Monday, June 08, 2009
Radio Shack has scanners on sale
One of the items we discussed on the weekly scanner net yesterday evening was the fact that Radio Shack has several scanner models on sale. If you are in the market for a new scanner there are some reasonable deals available especially for the south western Pennsylvania area where APCO 25 digital and trunking systems are not yet dominant.
Two items that are of particular interest at the PRO-163 hand held and the PRO-164 base scanners both with a number of attractive features. They are a complementarity pair with the same basic features and user interface. Both are computer programmable and I believe the same software package will work on both. They both have what I consider to be key features for use in Allegheny County now and that is alpha tagging for the channels and CTCSS/DCS tone decoding. The former because with the centralized dispatching and the large number of channels in use now and the latter because most of us use computers at home and tone squelch helps eliminate superfluous noise of the digital variety that might be floating around the radio room.
Both of these scanners have 1000 channel capacity and handle trunked as well as conventional systems. The only thing lacking is APCO 25 digital demodulation which at least at this time is not a big factor unless you live in or want to monitor Westmoreland County. So give them a look if you are in the market.
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Two items that are of particular interest at the PRO-163 hand held and the PRO-164 base scanners both with a number of attractive features. They are a complementarity pair with the same basic features and user interface. Both are computer programmable and I believe the same software package will work on both. They both have what I consider to be key features for use in Allegheny County now and that is alpha tagging for the channels and CTCSS/DCS tone decoding. The former because with the centralized dispatching and the large number of channels in use now and the latter because most of us use computers at home and tone squelch helps eliminate superfluous noise of the digital variety that might be floating around the radio room.
Both of these scanners have 1000 channel capacity and handle trunked as well as conventional systems. The only thing lacking is APCO 25 digital demodulation which at least at this time is not a big factor unless you live in or want to monitor Westmoreland County. So give them a look if you are in the market.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Good article on portable dipole construction
I picked this up from twitter and it is a nicely documented article on putting together a portable multi band dipole with simple materials. If you are into experimenting with antennas or if you are thinking of a neat antenna for upcoming field day this article will grab your attention. Follow this link for more information.
[The W3FF portable dipole antenna]
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[The W3FF portable dipole antenna]
Labels: antennas portable dipole field day home brew
