RadioBanter - View Single Post - Newbie Desperately Needs Help(Cross Posted)

BDK

In article ,
says...

"BDK" wrote in message
...

Find a local scanner group and take your radio to the meeting. You have
to know something, the 250D will not decode all the currently used
digital baud rates. That's one of the reasons it's been discontinued for
some time now.

What you should have done is find the group or local expert first, and
then buy the right radio. You can always ebay the 250D, if you have to.

We all screw up in the beginning. Live and learn.

There are only two digital handhelds worth buying right now, used or
new, the RS Pro-96, and the Uniden 396T. That's my opinion, and they are
the only models currently available. I went with the PRO-96 for several
reasons, better audio, easier programming, and an intimate knowledge of
past Uniden quality control issues on previous models. Some of them
amazingly poorly put together. I fixed a lot of Unidens with speaker
wires not soldered, and a few had major soldering issues. I got all but
one going, and used several parts from it to fix other ones.

BDK

Very nicely said BD!!!

I just want him to avoid what some friends of mine went through when
starting out. They had no idea what they needed, and a couple of them
went out and bought used scanners without 800MHZ, right before the city
switched over, so they had to sell them, and then buy the only trunk
tracking handhelds at the time, the Uniden BC235 and it's RS clone, the
Pro-90 (I think that was the model number), and start over. I was able
to help them out, after the frustration kicked in and one guy, without
telling me, just listened in normal untrunked mode for years until the
radio fell down the stairs and he had to buy a new one. He was amazed
when his new Pro-95 was up and trunking in about 10 minutes, after I
cloned it over to my PC, added a few things I didn't have, and loaded it
up. He's pretty much an expert now. He has a Pro-96, a Uniden 396, and
two Pro-2096's, one for home and one for work. His wife, who thought
scanners were "stupid" got hooked after a couple of big chases came over
the radio, and that was that, she's a ham now.

Same goes for shortwave radio. I had gotten into it again in the mid
80's and had moved up to pretty high end stuff at that point. A friend I
don't see often had bought junky portable after portable over the years,
and never really was happy with them. They didn't last long, so he kept
buying them, never with SSB (he didn't understand it at all), and then
one day he comes over for help with a mike for his CB he bought and
couldn't get wired up. He sees my stuff and is mesmerized. Next thing
you know, he's buying all kinds of receivers, decoders (Fax and RTTY,
not much out there to decode anymore)antennas, etc. He went from a junk
portable to a 1100 buck receiver in one day, and soon had an entire room
full of nice stuff. All it takes is being in the right place at the
right time. I got hooked at Universal Radio in 1984. Before that, I had
a series of fair to poor portables, never happy with them at all. I've
had one of my SW radios for over 20 years now.

BDK