scanning feature

I don't find scanning that effective anyways whilst driving.

You tend to come in an out of range of occasional conversations where you can only catch one side of the cocky's wife's conversation with some other cocky's wife five k's away the other side of her. Never enough to pick up on any really interesting gossip though.

It is better than listening to the mindless drivel that is Chanel-40 (a bad smelling perfume at that) admittedly.

Cheers
Andrew.

Hi ash05

You have provided no info on what state you are in or what emerg service channels you wish to monitor.

The scanning feature you mention in a UHF radio will not pick up the majority of emergency services such as fire, police etc. I have a dedicated Radio Shack Pro-96 digital scanner which does pick up such services and requires a lot of programming and help from others when you first start out. Even with my scanner you cannot decipher the encrypted police conversations (sounds like ducks talking under water).

Hopefully others can assist if provide more details.

Cheers
Pete

yeah i completly aggree with you, but the question was directed more to the emergancy band scanning.

pete i was looking at getting an icom ic-400 uhf but is it worth paying for those scanning features when i could spend half the money and get a simple 40 channel gme uhf

so pete you are saying that the icom ic-400 wont pick up these new digital frequencies making the icom useles for scanning emergancy channels, i dont now that is why i'm seeking for info i am unaware and dont know much about scanning i know is that i have a pearce and simpson uhf with channels programed for police scanning but i have never herd any activity on these channels and i have been told that this would be because the police have gone digital.

I find scaniogn handy for times when I need to listen in on say a few channels, or for listening to others or across the band like when travelling remote and litening for others travelling towards you or in the same vicinity tracks etc, have found it useful a few times, and all the UHF's i have have it anyways.

If you mean the extra channels that are programmable then I wouldnt bother, only SES and some CFA channels are still used, wallopers are all SMR.

Some models have a couple of scanning modes - either scanning the lot or scanning what you select to have scanned (often called open scan & group scan) These models also have a selectable 'priority" channel. Set the priority channel to the main one you wish to monitor and select the others you wish to monitor in the group scan. That way the radio scans through the channels several times a second instead of taking seconds to scan the whole 40.

PeterD

Short answer; use a uhf to scan uhf channels. You'll quite likely need a wider bandwidth (and possibly trunk tracking) scanner for emergency services.

Long version:
i. which state are you in?
ii. what do you want to listen to?

SA & NSW are running trunked systems, so a uhf (at least in SA) may pick it up, but you won't follow the conversation (not sure who uses the NSW system, but in SA with a trunking scanner you can pick up SAAS, CFS, SES, NPWS, FSA etc . . most govt outfits except SAPOL who are encrypted).

NSW are looking at going digital (but I don't think they are yet), and when they do a standard uhf will be useless.
SA is yet to go digital, and no one knows when they will (Site Link
You can put in your post code, or the name of a company who may have their own registered licence. In the case of a post code, it will give you a list of licences registered to that area.

no worries John thank you, you had the info l needed, and thank all for your input. Just one last question l don't want any arguments in your own opinion what is the best value for money radio just list the model you prefer or have or want.