A good scanner to get?

uniden BCT15 is a good one to have. It beeps sometimes when the bears are transmitting in a mile range of you. Also picks up freq being used near you without having to be programmed.

 

I have a BCD996T (note this one has been replaced by Number 1 below) its a digital scanner. Don't waste your time on any of the "non digital" scanners as most States are digital now. Alot of states have banned scanners from vehicles so be careful. Here is a list of all digital scanners Uniden makes

1. Uniden Bearcat BCD996XT Scanner

2. Uniden Bearcat BCD396XT Scanner

There is alot of other digital scanners made by other companies but Uniden has always been the best.

The beauty of the above models is you can hook up a cheap gps to them and it will unlock channels in a set mile radius from your location simply put it will only scan channels based on your location so it doesn't have to scan 1000's of programmed channels to find an active one. Believe me I only have maybe 8 States programmed and I think there is 5000 channels or so. So the gps feature is great. Go to scannermaster put the appropriate www and .com in and your there. Don't waste your time or money on a BC 15 or any other non-digital scanner as you will be disappointed

 

Morning.

For up to date information on what states are doing what with scanners, this is the place to go:

http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/scanlaws/

Mobile scanners are legal anywhere WEST of the Missisippi. Going EAST is another matter. Indiananna and New York are good examples of bad states. Even with a ham license-mobile scanners are banned in these states-period.

Funny-while radar detectors are banned in Virginnia-mobile scanners arn't.

Before you lay out cash for a scanner, decide what it is you are interested in. And be aware, more and more states and municaplities are moving to DIGITALLY TRUNKED radio sytems. And some of these are also encrypted. Digital does not mean encrypted. But it does mean you need a scanner that track and decode these systems. The Uniden lines of the 396 and 996 (XT now has replaced the T radios) and those by GRE (500, 600 and the ones made for Radio Shack by GRE).

Please check out Radioreference.com for more information on these. It's the universe's biggest site for us scanning and monitoring hobbists and there are extensive "newbie" forums and information.

73-Mark

 

Glad to help. I am a big proponnet of the monitoring hobby and more then happy to help out anyone interested in it-there is room for all sorts of specific intrests under this umbralla.

Also, while I do agree with you about big goverment-there are some geniune privacy concerns releted to law-enforcement monitoring. However, these are less and less weighted as departments switch over to MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) for transmission and reception of "sensitive data. The ones I've seen are connected via mobile broadband cards or usb devices-exactly like you might have for your own laptop. These are unmonitorable by the general public by both carrier encryption and US law which make it's illegal to intercept celluar transmissions. Scanners sold in the US markets to the general public have these bands blocked.

Where I live-Phoenix, Az-the city uses a large P25 Trunked system for ali of it's police and city services with fire comming on-line now. What they did was leave the patrol groups open and unencrypted while tactical and survelliance groups become encrypted. A monitor can still hear all of the action without compermising sensitive operations. I think this is a good way to go about it.

Anyhow, welcome to the hobby. And again, everything you wanted to know about this is over at RadioReference.com. Also, while I remember it, Scannermaster.com is also a good place to most every scanner on the market today and get a good feel for the equipment and prices.

73

Mark

 

Is there any way to add mobile scanner freq's to say, iPhone scanner aps?

 

I PH HAS AN APP FOR THAT.

Super nice. As long as you have cell coverage you can use it. Its a nice app.

 

Which ap is the good one, it seems there are a few "scanner" aps for the IPH.

thx!