Police Scanner Purchase Advice

[bigdog]

Looking for advice about Police Scanners, I'll be purchasing one soon.
Don't want a cheap one, but don't want to mortgage the house to purchase

Thanks for your feedback !

[Descant]

A family member is a local PD volunteer and uses android phone to listen to local frequency. Works fine. $0.00.

[DRH]

Uniden makes two of the best scanners available, the SDS100 and the SDS200.

The SDS100 is a handheld, battery powered model and the SDS200 is a desktop scanner powered by a wall-plug adapter. The SDS200 model can also be used as a mobile scanner powered by a vehicle's 13.8VDC power socket.

The electronic circuitry inside these two scanners is virtually identical, and they will receive most every kind of radio signal except cellular frequencies and scrambled law enforcement transmissions.

These radios aren't inexpensive, but they are very impressive. Uniden also sells other scanners with fewer features at lower prices.

Feel free to send me a PM if you would like any additional information.

[chachee52]

Originally Posted by DRH

Uniden makes two of the best scanners available, the SDS100 and the SDS200.

The SDS100 is a handheld, battery powered model and the SDS200 is a desktop scanner powered by a wall-plug adapter. The SDS200 model can also be used as a mobile scanner powered by a vehicle's 13.8VDC power socket.

The electronic circuitry inside these two scanners is virtually identical, and they will receive most every kind of radio signal except cellular frequencies and scrambled law enforcement transmissions.

These radios aren't inexpensive, but they are very impressive. Uniden also sells other scanners with fewer features at lower prices.

Feel free to send me a PM if you would like any additional information.

Depends on what you want to monitor, if it's just FD in this area, than a cheap analog will work just fine. If you want PD, than they are mostly all digital now, so you will need a more expensive on.
I just picked up a new SDS100, works great, I found it easy to program (I paid for them to do the first county, thought it was a waist of my money now that I have it). Needed a new one because my old RadioShack on needed some frequency updates and the software was obsolete. Very happy with the new one, but $700 is a little crazy. But I broke down and bought it before the possible tariffs hit.
The App only works if the town or someone broadcasts it, it usually has about a 30-45 sec delay, and you can't scan, you can only broadcast one "station" at a time (there are some that combine a few towns here and there).
Hope that helps a little. Good luck and have fun monitoring

[Mr. V]

Police scanner tale:

In the early eighties we had a Bearcat scanner and one night a cop was on radar speed enforcement on the local interstate.

He was parked near the bottom of a long hill, where cars easily and naturally pick up speed before approaching him.

He said it was "like shooting fish in a barrel."

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Mr. V

Police scanner tale:

In the early eighties we had a Bearcat scanner and one night a cop was on radar speed enforcement on the local interstate.

He was parked near the bottom of a long hill, where cars easily and naturally pick up speed before approaching him.

He said it was "like shooting fish in a barrel."

Our old scanner would pick up portable phone conversations of neighbors as far as a couple of blocks away. Heard a lot of dirty laundry, but it was like a car accident, you couldn’t turn away

[panjumbie]

It became illegal to sell scanners that could pick up the analog cell phone frequencies to stop people from listening. But, of course people listened in to party lines since the invention of the telephone.

Now all cell phones are digital, and have been for many years.

Unfortunately, you will probably find that your police radios, if not already encrypted, soon will be. A controversial issue in some places.

[chachee52]

Originally Posted by panjumbie

Unfortunately, you will probably find that your police radios, if not already encrypted, soon will be. A controversial issue in some places.

The only town that I know of that is fully encrypted is Hudson NH PD. The issue with this is that surrounding towns can't help them as fast as they used to because they can't hear them. I know a few officers in Hudson and connecting towns, and that is their complaint, it takes longer for mutual aid from the PDs.
The other places that I know that encrypt, are able to shut it on/off, or they only have 1 specialized channel to switch to that is encrypted. The issue with switching over is money, just like everyone switching over to digital frequencies, it's all about money.
Just my opinion, we shall see what happens.