RADIO SCANNING COVERAGE INDEX
Welcome to our coverage of radio scanners and scanning.
What Is The Appeal Of Scanner Listening?
Scanning is a great hobby. It can give you a way to listen to the inside story on events in your community. You can hear things that never get reported in the news.
A short time ago there was a train that caught fire under one of the bridges across the Willammette River in Portland, Oregon. I happened to be able to listen to the emergency response crews [police, fire, Northwest Natural Gas], and I could also listen to the railroad people.
They had coverage of the incident on local TV, but the information they were reporting was a lot of speculation by the reporter on site.
I turned the volume on the TV down and listened in to the real action. It was much more informative and was really educational.
Another area where scanning can be fun is during public events like parades. You can hear the real "behind-the-scenes" action and get the big picture.
Scanning also - generally - does not cost much to get into. You need to buy a radio scanner, should have a map, and may want to use a computer to enter the frequencies or talk groups you hear. That's really all you need to get started.
Which Scanner Should I Buy?
That is a very good question. There are a lot of scanners out there, and there are some features you want to look for.
Ease of programming, number of channels [frequencies] that you can store into memory for quick recall, and trunk-trackiing are just some of the features that you will want to look for.
Why do we recommend trunk-tracking? In some areas of the country, you absolutely need the ability to listen to trunked radio systems in order to follow a conversation across the frequencies in the system.
The RadioShack PRO93?
The RadioShack PRO93 is a trunk-tracking scanner. The PRO2053 is the base-station version of the same scanner with the same features.
While it has a wider receive range [including the 220MHz and 1.2GHz bands] than the PRO92 and it DOES add CONTROL-CHAN ONLY mode for Motorola trunking, it takes away the CTCSS decode function - a major draw of the PRO92. WHY???? It seems that RadioShack isn't interested in a full, true competetor for the Uniden BC780XLT.
It also suffers from the same lack of front-end receive amplification as the rest of the GRE scanners. The PRO94 - made by Uniden for RadioShack - has better front-end receive amplification. With the same antenna, the PRO94 will pull in a weaker signal than the PRO92 or PRO93.
In its' favor, the PRO93 does consistently show the talk group ID's when tracking a trunked system. This is an improvement over the PRO92, which often fails to show the talk group ID without the user pressing the SCAN button while listening to a conversation. The PRO94 has never exhibited this problem - apparently caused by the lack of front-end amplification.
We are working on a full review of this unit, but in the meantime, check out our Technical Information Faq by clicking on the button to the left.
A Recent Scanning Opportunity: In Provo, UT where the famous STADIUM OF FIRE celebration is held.
I didn't bring my normal scanner with me, but I was able to find the behind-the-scenes master control frequency for the performance part of the show. It was on 154.575. This frequency is used for all major events at Lavell Edwards Stadium - including BYU football games.
It was really interesting to listen in. The people using those radios are certainly not trained in disciplined radio operations. There were many instances of several operators talking at the same time - one of which happened when one of the "portal" people was calling in to report a bucket of gasoline on the field that needed to be moved out of the way. That person had to try three times before the master control person was able to understand them. Can you say "DANGEROUS"?
It seems that there was one master controller and several "portal" people, plus the stage entrance/exit people.
I suspect that some of the people operating those radios were using VOX headsets. They were heard whenever they were talking to someone around them - creating further chaos and unneeded radio chatter. There was also the proverbial "open mic", and a lot of chatter was dedicated to that.
There were also requests to locate the towels for Sawyer Brown - which had apparently been locked in a production trailer. They had to find the man with the keys.
Aside from the chaos of hearing the master control operator yell "get them out there, get them out there", "is so-and-so on stage", and other things into the radio [yelling into a radio makes it very hard for those listening to you to understand you!], there was some excitement at the end of the show.
Just after the fireworks started, the call "fire on the canopy, fire on the canopy" went out. This was another instance of when yelling into microphones caused the message to have to be repeated several times before the message was understood. Can you say "RADIO DISCIPLINE"? They really do need to learn that before next year.
Once the message was understood, fire extinguishers were immediately employed and the call "the fire is out, the fire is out" followed shortly.
This was a great opportunity to hear the production direction of a live show. While I think they could certainly use some education on procedures for radio operations, it looks like the show went off pretty well. I plan to be listening next year!
-- Jeff