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It's clear that my 15 year old Radio Hack Pro scanner will soon not work so I'm looking for some input on what scanner is best to buy. I live in South Everett and I like to listen to everything that goes on in the county when it comes to Fire and Police. I'm not real up to speed on all this "trunking" stuff but I understand the concept and I know the technology is on the move. I see that Radio Hack has the Pro-96 for $500 and Uniden has the BC296D for around $550 but do I need to buy something that expensive? Will one of the $200 dollar scanner from the Hack work fine? I see the more expensive scanners have the APCO 25 option but I don't understand what that is and if I need it.

I'm looking for ease of use also. I have read some nightmare stories about people trying to get there scanner setup on a trunked system and I don't want to become one of those stories.

BC245xlt works great on all systems (trunk) around here and can be had for $100-150.

Great. Thanks for the input. What about the Pro-95??? Can that model do everything the BC245xlt can do? I am looking for something that has a real nice lighted display and can do Alpha characters.

Also can someone explain what APCO 25 Digital is? I gather it's some type of trunking standard???

If you shop around the internet you can get a 785d usascan.com for about 330.00 you can also check alf interprise by clicking on the link from this web sight

Dave

_________________
born to be wild

I'm really leaning to the Pro-95 but it's not digital upgradable. However I'm unclear if that is an option I will need. Can someone clarify? Or perhaps suggest a Uniden that is simular to the Pro-95. Any input on what some of the best portables to go with would be great. Again, I am in Snohomish county.

:D :D Get the PRO-95 if you don't want to receive DIGITAL stuff -- BUT in the next few years -- even the WSP or local non-trunked Fire or Police will start moving over to digital. Sooner or later -- digital is comming to your radio. ALL TV by 2008 and AM and FM radio. Get the PRO-96 and be done with it. GREAT radio and a few dollars cheaper than the Bearcats. The Pro-96 does NOT need a special Digital card. The BC Cards are big bucks. I would go with the PRO-96 OR the PRO-95 either way. And I hate Radio Shack crap. But RS didn't make the Pro-96 or 95. It just has the name. You can put ALL of the control channels for a Motorola system into ONE bank, Provided you put a conventional channel in between each control channel - the Pro-95 will scan MORE than one system in a single bank. The PRO-95 sells for about $ 150 bucks and RS has lotts of sales and coupons on the RS web site. The PRO-96 has digital -- tone PL/DPL and tone readout/search. The PRO-95 does NOT. But both do trunking very well. MTM

It's unclear whether you need a handheld or mobile/base. I recommend the BC785, for the ease of use and the good software available for it. The Unidens have a different way of operating than the GREs, so it kind of depends on how you've conditioned your mind to think about scanners (almost like TI vs. HP calculators with Reverse Polish Notation) . If you're looking for a handheld, I agree that the BC245 will do fine for you. It's being replaced this year by a newer model, so you could either buy the new one (more capability) or look for price cuts in the old one.

Flash

Thanks!!! For all the good info. I won't worry about the digital thing right now since a standard trunking scanner will do it for me. FlashP, I'm looking for a handheld. The Pro-96 is too damn expensive and I don't care for the display on the BC245 as for I can not program alpha characters on it. Plus I don't like the idea of being locked in to a batteyr pack. So, it looks like the Pro-95 is the way I'm going to go.

Is the standard interface software for the Pro-95 good enough or is there some 3rd party software out there that is better?

Check out the free Win95 software.
http://www.starrsoft.com/freeware/win95/default.asp

If you go to Radio Shacks Web page they have a $50 off coupon for the Pro-95. It expires on Halloween so go buy a pro- 95 this weekend. I have been using a BC245xlt for many years it works well but the alpha tags is a very nice feature. I think I'm going to go and buy a Pro-95 this weekend and sell my old 245. Good luck scanning up north.

Speaking of Radio Shack scanner coupons, rumor has it Radio Shack will have a $100 off coupon on their Pro-96 handheld digital scanner just after Thanksgiving, from 11/29 to 12/24.

Dan

One other thing you might consider is whether you want to have the ability to program the scanner with a computer; or whether a possibly reduced price is worth the pain of manually programming all of the frequencies, talkgroups, and maybe talkgroup ID's in by hand on the scanner keypad.
If it's a trunked scanner I've learned that hand programming on the keypad is a pain in the butt for just one trunked system and I couldn't imagine doing more than one system via keypad...

1 more question, will thePro- 95 or 96 scan the wsDOT EF Johnson system, or any others like it?