Ben's Beginner Buyer's Guide for Scanners

1/1/2004

I've had lots of requests for my thoughts on particular scanners, and often haven't had any personal experience with them to make a decent reply. This little buyer's guide might help you make a more informed decision when purchasing a scanner.

Generally speaking, for the Dallas/Fort Worth Area my recommendations for what scanner you should buy are the Uniden BC296D for a handheld or the Uniden BC796 for a base or mobile. They offer the best value scanner that can follow the many trunked radio systems in the area, and they can be computer controlled and programmed. As of 1/1/2004 There are still only a few digital trunked systems in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, but more and more systems will be upgraded to digital. Digital capable scanners are available that can monitor APCO Project 25 (P25) flavors of digital. There are some other digitals systems, like the Ericsson ProVoice trunked system used as D/FW Airport that are not, and probably won't be scannable anytime soon, if ever. The RadioShack Pro-96 is getting a lot of praise, however it doesn't receive as much stuff as the Unidens. If you don't need digital, the Uniden BC780XLT is a great mobile/base that will fit the budget a little better.

I currently own the following scanners.

Base

Radio Shack Pro-2052, Pro-2006, Uniden BC780XLT, BC796D, BC895XLT, OptoElectronics OptoCom to use with Trunker.exe

Hand-held

Uniden Bearcat 250D, 235XLT, BC245XLT TrunkTrackers, Radio Shack Pro-43, AOR AR8200

Mobile

Radio Shack Pro-2066, and BC780XLT TrunkTrackers

Amateur Transceivers

Kenwood TH-78A (It's not a scanner either, but has some scanning features.)

Kenwood TMD-700A(x2) Mobile 2M/.70CM

Miscellaneous

OptoElectronics Products including: OptoLinx, OptoScan456 in the Pro-2006, and OptoElectronics Scout.

Overall, as you can probably tell, I like Radio Shack and Uniden scanners. They usually have good selectivity and less intermodulation, good sensitivity (pick up fairly week signals), and average bells and whistles.

Things You Should Consider

Coverage

Coverage is the range of frequencies that a scanner will tune in. Knowing what you want to listen to is critical to buying a scanner you'll enjoy. For example, if you want to listen to 220MHz amateur radio, military aviation, CB radio, or TV audio, then your choices will be few. Most scanning is probably public safety and commercial aviation, so that won't be a problem for most of you because most scanners cover the frequencies typically used in those areas. If you want to listen to cellular telephone calls, an illegal act anyway, then your choices are very limited to used scanners before the bans or a scanner that can be modified. Digital cellular and radio should put an end to this, and maybe scanning, down the road. Note: 800Mhz Coverage does not mean a scanner can receive cellular frequencies. Most public safety agencies are going to 800Mhz, so you really should get a scanner that receives 800Mhz frequencies.

Don't forget to consider the modes that a scanner features.

I'm not an expert on the last two, and have rarely if ever needed them for the scanning I do. FMN and AM are a must, and FMW is nice to have.

If you don't know what you want to scan, check out my frequency list to get a better idea of what's out there.

Selectivity

Selectivity refers to how well a scanner tunes in the specific frequency you want to hear while blocking out nearby frequencies. In heavy radio traffic areas like Dallas/Fort Worth, there are lots of active frequencies, so good selectivity is important.

Sensitivity

Sensitivity refers to how well a scanner receives weak signals. Sensitivity and selectivity are somewhat opposed. Depending on where you listen and where the transmitter is, this may not be an important factor. For myself, living between Dallas and Fort Worth is a great spot to hear a lot of activity without having to worry too much about how far away or weak a signal is.

Memory

Memory is the number of channels and banks that a scanner can store. For the Dallas/Fort Worth area you need lots of memory. I suggest 400 or more channels in at least 10 banks. The more, the better. There are so many things to scan in this area and so many trunked systems, that being able to store and sort frequencies into different banks in lots of channels is extremely important. Banks are groups of channels, usually 10 or more, that can be enabled or disabled from the scanning sequence at the touch of a button. I have separate banks set up for Fort Worth, Arlington, Bedford, D/FW Airport, the media, Texas DPS, and more. Normally only a few banks are active at a time, so I only hear what I'm interested in. If there's an incident at the airport, only that bank is enabled. Channel labels are a new and very handy way to organize and keep track of what frequencies are in your channels. Currently there are only a few scanners that feature channel labels.

Computer Control

If your scanner is going to have as many channels as I'd like it to have, then you'll probably need computer control to facilitate programming the scanner. With some scanners like the Uniden BC245XLT, BC895XLt, BC780XLT, and AOR AR8000 & AR2700, you can upload and download banks using software like my shareware program, Radio Manager for Windows. You can also program search ranges, restore cellular coverage, log frequencies in the computer, and more. Other scanners like the Radio Shack Pro-2006, 2035, and 2042, can be interfaced with third part interfaces from OptoElectronics, to enable squelch tone logging, DTMF decoding, signal strength logging, and other computer controllable features.

Base, Mobil, or Hand-held

Base scanners stay at home, mobiles are for cars, and hand-helds go everywhere you go. What more can I say?

TrunkTracking

Yes, if you live is this area, you want a TrunkTracking scanner. See Trunking for more details. Motorola, EDACS (narrow & wide), and LTR are types of trunked systems used in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Return to Scanning the Dallas/Fort Worth Area.