Radio Scanners

[ADJimbo]

Growing up in the 1990s, I used to listen avidly to all things on a Radio Scanner that Santa Claus brought me from the Mecca that was Tandy - things like Emergency Services, Mobile Phones, Taxi Companies and so forth.

It fell by the wayside, and anything worth listening to migrated onto the digital Air Wave system(s) so there became less and less content.

I have an impending period of convalescence incoming which will literally see me feet-up. I have seen new scanners advertised on Amazon and the like, and wondered if anyone still uses one, and if so, can you still get content to satisfy my nosiness?

[Jo-say8k]

I don't know the answer but aren't there websites to watch live cctv etc?

[camel_landy]

ADJimbo said:

...can you still get content to satisfy my nosiness?

Scanner wise, a lot of stuff has either gone or is going digital, with some of it encrypted too. There should still be enough to satisfy your curiosity though but failing that, you could always get a ham license and join in.

M

[JustGREENI]

I'm a car nerd first, then a radio ham (nerd) and even this morning I have had 3 contacts into Japan and 1 to Bangladesh, on the 10m band, which is 28mhz.

What sort of scanning, SWL are you looking to go down?

[NoTreadLeft]

There's still stuff to listen to e.g. air traffic control, coastguard etc. If you are interested in listening-in, rather than buying a scanner take a look at Software Defined Radio (SDR). It enables you to do much more than most cheap scanners by plugging one of those TV receiver dongle thingys into a USB socket and doing the rest in software.

[JustGREENI]

There are web sdr's located all around the world that us hams use to see where the bands are open to.

http://kiwisdr.com/.public/


Here's my transceiver!!