Radio Scanner

[MP173]

I have the dpd indoor blade and it is pretty good.

I also have the Railcom antenna and it is very good.  Both are very superior to what comes on the scanner.

 

ed

[jrf]

I've had pretty good luck with my DPD Productions indoor Blade antenna from http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_custom.html#customblade

Sounds like for now I'm good for now with the scanner I recently purchased.  

[tree68]

One word:  Antenna.

The best scanner (or other radio) in the world isn't worth the box it came in unless you've got a decent antenna hooked up to it.  If you have the ability, go outside, and as high as you can.  Elevation equals range, barring other geographical issues, like big hills and big buildings.

Even if you live an apartment, there are things you can do to improve your antenna situation.  

If all the radio traffic you want to hear is generally in one direction (as could be the case with railroads), a directional antenna might be useful to you.

There is plenty of information on antennas available on the web, from commercial/consumer models to do-it-yourself.

As for digital - we're all going to be out of luck until Kenwood and Icom license out NXDN to the scanner manufacturers.  Right now about the only digital technology available in scanners is P25, which is great for public safety, but apparently isn't going to be used by the railroads.  

If you're listening to public safety (fire/EMS/police) you could be faced with a totally unscannable system in the form of "Open Sky."  

The best reference for frequencies these days is radioreference.com.

 

[jrf]

Seems like more and more areas are becoming narrow banded.  I would think digital is next?.. I'm looking for a new scanner base and mobile models.  Any ideas or reccommendations on what I should be looking for?  My current basic desktop Radio Shack model isn't working very well anymore and can't even pick up NOAA at times so I'm looking to uprgrade.  Tempoararily as a band aid approach I picked up a Uniden BC345CRS.

Thanks.