Radio geek
I have a serious radio fetish. When I was little I used to stay
up late and listen to AM radio and the old crystal-controlled
Bearcat III scanner. It seemed like magic that people could talk
way over there and you could here them
over here. How strange and wonderful...
I still get the same feeling listening to BBC on the shortwave rig.
Info for newbies or the curious
Current scanning rigs
- Uniden BC246T for personal listening
- Likes
- small
- 2xAA batteries - yay!
- configuration via freeware FreeSCANflashable firmware (ie, can handle rebanding)
- dislikes
- none yet
- Uniden BC245XLT for PC control, audio archiving
- Likes
- Trunking works great on both Motorola and EDACS
- headphone jack sends signals to both speakers on a walkman headphone. A small but welcome change from the usual.
- battery pack lasts a long while (8 hrs or so?). My new one from Lee's Electronics lasts longer. Great service, super fast shipping. Highly recommended.
- Computer control using software like Radio Manager, Senss , and WinScan.
- Dislikes
- no way to run the unit from a wall wart (battery is always charging when plugged in)
- no alpha tags
- not rebandable
- Ancient 10-channel programmable Uniden from 1990 or so. I
bought it to monitor campus security and Commerce PD so I could hear my
friends getting arrested in college. Now mainly used to monitor RACES and WX freqs.
- Somewhere in there I got a Tech amateur radio license and I snagged
a Alinco DJ-560 dualband on sale for less than $300. Scans slowly, but it will scan...
Previously-owned rigs
- In junior high I got an old Bearcat 8-channel crystal-tuned scanner.
It weighed about a zillion pounds and was SLOW... But it worked. I
listened to the Carrollton FD and PD, etc.
- Then came a Uniden BC100 100-channel handheld scanner in 1991. Very
cool. The battery pack finally died, though you could run it
off AC. I gave this unit to a friend who had no scanners (can you imagine not having any scanners?).
What I scan
the mousepad
