Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Digital scanner is hottest item for radio buffs

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:19:42 -0500

Ah, the american way you gota love it! $700 this year for a scanner and next year another
$700??

Go Uniden!  (note: No mention of the 700 Mhz band $$$$ 2005?)

"Uniden expects to have a unit that will pick up the majority of signals by late 2003.,
said Scott Carpenter, a products manager for the Fort Worth-based company."
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Digital scanner is hottest item for radio buffs

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Hobbyists who listen in on police chases or ambulance
runs with scanners have been frustrated in recent years as emergency
departments increasingly switch to digital communications. For them, last week
brought some good news, as the first consumer digital scanners shipped to
retailers.

Rich Wells said he would soon buy one of the new $300 handheld radios but
would likely hold off on paying another $300 that would grant access to digital
communications. He said many enthusiasts, though, won't hesitate to spend the
$600.

"Most serious people that listen to scanners, they own several different models
and are used to spending several hundred dollars a year," said Wells, 36, who
runs a hobbyist Web site from his home outside Raleigh, N.C.

Public safety departments and even some non-emergency city departments are
increasingly replacing aging analog radios with digital units, which promise
clearer transmissions and interoperability with other departments.

Even with Tuesday's shipment of Uniden radios, some hobbyists — and drug
dealers and tow truck drivers, too, police point out — still won't be able to listen
everywhere. Michigan, for instance, uses a system the new consumer
scanners can't pick up. Uniden expects to have a unit that will pick up the
majority of signals by late 2003.

, said Scott Carpenter, a products manager for the Fort Worth-based company.

The Philadelphia police just before Christmas converted from analog to digital at
a cost of $52 million. The department now has 3,400 digital radios, said Deputy
Police Commissioner Charles Brennan.

Philadelphia still transmits in analog, but will probably switch solely to digital by
February, Brennan said. He said the switch hadn't yet been made out of
consideration for neighborhood watch groups and news media that monitor
police scanners.

"All we want to do is make sure that (the new radios) do what they say they'll
be able to do," he said.

http://www.poconorecord.com/local/tdo64015.htm

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