Police Scanners

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Yessy

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I've seen some police scanners on ebay for $30 from China do you think they're useful? I have no knowledge of radio frequencies so I don't even know if police and others communicate that way anymore? For instance one $30 from China says "radio scanner transceiver providing 4 wattsin the frequency range of 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz. It is a compact, economical HT that includes a special VHF receive band from 65 - 108 MHz which includes the regular FM broadcast band."

Is that good?
 
There's no easy answer as to what scanner will best suit you. If you're new to scanning, you don't want to spend a lot of time figuring out how to program the scanner. When choosing between the different types of scanners it really comes down to how you expect the radio to be used. If you'll want to take it around town, to the mall or sporting event or air show, then buy a portable. If it will almost exclusively be used on your desk or night table at home, then the base/desktop is the right choice. For mobile use if the radio will be fixed in the car then i recommend a base/mobile scanner.
 
I see the contributors so far have come from Madagascar and Australia. Scanning police transmissions in the UK is frowned upon and possibly illegal.
 
The 4 watts refers to the transmit facility. This would be illegal to use except for licensed radio amateurs in the 2 metre (`144-146 MHz) and 70 cms (430-440 MHz) bands.
You can use the unlicensed 446 MHz band but only with the correct modulation types and at a maximum power of just 0.5 watts.
Most of the more interesting police radio frequencies should be scrambled these days - so you wouldn't hear anything anyway.
 
Taken from Wikipedia

United Kingdom
It is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 to listen to police radio in the UK.[1][2] The move from open analogue to the encrypted digital Airwave system in the UK has made it practically impossible to just listen in to police radio.

Also pretty certain it's not possible now with TETRA unless someones cracked the network (in which case they're going to get a visit from some dark suited individuals in dark glasses pdq)

G
 
So what you're saying police scanners are practically useless because there's nothing to hear anyway since it's all scrambled?
When it comes to legality as far as I see you can download an app for Android and listen what other people are recording in US police, ER etc.
 
I don't live in other countries, I live in the UK so whatever the laws are there I have no clue. ;)

In the UK, it is useless to have a scanner as all you'll hear is white noise (which is how I assume encrypted/random digital signals to sound) on the police frequencies. Either way, even if it's possible it's lllegal to do so.

Furthermore from the very little I understand about how it works, every radio is individually keyed and all devices are registered. If you try and use a non-registered or rogue device to evesdrop it will get immediately blocked (or more likely they'll leave you listening right to the point where SO19 kick your door in)

G
 
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