Over the last few years there’s been a revolution. The revolution is in radio scanners – those devices that allow you to listen to police, ambulance and other emergency services. If you drive long distances, or just like knowing what is going on around you, these radios are fascinating and effective tools.
But in the past the troubles with scanners have been threefold. First, finding out the frequencies that the emergency services transmit on – they tend not to publish these. Second, manually plugging in all these frequencies into the unit. And, finally, the high cost of a scanning receiver that has lots of channels.
However, nowadays, none of these are issues! A high quality scanning receiver, fully pre-programmed with literally thousands of channels, can now be bought for under AUD$200. Add a good aerial and mount and the total is still under $300. (I can remember when this money wouldn’t have even bought a basic, 25 channel, un-programmed scanner – let alone the aerial as well.)
Receiver
The receiver I bought is a Uniden UBC355XLT.
This unit has over 3000 pre-programmed frequencies – these are suitable for Australia and New Zealand; in other countries check your local suppliers. (Oddly enough, Uniden doesn’t seem to make a big deal about how many channels the unit has - you need to actually add up all the pre-programmed channels to get to more than 3000.)
The fact that the frequencies are pre-programmed means that there’s no way of manually inputting new channel frequencies (eg there’s no PC hook-up and no numerical keypad is provided). However, you can perform a frequency search and any new channels of interest can then be added to the lists of scanned channels.
(If you are new to all this, the short version is that you just turn the thing on and all the work has been done for you.)
Pre-programmed scanning banks that can be selected include, police, railway, fire, ambulance, air, marine and UHF and AM CB. All or any of these can be selected for scanning, so for example on the road you can select to scan just UHF CB, police and ambulance.
The unit is very small – 132mm (W) x 142mm (D) x 42mm (H).
The Uniden is available on eBay from as little as AUD$160 but I chose to buy my unit at Dick Smith Electronics for $179 (note: through negotiation I got $20 off the list price).
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Before investing in a scanner to monitor specific services, ensure that they still use normal analog voice transmissions. In some areas, digitally-encoded data is used instead. Your local radio enthusiast group should be able to help.
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Aerial
The unit comes with two small aerials – a telescopic whip and a wire aerial that can be hung on a wall or window. Together with the supplied mains-powered plugpack, you can use this combination as an effective desktop scanner – that’s if you live in a high signal strength area like a city.
On the road, or in fringe reception areas, you’ll need a better antenna.
I chose a dedicated scanner antenna (that is, one that suits the wide variety of frequencies needing to be tuned-in) and bought a Mobile One 25-1300MHz whip 1050mm long. This is short enough to be used relatively unobtrusively on a car but good enough to pull in lots of signals. (If you want a near-invisible antenna use a glass-mount design – but it won’t be as effective across such a range of frequencies.) From Dick Smith Electronics the Mobile One aerial cost $50.
A variety of aerial mounts is available. I initially chose a Mobile One magnetic mount ($60 from Dick) but then realised that as the best flat surface on the car (a small wagon) was the rear of the roof, the aerial would end up very high. That would be great for reception but not so good for negotiating underground car parks so I revised the position to one side of the bonnet, using a ‘Z’ bracket.
A Z bracket mounts on the inner lip of the guard, projecting up in the gap between the bonnet and the guard. These brackets are available in zinc-coated steel or stainless steel; I bought a steel one so that I could easily cut and braze it. In fact, the bracket was extensively modified so that it was stronger, fitted around the little bumps and depressions in the guard metal work, and positioned the aerial vertically. (To put this another way, without modification, the off the shelf bracket would have been useless.)
Mounting
The radio itself was mounted in the centre console, with power being taken from the normal car radio positioned directly above.
Conclusion
So how well does the radio work? In short, very well.
Depending on my mood and the use to which the car is being put, at any one time I have a choice of literally dozens of communications to which I can listen.
On my country / city commute I can hear police from a radius of 150 kilometres (this unusually good – there must be a major repeater nearby), I can listen to truckies on the road and I can hear aircraft on approach to the major local airport. In an emergency I can hear police, ambulance and fire brigade. I can monitor just one channel or scan literally thousands.
Fitting a scanning radio doesn’t suit everyone but I love it.
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