Which older scanners support PL decoding?
 

A friend, who's also on our local rescue squad, has reception problems
in his house. His pager only works in his kitchen and if it goes off in
the middle of the night, he has to run into the kitchen to hear the
address of the call. I loaned him a scanner to see if it would pick up
our rescue frequency (46.08 MHz) in his bedroom and it does.

So he'd like to buy a cheap, used scanner to monitor that frequency in
his bedroom at night when he's on call. Our rescue squad is one of 5
fire department companies which use the same frequency and its calls are
sent with a PL code. He doesn't want to hear the calls to the other
companies, thus the need for a scanner that decodes PL.

Since he's only going to listen to one frequency and since PL is
generally an "advanced" feature (i.e. on more expensive scanners), we
thought the best bet would be to find a used PL-enabled scanner on eBay
for this singular task.

Unfortunately, I've been away from scanners for a few years and don't
have at my fingertips a list of older RS or Uniden scanners that support
PL.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could provide the model numbers of any older
scanner (base or portable) that supports PL. We can then look for these
models on ebay.

Much thanks in advance.

Regards,

Howard Bornstein
Design EQ

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:25:12 -0500, michael agner wrote:

...Personally, my suggestion would be to search for a PRO92B model -
programming with the correct cable and Win92 should do very well. This
model- along with its mobile cousin, the PRO2067 - are very well
regarded for fast PL/DPL decoding....

I own and like these models, too, but they are only suitable for
monitoring a single frequency in PL/DPL mode if you
set them up to scan.

They employ carrier squelch when placed in the manual mode.
Therefore, the fireman should program 2 channels in a bank with
the same frequency and other settings, lock out the remaining
channels, and scan only those 2 channels.

--
================================================== =======================
Bob Parnass, AJ9S GNU/Linux User http://parnass.com

Mr. Parnass:

Your equipment reviews from MONITORING TIMES, will be sorely missed.
Thank you, for your many contributions to the hobby.

Bruce



"Bob Parnass" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:25:12 -0500, michael agner wrote:

...Personally, my suggestion would be to search for a PRO92B model -
programming with the correct cable and Win92 should do very well. This
model- along with its mobile cousin, the PRO2067 - are very well
regarded for fast PL/DPL decoding....

I own and like these models, too, but they are only suitable for
monitoring a single frequency in PL/DPL mode if you
set them up to scan.

They employ carrier squelch when placed in the manual mode.
Therefore, the fireman should program 2 channels in a bank with
the same frequency and other settings, lock out the remaining
channels, and scan only those 2 channels.

--
================================================== =======================
Bob Parnass, AJ9S GNU/Linux User http://parnass.com

I can suggest the following:

-Uniden Bearcat BC580/590XLT with optional CTCSS board

-Uniden Bearcat BC760/950XLT with optional CTCSS board

-Radio Shack PRO-2045 with optional CTCSS board

-Uniden Bearcat BC895XLT (CTCSS board is standard)

This is not meant to be an all inclusive list, but these are units that I
have owned and that work well. I have not included the BC8500/9000 because
of problems that I have had with those.

Here is something that Rich Wells posted at his webpage
http://www.strongsignals.net/access/...res.html#CTCSS

CTCSS


Manufacturer Model(s)
Alinco DJ-X2000 *
AOR AR5000
AR8200/B * (optional)
AR8200/B MkII * (optional)
AR8200/B MkIII * (optional)
AR8600/B * (optional)
AR8600/B MkII * (optional)
Icom IC-R2 *
IC-R20*
IC-R3 *
IC-R5 *
Optoelectronics OptoCom +
RadioShack PRO-2036 (optional)
PRO-2045 (optional)
PRO-2067 +
PRO-92 +
Racing Electronics RE2000Alpha
RELM HS200
MS200
Uniden BC250D *
BC296D *
BC760XLT (optional)
BC785D *
BC796D *
BC890XLT (optional)
BC895XLT *
BC898T +
BC9000XLT (optional)
BC950XLT (optional)
SC200
UBC890XLT (optional)
UBC9000XLT (optional)
Yaesu VR-150
* = tone search feature
+ = instant decode



I see that there are two one Ebay right now.