RadioBanter - A Sad Reality: The Unaviodable Death of Scanning

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A Sad Reality: The Unaviodable Death of Scanning

Hello all,

Scanning has been for me, as I'm sure it has for many of you, a great and
fascinating hobby over the last many years.

But with such things as digital transmission, spread spectrum and encryption
techniques becoming more and more popular and widely used every day, it can really
only mean one thing: recreational scanning must eventually die.

From everything I can see, it won't be long before even the most back-woods agencies
will be going all digital... as many of them already have. Sure, it may take another
5 or 10 years (probably at most) to phase out all the old analog radio equipment, but
phase out it will. It has to. The future of radio communication is going digital.
It's now cheap and it's easy, and getting more so every day.

What are we scanner enthusiasts to do?

lamentfully,

Dave

You could get a ham license and create some analog transmissions of your
own!!

- Doug

"David H." wrote in message
...
Hello all,

... it can really only mean one thing: recreational scanning must
eventually die.
...
What are we scanner enthusiasts to do?

lamentfully,
Dave

"David H." wrote in message
...
Hello all,

Scanning has been for me, as I'm sure it has for many of you, a great
and
fascinating hobby over the last many years.

But with such things as digital transmission, spread spectrum and
encryption
techniques becoming more and more popular and widely used every day, it
can really
only mean one thing: recreational scanning must eventually die.

From everything I can see, it won't be long before even the most
back-woods agencies
will be going all digital... as many of them already have. Sure, it may
take another
5 or 10 years (probably at most) to phase out all the old analog radio
equipment, but
phase out it will. It has to. The future of radio communication is going
digital.
It's now cheap and it's easy, and getting more so every day.

What are we scanner enthusiasts to do?

lamentfully,

Dave

Weak signal work is fun ;-)

Nah, don't be such a pessimist. As technology advances in radio
communications, it's only a matter of time and patience before monitoring
digital becomes just as much the norm as monitoring analog is now.
Monitoring will catch up with transmitting, whether it be digital or spread
spectrum or encryption. APCO capable scanners are only the beginning. Have
faith, Grasshopper. Things will be better:)

"David H." wrote in message
...
Hello all,

Scanning has been for me, as I'm sure it has for many of you, a great
and
fascinating hobby over the last many years.

But with such things as digital transmission, spread spectrum and
encryption
techniques becoming more and more popular and widely used every day, it
can really
only mean one thing: recreational scanning must eventually die.

From everything I can see, it won't be long before even the most
back-woods agencies
will be going all digital... as many of them already have. Sure, it may
take another
5 or 10 years (probably at most) to phase out all the old analog radio
equipment, but
phase out it will. It has to. The future of radio communication is going
digital.
It's now cheap and it's easy, and getting more so every day.

What are we scanner enthusiasts to do?

lamentfully,

Dave

The digital era has created no problems for me since all I've listened
to since 1974 is aircraft communications. Therefore, my scanning hobby
is alive and well, not on the verge of death.

Living directly between the three busiest aviation hubs on earth
(Atlanta, Chicago & Dallas), there's no shortage of high altitude stuff
flying overhead for me to hear on a daily basis. A person doesn't need
to live near an airport to listen to aircraft. Many folks may live in an
ideal location to listen to the same thing I do and not even realize it.
Go outside on a sunny day and look up to see what's flying above you.
Each of those white streaks which crisscross our skies are all talking
on the radio with air traffic controllers at an ARTCC facilitity.

There's even airline flight tracking sites like, http://flightview.com
that enable a person to see where a flight is coming from, going to,
flight routing and aircraft type.

Mark Holmes
Marion, IL

"Mark Holmes" wrote in message
...
The digital era has created no problems for me since all I've listened
to since 1974 is aircraft communications. Therefore, my scanning hobby
is alive and well, not on the verge of death.

Living directly between the three busiest aviation hubs on earth
(Atlanta, Chicago & Dallas), there's no shortage of high altitude stuff
flying overhead for me to hear on a daily basis. A person doesn't need
to live near an airport to listen to aircraft. Many folks may live in an
ideal location to listen to the same thing I do and not even realize it.
Go outside on a sunny day and look up to see what's flying above you.
Each of those white streaks which crisscross our skies are all talking
on the radio with air traffic controllers at an ARTCC facilitity.

There's even airline flight tracking sites like, http://flightview.com
that enable a person to see where a flight is coming from, going to,
flight routing and aircraft type.

Agree there, there's not only aviation - I live near one major airport
(Vancouver - YVR),and listen into aviation occaisionally but also marine.
Out here, there's lots of marine activity since there is a large vehicle
ferry fleet here, and there's always position reporting and the activity at
the terminals. Plus coastal ship operatins including cruise ships in season.
In addition, there's trains. Then there's also logging truck operations (be
sure you're not heading west on the same 14 foot wide road that a 12 foot
wide loaded logging truck is heading east!).

As far as the fire service goes, the fire service is not digitial around
here, since digital systems are costly. The only things that are digitally
encrypted are police and ambulance, but that's only in the local area.
Outside of the regional area, the police
are analogue and once one knows the matrix of RCMP channels, it's pretty
easy.

It depends on what the interests lie in listening in. As Mark here said,
there's tons of things to listen to if a person justs
looks around around.

I take my portable scanner aboard the ferry and one certainly gets a
different prespective while looking around outside around you.

PK

What are we scanner enthusiasts to do?

lamentfully,

Dave

I look at the comming of Digital as a great chance for me to pickup some
good MilAir scanners at rockbottom prices....

Been in scanning for years, currently 18 scanners sit on my desk, not
ONE monitor the local trunk system (EDACS non encyrpted).

With all the Aviation, MilAir, NASA, US Customs, and Military (all of
which are non-encrypted, non-digital, and most in AM mode) there will be
tons of scanning listening for years to come. Aviation will never in
our life time be digital (or the lifetime of our children), heck it will
never be FM in our lifetime (or that of our children).

Just remember, Public safety is only one scanning target out of a target
rich enviroment. And personally I find public safety one of the boring
monitoring targets (except for when Daytona runs their drug & prostitute
stings which is usually good for a good laugh).

George - Daytona Beach, FL
http://www.MilAirComms.com

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 04:08:29 GMT, "toho" wrote:

I'm living in Surrey (Canada) and I'm thinking of getting a scanner that can
listen to the rcmp, got any suggestions?

Last year when I was in the B.C. lower mainland the RCMP there were
still using FM in the 155 Mhz area. Same as in Alberta. So just
about any scanner should do that.

I heard some stuff in the 138-138 area as well. Some ambulance and
fire in the 153-154 Mhz.

It's my understanding that some folks, such as detectives or
surveillance are using encrypted stuff.

Tony