of scanner must be digital and if it doesn't exist at the moment it can be either a totally new model or a software upgradable existing model. I heard about NH90 or something doing this kind of stuff but it seems there are no further infos in the internet about this model.

3. Which is the best analog scanner with a reasonable price (up to 400$) ? I want to be able to listen to CB's, 136-174 MHz and the PMR frequencies so I don't have to buy extra PMR. All the other extra's (frequencies, solutions that make it user friendly etc) are welcome.

Thnx for your time.

[EEnerd]

1: No. I've looked into this fairly deeply. There are no plug and play options for you.

2: I dont know, I've never dealt with TETRA. Ask Yupiteru

3: The all time favorite scanner used to be the pro-2006. Maybe the 'official favorite of scannists' has changed recently. You may want to consider a ham radio HT like the Yaesu FT series.

[ersin]

Icom and Uniden/Radio shack radios are fundamentally different. Icom (and AOR, Yeasu, etc) are wideband receivers: they can pull in a very large swath of bandwidth and generally have very good selectivity and sensitivity. The other kind are more for hobbyists who like to listen to police, fire, etc. The latter may not pull in all the frequencies (like CB, military, etc) of the first group but have many scanning features beyond the wideband receivers like the ability to follow trunking and digitial decoding.

The ICOM IC-R3 has a built-in LCD screen so you can watch TV. But, I understand that this eats up battery time quite a bit. Otherwise, it's a decent receiver and the only one I know with a color screen.

Please remember that decoding, listening to or receiving cellphone traffic, or even trying to do this is very illegal. Scanners that receive in the cellphone bands are not sold to the general public in the US anymore.