Who has a scanner thread

Slippin Jimmy

Just thought i'd start up a little thread to see who actually owns a scanner. I own a Bearcat UBC220XLT and have been using it for years, maybe its a bit out dated now, but sure it does me:rolleyes: . Who else has one???

god's toy

Yep I've got one, it's a Alinco x10. over 1000 channels and frequency range of 0 to 2000Mhz.. have it years now and it's still going Strong.

(as for transceiver I use the Alinco DX70 (0 to 60 MHz)

DublinWriter

That brings back memories.

I have an ancient Fairmate handheld that goes from .5Mhz to 1300Mhz without interuptions from about 1992.

I hardly use it anymore as all the 'interesting' stuff has gone digital.

I'd love to get one of the new Bearcat scanners that automatically detect strong local signals.

Slippin Jimmy

god's toy wrote:

Yep I've got one, it's a Alinco x10. over 1000 channels and frequency range of 0 to 2000Mhz.. have it years now and it's still going Strong.

(as for transceiver I use the Alinco DX70 (0 to 60 MHz)

Are they still available?

gyppo

Recently got an AOR AR3000 base scanner (secondhand, but in great condition), using a 2m Whip at the moment, but I must get a discone. I find it very good, a proper aeriel would make it great.
Also have my original cheapy handheld commtel scanner - a fecker on batteries though!

Owen

I've a small handhelt bearcat scanner, very handy when you've to collect someone in the Airport, you can sit in the car and listen to the plane land. I use it for my PPL training too, it's great to listen to the RT chatter and become versed in it.

Wishbone Ash

Two Uniden Bearcat 780s and an Icom IC-R5. My ears are always on.

Flying

Got and ICOM IC-R2 is my little baby goes everywhere with me now

PauloMN

Had an AOR 8200 handheld scanner, sold it when I got my EI and got a cheapy 200 channel job, and put the rest towards a VHF/UHF handheld transceiver (a Yaesu FT-51R). For HF I have a Kenwood TS-50, and also a Sony 7600 for listening.

god's toy

Duffff-Man wrote:

Are they still available?

Well the DJ-X10 has been replaced by the DJ-X2000 a few years ago but you can still find a good X10 on Ebay. seen a nice X10 in CQ-comms not too long ago.

The transceiver (DX70) well lets just say the outpus can burn out if you cook it on a high SWR but once you replace em it's a gem or a Radio I think.

ambasite

got GRE (PSR282 200) from Maplins, could do with better aerial i reckon.

ambasite

total noob when it comes to scanners - this is the spec for the scanner i posted above:

Specifications:
Frequency coverage
66.000-88.000 5kHz steps (FM)
118.000-136.9916 MHz 8.333 kHz steps (AM)
137.000-174.000MHz 12.5 kHz steps (FM)
380.000-512.000MHz 12.5kHz steps (FM)

in general - what should i expect to pick up from these ranges? mostly pick up air traffic control from 118 to 136 range. what should be in the other ranges? also, what is meant by 'steps? thanks.

RoundyMooney

ambasite wrote:

total noob when it comes to scanners - this is the spec for the scanner i posted above:

Specifications:
Frequency coverage
66.000-88.000 5kHz steps (FM)
118.000-136.9916 MHz 8.333 kHz steps (AM)
137.000-174.000MHz 12.5 kHz steps (FM)
380.000-512.000MHz 12.5kHz steps (FM)

It seems to be competent enough for the price.

ambasite wrote:

in general - what should i expect to pick up from these ranges? mostly pick up air traffic control from 118 to 136 range. what should be in the other ranges? also, what is meant by 'steps? thanks.

Well, steps are basically the intervals between adjacent frequencies, i.e starting at 118 Megs, you'll have 118.000, then 118.0125 (a 12.5 KHz "jump") then 118.025 etc. Any PLL tuner will not tune continously, like an old school radio with a tuning dial, they increase in set steps (hence the name).

As regards your query about what's out there, please bear in mind that frequencies *not* in the public domain cannot be discussed, with special emphasis on emergency services/gardai etc.

See here for more.

humaxf1

ICOM PCR-1000 & a Yupiteru MVT 7100 (i think) base/mobile unit.

Have to get myself sorted out with a base station aerial. Saw a discone in maplin(jervis st) for 50quid i think.

arybvtcw0eolkf

I've an old Realistic PRO 2006, a gem from (maybe) the late 80's and probably the best scanner I've ever owned. Its almost always on and running of an old 2mtr 4 ele beam (fixed) on my roof.

I've also a Yupiteru 7100 and an AOR 8000, both of which devour batteries.

Slightly off topic, but in the past I've also owned a JRC NRD 525 & 535 for SWL'ing.

I've used several Yeasu HF radio's with various antenna too.

Although I've been silent for a few year's now I'm presently in the process of re-newing my licence.

My main area of interest was/is CW contesting.

dxhound2005

I have an Icom R7000. More into HF but my NRD 525 also has VHF UHF converters. Like DublinWriter says a lot of the "interesting" stuff to listen to is gone. Always looking for new equipment though so I think I will upgrade to one of these
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/february2007/ic-r9500.htm

RoundyMooney

I'm sorry, will you pardon me for a moment, while I drool?

That is the momma of all receivers.

Only 13k (in dollars) folks, get 'em while they're cheap.

Beautiful. Just. Beautiful.

arybvtcw0eolkf

I've worked with some of the best, most expensive military spec radio's over the last 20+ yrs and big bucks doesn't always mean big signals, or even pulling the little signals out of the noise.

I wouldn't spend that kind of money, not in a million year's.

dxhound2005

Mairt

I totally agree. I was joking about the Icom. Much better to spend any spare cash improving antenna. The military etc gear is not designed for hobby use but it would be nice to get a chance to see it in action.

Just wonder what sort of receivers you have used professionally. Racal, Rohde & Schwartz, Watkins Johnson, Plessey ?

Sorry for going off topic.

RoundyMooney

Mairt wrote:

I've worked with some of the best, most expensive military spec radio's over the last 20+ yrs and big bucks doesn't always mean big signals, or even pulling the little signals out of the noise.

I wouldn't spend that kind of money, not in a million year's.

Oh, I know. It is a nice piece of kit on paper however. I didn't realise "amateur" type kit went so high in price, particularly for RX only.

Are you a signaller, Mairt? Just curious.

RoundyMooney

dxhound2005 wrote:

Sorry for going off topic.

Not in the least off topic

arybvtcw0eolkf

dxhound2005 wrote:

Just wonder what sort of receivers you have used professionally. Racal, Rohde & Schwartz, Watkins Johnson, Plessey ?

Sorry for going off topic.

Receiver's were (mostly) Racal 1772's and ICOM IC-R 9000 E and way back in the day's before digital scanners etc there was the old Eddystone. I can't remember the model number of the Eddystone and can't find a photo to display either.

Transceivers were anything from old valve Tediran's to todays modern HF & VHF radio's, unfortunetly I say whats in use at the moment.

byrner88

hey all , i aint got a scanner, but id like to get one . anyone recomend one of a reasonable price just for starting off , any help will be appreicated ,
tanx
byrner

Heathen

i got a Bearcat 860XLT years ago, and also have an alinco dj-191 vhf transceiver...

sharkman

Got an ICOM IC-R5 ..

Good to see the forum up and running , I proposed it back in 2004 .

whisht

ambasite wrote:

got GRE (PSR282 200) from Maplins, could do with better aerial i reckon.

I have a GRE PSR-216 200 channel I got in Maplins a couple of years ago

Not a bad little scanner. I have mine connected to a desktop discone antenna and it makes a huge difference compared to the standard little rubber one.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29672&criteria=discone&doy=11m5

parsi

Flying wrote:

Got and ICOM IC-R2 is my little baby goes everywhere with me now

Hmm. I miss that scanner. I replaced it with a Bearcat UBC-XLt70 and whilst easier to use (more buttons = good ) it's sound quality is nowhere near as good and I haven't picked up a whole lot using closecall either...

Aquos76

sharkman wrote:

Got an ICOM IC-R5 ..

Good to see the forum up and running , I proposed it back in 2004 .

Thats what I have, and it a fine little radio too.

An excellent Irish run forum about scanners can be found here

Hope its ok to post the link here

<mod edit> I would put this in the links thread, however it contains access to prohibited frequencies.</mod edit>

ambasite

whisht wrote:

I have a GRE PSR-216 200 channel I got in Maplins a couple of years ago

Not a bad little scanner. I have mine connected to a desktop discone antenna and it makes a huge difference compared to the standard little rubber one.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29672&criteria=discone&doy=11m5

yeah, the one it came with was rubbish, will pop into Maplin over the weekend to see if they have one in stock.

watty

Yep I have the Maplin Discone on Chimney. Works 10m, 6m, 4m, 2M, 70cm, 23cm TX.

Use with Bearcat 80ch scanner for weather satellite receive at 137MHz.

On the Yaesu VR500, I have to switch on the Attenuator. R4 LW 198Khz perfect on the discone! Works for receive with VR500 on all the HF bands as well as the "offical" VHF/UHF.


I used CT125 coax as it is lower loss than RG58. The change from 50 Ohm to 75 Ohm coax is actually a small SWR change on TX and not significant on RX.

DublinWriter

watty wrote:

Use with Bearcat 80ch scanner for weather satellite receive at 137MHz.

On the Yaesu VR500, I have to switch on the Attenuator. R4 LW 198Khz perfect on the discone! Works for receive with VR500 on all the HF bands as well as the "offical" VHF/UHF.


I used CT125 coax as it is lower loss than RG58. The change from 50 Ohm to 75 Ohm coax is actually a small SWR change on TX and not significant on RX.

I was nearly going to buy the Yaesu VR500 last week...would you recommend it? What are the facilities on it like for connecting to a PC?

Those Bearcats with the Close Call facility look interesting too. Have you tried it?

...and lastly, has anyone used POCSAG? It's a really nifty piece of software.

watty

The VR500 is unusual as it has USB/LSB/CW and can use a Narrow or normal filter on AM. It's not great for 800MHz to 1300MHz.

1000 Memories and the numeric keypad to type in frequency is good.
A primitive bandscan / spectrum scope built in.

Easy on batteries and if you strip off part of insulation on one cell, an pair of NiMh will charge automatically. BNC aerial socket.
The Rubber Duck is deaf. A Maplin telescopic €9.95 works better (they are conviently 1/4wave on 70cm when closed and 2m when open). Works on R4 LW with a 2m 1/4 wave whip!

Really though with the FT817 I don't need it. PM me if you interested in a S/H one. I also have a late model (real SM chip resistors instead of tube type) Sony ICF2001D with an IF out for DRM/SDR added to tape socket.


My bearcat is UBXC68 80ch UK band scanner. I have no idea what "close call" is I use it to listen to the local Amateur repeaters, marine / coastguard WX report from Lough Derg and receive WX maps on 137MHz on PC via sound card plugged direct to ear socket. I use Discone on chimney as aerial for Satellite. I get the coastguard WX on rubber duck.

Have you a link to POCSAG? What is it? My favorite PC SW are Hamradio Delux, the WX sat image (forget name), Rocky DSP SDR, DReaM and MixW for everything else Radio.

DublinWriter

watty wrote:

PM me if you interested in a S/H one.

Please PM me with your best-price, as I've been planning to buy one new next Monday. I have a Discone somewhere, but it kinda beats the whole going-mobile idea. I could probably use the telescopic whip off my old Fairmate mobile as it's a standard BNC connection.

watty wrote:

My bearcat is UBXC68 80ch UK band scanner. I have no idea what "close call" is

Close Call on the Bearcats lets you automatically tune into a strong local signal. For example, you could be walking down Grafton St. and the Close Call function will automatically tune into the TX of the door security staff, etc. It works on the same principal as bug-hunters.

watty wrote:

Have you a link to POCSAG? What is it?

POCSAG decodes the baudot signals TX'ed by paging companies around the 145Mhz frequency into plain ASCII. It's been around for quite a while and I don't think it's been updated since the late 90's.

PauloMN

DublinWriter wrote:

POCSAG decodes the baudot signals TX'ed by paging companies around the 145Mhz frequency into plain ASCII. It's been around for quite a while and I don't think it's been updated since the late 90's.

I used POCSAG a while back, worked very well with my scanner. Most of what I got seemed to be pager messages for IT service technicians. I'd see what looked like automated messages possibly generated from a unit in a server room somewhere saying that the temperature was too high or something, and requesting an engineer.

<NERD>
Dead interesting stuff IMO - I like decode. I also did ACARS decoding, some great software out for that which plots the plane position graphically on a map on the PC. Given that you're receiving signals from the sky, the range is excellent also even though it's VHF airband - I'd get coverage all over the UK and Ireland, and a few hundred kms off the north/west/south coasts.

Now I want to add weather sat stuff to my list as I've never done that.
</NERD>

DublinWriter

PauloMN wrote:

I also did ACARS decoding, some great software out for that which plots the plane position graphically on a map on the PC. Given that you're receiving signals from the sky, the range is excellent also even though it's VHF airband - I'd get coverage all over the UK and Ireland, and a few hundred kms off the north/west/south coasts.

I played around a bit with ACARS too, specifically the shared ACARS site where people sumbit their local realtime data and you can track almost every aircraft around the globe currently in flight.

I also remember a few sites where people from around the world put their scanners up on line, and you could take control of them for a certain time-slot and play around with listening into local HF TX.

This is something I haven't looked into for about 8 years, I'd imagine there's allsorts of great stuff available now on the Interweb.

watty

This is the 137MHz Weather satellite software for sound card on PC direct to scanner earphone socket:
http://www.wxtoimg.com/

WXtoImg
The world's best weather satellite (WXsat) signal to image decoder.

Simply connect a 137-138MHz FM communications receiver, scanner, or weather satellite receiver to your soundcard and get stunning colour images directly from weather satellites. The only other item you'll need is an antenna for receiving the circularly polarised signals.

The advantage of the Discone is that as it is vertical linear polarised it will pickup the circular polarised satellite from any direction (with 3db penalty), so does not need to track.

What you receive is canaries/Spain to Iceland to France etc with where you are in the middle of the picture.

dxhound2005

I also remember a few sites where people from around the world put their scanners up on line, and you could take control of them for a certain time-slot and play around with listening into local HF TX.

This is something I haven't looked into for about 8 years, I'd imagine there's allsorts of great stuff available now on the Interweb.[/QUOTE]

I think Dx Tuners was the best known one and I used it a fair bit but it is closed now. I tried the R75 on the N2JEU site and it worked fine.

http://monitor-post.blogspot.com/2007/04/dxtuners-rip.html

http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Internet_and_Radio/Online_Receivers/

Crowman

I am now the proud owner of a Bearcat 3500xlt.
New to the whole scene but already have programmed several Systems and have been happily scanning all weekend...
I'm thinking of purchasing additional software to connect it to my PC I think this will be easier to program it this way.

Close call is really cool feature amazing what i've picked up while out walking
the dog...!

pbirney

I've still got my trusty Realistic PRO-2004 desktop scanner as well as an ICOM PCR-1000 wideband scanner connected via my PC. My antenna is a roof-mounted discone.

My main interests are the aviation bands (HF and VHF). I have not been scanning the bands for some time now but I hope to get back into hobby soon.

~Paul.

telecinesk

Ive a (is this classed as a scanner?) sony swf7600 and a realistic pro-43 handheld which ehm had a few diodes cut and so on giving me a good stretch. Its not the best but better than nothing as it was cheapish. Mods.dk gave me the infor re modding. (warranty beware)
My interest lies between the wxsat stuff on 137 like watty and also what lies between 248mhz to roughly 280mhz. Anyone interested should look up Pj Marsh pages on the net. Oh tried L Band too. Local stuff isnt so exciting here being mainly czech.
"Raaaaaaager" as they used to say.

Sputnik

Just got an Icom R-20.

About €200 less then new from ebay and in pretty much perfect condition.

humaxf1

Hi watty,

Did u get the 40 odd quid discone in Maplin? I'm interested in your coax hook-up for SWL. I have a PCR-1000 (BNC) and I have to disconnect the coax braid, otherwise the RX is attenuated. Is this the norm?

thx

watty

My kids bought me it as a present out of Maplin. It's only really good above 30MHz.


For lower frequencies you need an Aerial matching unit at end of coax feeding a wire aerial. you are really using your coax as an aerial too by disconnecting braid. If you don't have a tunable matching unit the end fed wire should be a little shorted than 1/4 of the wavelenth in meters = 300/MHz

15ft, 33ft, 66ft are three possible lengths for an end fed horizontal wire. You need a matching coil balun (pvc covered wire on a approx 50mm plastic pipe). Try about 8 turns connected to the coax. About 12 turns for the aerial wire, one end direct to a 4ft earth spike and the other end to the wire. Insulate the far end with at least 2ft (60cm) of nylon cord/rope.

Any kind of wire, even washing line. Minimum height off ground 8ft to 10ft. If one end is high (e.g. Chimney) the other should still be < 10ft to allow the earthing of coil to work. If the coax feed is high, then you need a dipole, two wires.

Google inverted L, inverted V, G5RV and Beveridge aerials.