I am trying to buy a radio scanner but there’s alot out there. What you guy’s recommend for the $$ and efficient. [8D]
Basic Radio Shack. I recommend at least 100 ch capacity so you can program the whole AAR band. An upgrade to a 160 MHz external antennae would be adviseable too (magnet mount for the rooftop).
I’m very unhappy about the performance of my Uniden XT92 scanner, which I bought from Radio Shack about three years ago.
I’m sure it’s a quality instrument and all, and probably works like a dream in the right hands, but I simply am not able to scan for the AAR range of train-to-ground frequencies (which offhand I think are around 160-161 Mhz). In fact, I can’t even tell if the unit is capable of a full frequency search–it has a depressing habit of skipping from the mid 150’s to the early 160’s of Megahertz–exactly the area I do not want to have skipped over.
I know there are lots of you rail-and-tech fans in Chicagoland, so let me make an offer: If we can agree to a time and place, I’ll take you to a nice lunch or dinner if you can make the bleeping thing work. One situation would be to have it scan and freeze on active channels in the AAR range. A better one might be to give a preference to the UP and BNSF channels received by the Rochelle train park. I’m probably overlooking something minor in the instruction manual, or Betty Bearcat & Co. made a slight error in terminology (possible), or they’re assuming most people can make a leap of logic because they have the background (not me).
I am not a techno-dummy. I’m pretty good on the computer. I programmed my portable weather radios, and can balance and hook up home theater. I am getting much better at my digital camera. Years ago I even owned a small console scanner. Yet this Bearcat has flummoxed me. I don’t liked being flummoxed. So it isn’t just the money, it’s the principle of the thing, but even though I got it at something of a bargain it’s also the money!
Perhaps the young man who started this thread could buy a model of almost any sophistication and learn (or have someone close show him) how to set the frequency
I have Radio Shack PRO-92 and PRO-94 scanners and they both “work” but they are both “STUPID” in operation.
Buttons have labels that are meaningless (e.g.: PRO-94 has a button labeled “HOLD”… what do you think that means? I would have guessed that while it was scanning and it stopped on an active channel I could push that button to make it stay on that frequency until “I” pressed another button to make it continue, instead of it automatically continuing scanning when the channel was quiet for a second or two… but Nope! It does NOTHING at all unless you hold it for 10 seconds, then it switches from the “A” bank to the “B” bank or vice versa.)
When it detects activity on a frequency, it stops scanning to let the audio play and it turns on the display “Backlight”… that is nice, but the light goes off after 5 seconds no matter what. If it pauses on a channel and then proceeds scanning before that 5 seconds is up, and then stops on another channel the light still goes out 5 seconds after the FIRST time it stopped… which is just about the time I am trying to read the display to see what frequency it stopped on the SECOND time.
The PRO-92 can hold 500 frequencies and the PRO-94 can hold 1000. The frequencies can be grouped such that you can select different groups to scan and ignore the others. There are 10 groups of 50 frequencies in the PRO-92 and two banks of 10 groups of 50 frequencies in the PRO-94. You can select to scan any number of the groups at a time (i.e.: only group 1 or 2 or 3 etc., or any combination of groups; like 1, 2, 5 and 7 or 1, 3, 5, 7 and 8, etc.) , but if you have more than 10 groups you want to be able to scan; tough patookies, even if it is only 11 frequencies. Even the PRO-94 with its 20 groups, you can only include groups from whichever of the two banks is active… if you happen to program two groups of frequencies of interest in different ban
…This forum has touched on “scanners” many times. Get additional info by “search” of the forum.
Personally, have used a 200 ch. {several of them}, Radio Shack unit over many years and find it seems ok for me. Believe a better antenna would do great improvement…Never have tried one.
Pay attention to state laws if scanners are still “ok”…I’m not even sure of our Indiana laws on it anymore. So I don’t flash it around…etc…Must check on that.
I recently purchased a Radio Shack “expandable” metal antenna (extends in sections like car radio antennas of olden days) and it works much better than either the “rubber ducky” my Radio Shack Pro-94 came with or the car roof top antenna I tried for a while (until it broke in the middle). I set the new antenna to use only the four uppermost sections and it works quite well. I recommend it.
My problem isn’t programming the scanner (although I still have to get the book out for trunking systems), it’s keeping track of what I programmed where. When I travel somewhere I’ll load up a bank with the appropriate frequencies. My 1000 channel scanner is pretty much full, but I can’t tell you what it’s full of…
Getting the book out isn’t a bad idea - I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of things radio, but they stump me from time to time (sorry, I can’t explain the “hold” button, although I think it works together with the ‘search’ function).
Al - sounds like you’re trying to use a “service search” type of function to scan the RR band. Google “AAR Channels” for a list and simply program in the bunch of them, as suggested.
If I dedicated a scanner to railfanning, I probably would set up banks by areas. I might suggest putting more than one railroad in a given bank, where possible putting railroads that are geographically separated in the same bank, so you can keep track of who you should be hearing in a given area.
Cross-talk is a problem all over. When I’m passing through bigger cities commercial paging drives me nuts, particularly for the fire channels, which are around 154 Mhz. It takes a pretty sophisticated (read: expensive) radio to defeat that.
I had a handheld scanner a while back, I had 2 antenna’s for it the craptastical rubber ducky antenna for when i was out of my car and for when I was in my car I had a properly grounded permanent mount antenna from Antenex on my car’s trunk lid (required drilling a 1 inch hole in your car)
as far as reception went it was like night and day 
…Thanks Jim, that sounds like worth a try if I ever get around to it.
I have a RS Pro 433 which is pretty good but the reception range isnt what I thought it would be.
I even bought a book on Ham Radio’s (Ham Radio for Dummies) to try and figure out a better antenna system. Good luck unless you are an electrical engineer.
Still, the scanners give me a lot of listening pleasure. It would be great to extend the range from about 7 miles to more.
any tips (in English)
ed
http://radioshack.com/family/index.jsp?cp=2032052&categoryId=2032072&pg=1
I really appreciate you guy’s taking the time and giving me the information. I’m just trying to get the right item for the least price. [{(-_-)}]
I link the Radioshack website can you see and let me know. There’s alot of models… I was told the Pro-98 but I don’t see one. Do we have another recommandation?
Are there any “Pro” series scanners left at all? Mine is a Pro-79, and I could program 200 channels into it, if I chose to. But I just have the 90-some-odd AAR channels in mine, programmed so that the channel numbers on the handset are the same as the numbers assigned to the AAR channels. For example, the UP road channel for trains through here, is AAR 52, so that’s what Channel 52 on my Pro-79 is programmed for. The frequencies are all the same distance apart, so just add that amount for each channel you program. (Sorry to sound so vague–I don’t have those numbers handy, but they show up on the readout of my scanner).
After you program all of these channels in, you’ll probably find one or two that will stop your scan every time around–should be no problem to bypass those. I let my scanner run through all of the railroad channels I can, figuring that anything I hear will be useful. If it gets too cluttered in a busy spot, I can bypass some of the irrelevant ones.
Just now, listening to my scanner from here at home, I got transmissions on our UP line (52), the CN Freeport Division (43), and the BRC (26)! Can’t explain that last one, but, thanks to my system, I know that that’s what it was.
Two questions you need to answer.
Do you want a handheld scanner or a base station type? This will cut your selection list about in half.
How much do you want to spend? Well, that’s silly, you don’t WANT to spend any amount… better word it, How much are you willing to spend?
Hand Held Radio & Price $200 or less…[4:-)] but if I need to add little more than let’s do it. I don’t want 6 months down the road asking why?
http://zippy.ci.uiuc.edu/~roma/rr-freqs/index-old.html
I got the link ready for the channels! [dinner]
Unfortunately, that is a REALLY old list. Hasn’t been updated in 11 years. Still, it is about the only list available.
This is the “burnt child who dreads the fire” speaking, but I’ve noticed that the literature for some handheld scanners mention that they have full frequency coverage all the way from low to high MHz, and some don’t. So why worry?
Mine was a highly respected model two years ago (Bearcat XL92) and was on sale at Radio Shack for about $100.00. (There are some models down to about $75 - 80 but these are rather entry-level.) Bearcat (or better said, Uniden) apparently makes all or most of Radio Shack’s handheld scanners. There seems to be a tendency to brand most of them Radio Shack rather than Bearcat or Uniden these days. You may already know that Radio Shack has a very user-friendly online catalog.
This is not an area where you want to economize too much, but along with the crucial question of how [banghead] difficult it’s gonna be to tune, you might want to make sure your model has the ability to accept a whip (long) antenna in the future if it doesn’t entail too much extra cost. Done well, that can actually get you into harmonics theory and from what I’ve read on these sites, boost your reception enormously. That’s something several posters on prior scanner sites here have said they wish they’d done.
I see no reason why you can’t get a very good model that won’t lack what you want for less than $200. I would not under any circumstances advise someone to buy a used or “reconditioned” item, not even from the Uniden people, nor from eBay unless it’s brand new-sealed. Just too many issues.
I wasn’t able to find any models for sale online thru Newegg or Amazon (except their going thru Radio Shack). We face here in Chicago a ten-and-a-quarter percent sales tax, so shipping fees for a hundred-dollars-or more item are going to be a good deal cheaper than ten dollars-plus for the sales tax.
Save all your receipts, etc. Learn wha
I use a PRO 76 from Radio Shack. It’s pretty good. I can hear both sides of the conversation for about 10 miles. Not bad for the mountain areas of California! It cost about $100.00.