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Anyone using an amateur radio for a scanner?
- Thread starter Snake Eyes
- Start date
I used to have an Icom R1 when they first came out, amazing receiver, but a lousy scanner. The sensitivity and width of the receive was too hot and it was crippled while scanning from adjacent stations and anything else that could interfere with it. Great when set on a fixed station though.
I've got a Yaesu VX-7R now and it's similar. Does very well as a receiver, not so great as a scanner. Add any high gain antenna to it and it gets worse. The way it deals with memory banks is annoying too for scanning. The VX6 is a bit nicer as a scanner due to the memory bank labeling and some other small differences.
The VX-3 seems to work pretty nicely as a scanner/receiver but it's a low output HT for TX. Excellent little thing to use for crossband input though.
For actual scanning, I've always liked Uniden or the older Radio Shack scanners.
I've got a Yaesu VX-7R now and it's similar. Does very well as a receiver, not so great as a scanner. Add any high gain antenna to it and it gets worse. The way it deals with memory banks is annoying too for scanning. The VX6 is a bit nicer as a scanner due to the memory bank labeling and some other small differences.
The VX-3 seems to work pretty nicely as a scanner/receiver but it's a low output HT for TX. Excellent little thing to use for crossband input though.
For actual scanning, I've always liked Uniden or the older Radio Shack scanners.
Echo that SR385.
I've been using the TH-F6A, and since I mainly keep the dial on public service communications, it works rather well.
Wanted that all-in-one solution....lol
Snake Eyes said:
I like that HT quite a lot. I'd already owned a Vertex marine VHF with the same body as the VX-7 and went that route because it is such a solid housing and waterproof. I sea kayak with the Vertex and it never let me down in the sun and salt water.
Features and performance overall I think the Kenwood has the edge though. Battery life is pretty amazing on the Kenwood too...not sure how they do it.
What I've definitely learned is the wider the feature set, the broader the compromise a rig becomes. Single band HTs are such superior performers when compared, just a inconvenient at times.
I use my FT-847 as a scanner sometimes. I have it programmed with about 40 local 2M and 70CM repeaters, and scan through them for activity most of the time. I hardly ever talk on the thing, even now with a General ticket! My horse and canoe/kayak hobbies have really taken over....
Maybe if I ever get off my butt and get an HF antenna strung up, I'll get back into transmitting and making contacts, but for the last couple of years, I mostly monitor.
Maybe if I ever get off my butt and get an HF antenna strung up, I'll get back into transmitting and making contacts, but for the last couple of years, I mostly monitor.
I use my TM-V7. I have the frequencies of interest programmed in and labelled as to what they are. I lock out those I don't want to scan and off it goes. Not as fast as a "real" scanner, but it does what I want it to do.
If my radio will scan, and if it will receive the frequencies I want to hear, it will probably do double-duty as a scanner. My radio has two 'receivers', VHF/UHF. Both can be made to scan (at the same time). That's certainly handy! It can also be a royal PITA! Just depends on what I want to hear at any particular time. Not the primary one, but one reason I like it.
- 'Doc
- 'Doc