Digital Transition

This is the place to discuss generalized scanner questions and information for San Diego County. Whether it's radios, antennas, or other general scanner related topics, you can talk about it here.
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seargentslaughter
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:02 pm

Digital Transition

Post by seargentslaughter »

I have a Radioshack PRO-96. What should i do with it after everything is digital/encrypted? Is there anything i can do to it to make it receive digital transmissions?
SkipSanders
Posts: 165
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:12 pm

Re: Digital Transition

Post by SkipSanders »

The Pro-96 IS a digital capable scanner.

If you mean 'encrypted' instead of digital, nothing whatsoever will ever let you monitor encrypted signals, even if it were legal, which it isn't in the USA.

What can you use it for? The many NON encrypted signals out there. Military Air (with use of Win96 to enable 225-400 MHz), railroads, marine radio, aircraft, etc, etc. Police and Fire aren't the only signals out there.
seargentslaughter
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:02 pm

Re: Digital Transition

Post by seargentslaughter »

oops my bad i meant a pro-94
SkipSanders
Posts: 165
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:12 pm

Re: Digital Transition

Post by SkipSanders »

To make it receive digital transmissions, you do what you do to 'reenable that band that isn't in the scanner', as so many seem to think is possible...

You smash the scanner with a sledgehammer, and buy one that DOES have the features you want. :twisted:

Digital is a whole different world from analog, not something you could 'add in'.

As said, though, there are huge numbers of non-digital things to listen to, which the old scanner will still be handy for when you've aquired a digital trunking capable scanner. It's usually good to have several scanners available, as any given scanner can only listen to one thing at a time. In a major fire, for instance, you'd want the relevant trunking system, AND you'll want to monitor the VHF conventional fire channels, and the Airband fire channels, too. While current high end scanners will let you montor a trunk system AND conventional stuff, it has to switch between them, and misses a lot of stuff as a result. You might also want to lock a scanner on a single channel (say, the in use aircraft channel at a major brushfire) while still listening to the general trunked fire traffic, etc.
seargentslaughter
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:02 pm

Re: Digital Transition

Post by seargentslaughter »

Yeah i actually have an icom ic-w31a for freqs 140-160 and 47x.xx+550 i think and then a few fire radios i picked up and the conventional scanner.
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