Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

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Mick Aitch
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Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Mick Aitch »

I live in Leicester, quite close to Stoughton aerodrome and under the flight path for EMA. I'm in the market for a hand held scanner to listen-in on this lot plus any other transmissions available and am considering buying one of the following used scanners:

Uniden BC 220 xlt
Realistic PRO 43
Realistic PRO 26
Realistic PRO 92

All of which can be had 'dead cheap' (caveat emptor).

Is there any point or are these so out of date that I'd be better off investing my sub £50 budget on beer?

If it's the latter, is spending ca £120 on the BC125 xlt also a waste of money as thing seem to be 'going digital' at a tremendous rate of knots; will there be anything to listen to in 5 years time?

Thoughts, comments, jovial abuse all very welcome. :D
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by radiosification »

If you only want to listen to airband then you don't need a digital scanner. I don't think they will be switching to a digital voice system anytime in the near future.

For business radio, almost every new system these days is digital, and more of them are going encrypted these days than before. Honestly I wouldn't bother getting into scanning business radio stuff. It's a dying hobby.

I don't know much about those scanners in particular so maybe someone else will be able to help with that, but any scanner that covers airband and has 8.33KHz steps should be fine. You'll also be able to listen to some other stuff on an analogue scanner, like PMR446, and maybe there will be some analogue business radio systems left around you, like in London there are the buses.
If you're interested in digital voice, check out my YouTube channel:
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Admiral »

They are all very similar in performance, personally given that list I would get the PRO-26 as it's a bit more modern, doesn't have gaps, and the step sizes are selectable.
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Mick Aitch
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Mick Aitch »

Thanks both. Of the used scanners I thought the PRO 26 was possibly the favourite to go for - simply based on the continuous coverage.

What's encouraging is that no one has suggested that I leave analogue scanning well alone.

Cheers.
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Admiral »

Ignore the doom and gloom merchants, yes, comparing analogue scanning in 2017 compared with 1987 is slightly depressing, but there's still plenty out there to be had. For me the fun of scanning is the hunting and identifying rather than listening to what is generally a benign conversation, it takes patience, sometimes days or even weeks, but that's the 'sport' of it for me. Posting in the scanning section 'anyone got any frequencies for (insert Town)' is pretty lame in my opinion.
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by bigbloke »

Admiral wrote: For me the fun of scanning is the hunting and identifying rather than listening to what is generally a benign conversation, it takes patience, sometimes days or even weeks, but that's the 'sport' of it for me. Posting in the scanning section 'anyone got any frequencies for (insert Town)' is pretty lame in my opinion.
Amen brother Admiral! :D

this hobby died a mini-death in the 90s because everyone wanted to be spoonfed, and PROMA , until its demise, did exactly that!

the sooner we ditch (s)kimmy etc and return to "hunter gathering" the better! hell even ofcom gave us the WTR!

Its even killed off the Photavia books (they lost key contributors)

regards

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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by moj »

For once I also fully agree with admiral's comment ;)

All you seem to see now on these groups and forums is has anybody got a codeplug or a list for this area etc instead of doing the fun bit and searching for themselve's, when I searched sometimes I had to follow the hidden ones for years to workout who they might be and that was like putting the jigsaw together.

The spoonfeeding of them annoys me aswell and the posting them public with all the details and then watch them sometimes encrypt or vanish not long afterwards cause some idiots decide to start transmitting on them after being given the tx and rx frequency's !

I don't mind when users do the hard work and discover the enjoyment of searching aswell but I also think its going to be a dead hobby soon once everything encrypt's sadly !
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Mick Aitch »

moj wrote:I don't mind when users do the hard work and discover the enjoyment of searching aswell but I also think its going to be a dead hobby soon once everything encrypt's sadly !
I ought to buy something quickly then - before the game's over. :D
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by moj »

hehe ! sad fact I know but just think all they have to do is tick a box and create a code and then we are back to scanning analogue again or whichever other bands are available to us listener's.

And its got more popular where people post all the digital details up including colour codes , groups , slot rx and tx frequencys and the same comments can be read by the programmers and the licence holders so I think its only a matter of time now and in theory by posting details we are just cutting are own throats in the scanning hobby , enjoy it while we still can so go on treat yourself mick :)
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by scanhermit »

I live near Wetherby and still get a decent amount of analogue stuff despite losing the YOI and York shop watch to digital. I have an old Grecom and a rather newer 125xlt. If I was going to spend decent money, it would be on an HF desktop.
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Re: Is there any mileage in buying an 'old' scanner?

Post by Mick Aitch »

I eventually went with the 125xlt from Radioworld. Very happy with it and thanks, everyone, for your help and advice.
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