Scanner Collection

Here is my collection of scanners and radios.  I did possess a couple of scanners many years ago when it was still possible to listen in on the police transmissions and the old analogue mobile phones. A couple of years ago I decided to get back into the hobby and my collection of radios has slowly grown.  All of the scanners (apart from the handhelds) are connected to internal antennas placed in an upstairs window, unfortunately external antennas are not an option at the moment.

Base scanner is a Uniden UBC355CLT.  This was the first scanner I purchased after getting interested in scanning again.  It's a nice compact radio, the only thing I wish it had was alpha tagging as it only;y displays the frequency when received a transmission and I do find it a bit complicated to program - no facility to program it via the PC.

I have two handheld scanners, a Uniden USC230 and a Uniden UBC125XLT.  Both have been fitted with Watson antennas to replace the supplied rubber ducks and they work very well in the house.  Programming for the pair is performed using one of my computers with the Butel software, which also allows me to save all the programmed frequencies to an external file.  Also of use is a control program for the UBC125XLT called Scan125.  This is a free piece of software which allows me to operate the scanner from the PC, well worth downloading.  Why two handheld scanners?  The USC230 was my original choice however when attending the Rhyl Airshow I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't receive the Red Arrow transmissions nor the Valley airbase while at the caravan in Prestatyn since it does not cover the military airband.  The UBC125XLT rectified this as it does receive the military aircraft frequencies (I even managed to pick up Valley one weekend from here in Northwich).

Next up is a collection of dual band radios from Hong Kong suppliers.  A couple of Baofengs and a TYT.  Radios such as these are available on Ebay or Amazon for a very lost cost. These allow me to receive and transmit on the PMR channels and are also great for receiving marine and Search and Rescue (SAR) traffic.  Once again, all have had their standard antennas replaced with third party products.  The Baofengs are easily programmed from a PC using Chirp software though the TYT looks for an RS232 connection and refuses to connect via any USB connection - a pain having to program this one manually!

A couple of CB radios are part of the collection.  An Intek H-520 Plus, Probably the best handheld on the market.  This can be connected to an external antenna, if required.  The CRT S-Mini is designed to be operated in the vehicle, however a cigarette power adapter allows me to use it indoors.

The Target Communications receiver is a HF radio.  It covers 30kHz to 30MHz which I believe is a good range.  A shortwave wire antenna around the room completes the set-up.

Finally I have a number of  RTL chip based SDR dongles.  These are Software Defined Radio dongles which can be connected to and controlled by a PC.  You an visually browse a wide spectrum, complete with waterfall display and are an inexpensive way to get into radio listening.  Using the SDR# and DSD Plus software it is also possible to decode digital transmissions such as DMR.  I listen to the Northwich Shopwatch transmissions as even though this is digital it is not encrypted.  At the moment I'm experimenting with SDR on a Windows tablet, this would make a great portable solution for receiving digital broadcasts.

I am looking at getting a DMR digital handheld radio in the near future.  These are only just coming on to the market at an affordable price (from China, obviously).