Hi Andy, my name is Dave and my call is W8RIT. I do not know of any recent advances in technology regarding public service V/UHF scanning. The most recent upgrade in this area is relatively old, approx 5 years or so. This is the APCO Project-25 digital format. It is used pretty extensively here in Michigan. From what I have been able to gather from reading radio magazines (Pop Communications and Monitoring Times), is that it is a pretty well engineered system. I have heard snippets from other municipalities that have sued Motorola and gone back to analog V/UHF systems they had in place. Personally, myself I would not want to rely on the MSPCS 800 MHz system, especially if my life might depend on it, like a police officer or fire fighter. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice luxury features and it looks good on paper, but when the "fit hits the shan", I think they'll say Thank God for amateurs. Anyways, I use a free software program called Pro96COM (which also has a Yahoo group). This software program can be found here: http://www. If you have a P-25 digital trunking scanner it can enable you to see more of the information on how the controller is handling talkgroups, and a host of other system information. I use the RS Pro-96 that I picked up at Dayton almost as soon as they came out. I can use a home-brewed Icom CI-V level converter to use with this software. One drawback with this particular radio is that I cannot listen to the audio of the communications while the software is running. I do believe that you can listen with the Bearcat/Uniden and GRE P-25 trunking scanners. I'm not an expert on the scanners, (there are some relatively simple commands on the Pro-96 I still have to refer to the manual for), but my personal recommendation would be to purchase the GRE line. All 3 of these manufacturers, Radio Shack, Uniden/Bearcat, and GRE, have handhelds and mobile/base scanners for P-25 trunking. A few years back I had talked with Don Starr about the GRE. and he explained the revolutionary concept for programming the radio with objects. The objects could be frequencies, talkgroup ID's, channel banks, etc. Also you were not limited to a set number of channels in a bank, or talkgroup ID's in a talkgroup bank like you are with "conventional" scanners, like the Pro-96, (or possibly even the Uniden/Bearcats). I recall from a review in one of the radio magazines a few years back about the Uniden/Bearcat 396?, and one feature that I recall that I personally liked with that is that it had a way to tag GPS location to software on your current location and other information, such as the number of hits (# of times the scanner stopped on a frequency or channel) and the signal strength. I use Win96 software to program the Pro-96, and it's a blessing compared to having to do it all manually on the radio itself. That's a bit of info for you Andy. Hopefully I didn't tell you what you already knew. That's about the most important development that I can think of offhand.
73 de W8RIT Dave --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "obrienaj" <k3uka...@...> wrote: > > I wonder what the latest is in the state of art scanning of the VHF and UHF > bands. What digital modes and sued and what are the modern scanners up to > these days ? > > Andy K3UK >
