When I was a kid, when my grandfather was alive we would spend hours listening to the police scanner. He had a Realistic (which I believe is Radio Shack) table top unit, and it was pretty solid. We were able to listen to freqs assigned to all of the local law enforcement and EMS along with US Border Patrol and reporters from one of the local news stations. Thought about getting back into it
I went on Amazon and purchased a Uniden Bearcat BC125AT portable and I have had no luck with it. I find it a little confusing on how to use but so far in the three days I’ve had it, I’ve picked up exactly 6 radio transmissions on it and two of them were on the HAM Radio band on my way to work Thursday morning. In scan mode it will just sit on a frequency that has nothing but static until I manually advance it, and then it will pick up some more static until I advance it again. The small amount of stuff that I heard was all static-ey and would drop out if I made the slightest move.
I looked on Radio Reference and small amount of others reported similar problems but most people agree that for the price it’s a great scanner, I’m just not experiencing that greatness. I did a reset on the radio, I’ve been playing the squelch levels, currently have it set on 3. People have suggested to update the firmware, but the firmware on my radio is 1.04something and the newest one listed on the website is 1.03somthing. One person suggested turning off CTCSS. I have no idea what CTCSS means or is, but I think I disabled that and it makes no difference.
I can pick up Wx perfectly, so I don’t think my scanner is bad, I just think I have something set wrong, or don’t know how to use it. Looking at the frequencies that agencies in the Buffalo, NY area use, they primarily use freqs that the BC125AT is able to receive, nothing in the 800 MHz band.
Any thoughts?
I went on Amazon and purchased a Uniden Bearcat BC125AT portable and I have had no luck with it. I find it a little confusing on how to use but so far in the three days I’ve had it, I’ve picked up exactly 6 radio transmissions on it and two of them were on the HAM Radio band on my way to work Thursday morning. In scan mode it will just sit on a frequency that has nothing but static until I manually advance it, and then it will pick up some more static until I advance it again. The small amount of stuff that I heard was all static-ey and would drop out if I made the slightest move.
I looked on Radio Reference and small amount of others reported similar problems but most people agree that for the price it’s a great scanner, I’m just not experiencing that greatness. I did a reset on the radio, I’ve been playing the squelch levels, currently have it set on 3. People have suggested to update the firmware, but the firmware on my radio is 1.04something and the newest one listed on the website is 1.03somthing. One person suggested turning off CTCSS. I have no idea what CTCSS means or is, but I think I disabled that and it makes no difference.
I can pick up Wx perfectly, so I don’t think my scanner is bad, I just think I have something set wrong, or don’t know how to use it. Looking at the frequencies that agencies in the Buffalo, NY area use, they primarily use freqs that the BC125AT is able to receive, nothing in the 800 MHz band.
Any thoughts?
