Railfan Technology > Good old Scanners

Just had to toss out a Uniden/Bearcat BC355N that only lasted about 3 years. It was going to cost more to send it off to fix it than purchase a new one. I have a friend in Florida that made mention that he had an old Radio Shack Pro 2032 base scanner that he was no longer using. I purchased it, a new in the box Radio Shack 400 channel Pro 64 handheld and well as a Uniden TrunkTracker III handheld, all for $100. The reason I post this is to ask why has Uniden made it so that one has to jump through hoops to program a scanner? Both of these Radio Shack models, as well as an old Uniden/Bearcat 30 channel handheld I've had for years involve pushing PROGRAM, entering the frequency and pressing ENTER. How simple is that? As Paul Harvey used to say, "Have we outsmarted ourselves"? Scanner makers, let keep it user friendly!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/26 10:36 by BeatriceSub.

You might search around for software to program these radios, too. In some cases you might be able to program more than one with the same software. I use Butel software but he only goes back so far to support older radios. I'm struggling to program two old Uniden BC-780 radios. Butel no longer supports these radios. You might look at Pro Scan for the older radios. They seem to have a lot of software for older radios. Good luck!

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

Allow me to break the bad news to you.  While it is still possible to program newer scanners from the keypad, it is frustrating and time consuming.  The scanner manufacturers have designed the newer scanners to be primarily programmed using computer software.  One reaon is that newer scanners have many features that older scanners simply did not have.  Another issue is that some older scanners (and two-way radios, too) were designed to be computer software programmed, as well, but--as those radios became obsolete--the software was never upgraded to newer versions of Windows.  For a couple of old two-way radios that I own, I've kept one old Windows 7 laptop with a serial programming port just for that singular purpose.

Finally, I will also say that many Uniden scanners just are not built for hard use or long service.  That has been true for a long time.  The oldest Uniden scanner that I own is about 10 years old, and it's already had problems, even with relatively light use.  And that scanner (a BC-125AT) has lasted longer than any other Uniden scanner that I've owned in the last 30 years.  Most "die" before their 5th or 6th birthday.

Radio Shack scanners are just hit and miss because Radio Shack scanners could have been built by any of several manufacturers--AOR,GRE, etc.

I have had two BC125AT scanners quit on me in the last ~10 years. GRRRRRRR

About 4 years ago I picked up a Radio Shack PRO-50 scanner at a estate sale ($14) to use as a backup scanner. It's now my primary, and much easier to program than a BC125 and much more rugged. The only downside is that it's only 20 channels, which means constant reprogramming during my travels...

In the 1970's I had one of the first "synthesized" scanners (i.e., did not require purchasing crystals for each channel).  It was a 16 channel base station made by a company called Tennelec.  

The interesting part is that programming a channel involved looking up (in the user manual) a 16 character binary code that corresonded to each frequency, and entering that ito the radio using 16 toggle switches.  Up for "0" and down for "1".  Not difficult at all to do.  There was no digital display at all. It was actually a decent receiver for the day. 

A few years later Bearcat came out wtih the BC-250 and my parents gave me one for Christmas around 1978 or so.  Wtih an actual digital display so you could see what frequency was in any of the 50 channels.  Revolutionary, for sure.
 

This is going way back but I used to have a superb RCA 4 channel chrystal scanner that I left on top of the car while chasing 6900's on the UP!

I also bought a Tennelec.
Mine didn't receive as good as my Radio Shack crystal monitor so I returned it.

Scanning then was quite an adventure.  No dependably accurate lists of RR freqs by location so
it was quite an endevour figuring them out.  No 99 AAR channels lists.  Every road had a "Channel 1"
and they were all different freqs. Had to send away for railroad channel crystals and wait weeks to
receive them.

Listening right now to my Realistic Patrolman Pro-9 that I bought 50+ years ago.
Right next to my Baofeng.

Not near as much cool stuff to listen to as 50 years ago.

Does anyone have any experience using PlusTec slide scanners?   

Sorry but this thread's topic is radio scanners, not film scanners.