Recommended Receiver/Scanner

[veedub565]

Hi,

Sorry for the newbie question, I'm interested in listening in around 160Mhz. Not sure what band that is? Any recommendations as to what might be a good basic set for me to play with and learn on. I quite enjoy making things so if there are any kits out there.

I've had a look at the Hack Green web SDR which is interesting, but doesn't cover 160mhz. I also enjoy listening in on the airband on a kit I built myself.

There's so much stuff out there it's difficult to know what's worth it and what isn't, I like vintage kit, although I can be a bit picky. I've got a thing for old Racal kit with Nixies

I just want to listen no transmit.

[Andrew2]

Hello. Normally, new listeners want to listen to a perticular service or amateur band (or whatever) and ask what frequency to listen on. Your request seems a little unusual.

[Station X]

Around 160 MHz there's nothing but VHF Marine channels and I don't think you'll hear many of them in Birmingham.

You'll generally find plenty of scanners covering that and other bands on eBay. Many people stopped using them when the emergency services went digital.

[veedub565]

Ahh, ok, well nothing sinister. At work we've been having a listen in to the local truckers and what not around 160mhz (FM) It's quite interesting. It's an old Realistic handheld unit, not that great though. A lot of amateur kit seems to be for 2 metre band or whatever. just wondering what I need to be looking for.

I've got a thing for old Racal kit with Nixies

Expensive.

One of the modern VHF/UHF ham hand helds with a wide coverage receiver would fit the bill. Something like a second hand Yaesu VX-2 can be got for not a lot. As a rule the amateur radio ones have better receivers than a scanner for the same money (with a transmitter thrown in too). But there is the classic (and ****** good) Alinco DJ-X3 http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1925 selling for much the same second hand as it was new years ago.

[G6Tanuki]

I'm not aware of any "local truckers" kind-of network that would be operating around 160MHz - could this be an image/harmonic of 27MHz Citizens Band you're hearing?

Truth is, these days there's very little analog/audio operation in the VHF bands - everyone's gone digital for voice [Motorola MOTRTRBO being the favourite mode round here] and even the taxis are using digital data/voice so they can send customer pickup data to their drivers' in-car display panels.

[MotorBikeLes]

This is 160MHz not 160m is it?
Les.

[Station X]

Perhaps the truckers around Birmingham have equipped themselves with VHF marine transceivers?

Or maybe "around 160 MHz" means 160 MHz plus or minus 10 Mhz?

[veedub565]

To be fair it could be 166Mhz, I don't quite remember. So yes around 160Mhz give or take a bit

[ex seismic]

For 160MHz and a lot else, try a chinese dual band hand held, or a pair of single band ones. They can be very cheap and you don't have to press the transmit button. They all as far as I know have comprehensive scanning capabilities. They are wide band so cover a whole lot more then the amateur frequencies.

gmb

[veedub565]

Um yes I see, Just been looking at the list of frequency's here. 160Mhz or 166Mhz give or take a bit doesn't really help much, there's an awful lot !

http://scanuk.fr.yuku.com/topic/65/2...2#.WOKoKtLytdg

[Damo666]

I have the Alinco DJ-X3 here as already mentioned, and although it's sensitive, it's not particularly fast at scanning.

From 160 - 170 Mhz there's very little of interest to listen to unless you're into monitoring taxi companies because most things are now no longer analogue. There's the odd conversations around 162 - 164 Mhz, though, and the ones I've heard tend to be foul mouthed haulage company employees, etc'.

My advice would be to buy a cheap Realistic Scanner and not bother parting with much money for anything new, because there's a good chance you'll get bored quickly.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by veedub565

Um yes I see, Just been looking at the list of frequency's here. 160Mhz or 166Mhz give or take a bit doesn't really help much, there's an awful lot !

http://scanuk.fr.yuku.com/topic/65/2...2#.WOKoKtLytdg

That's a *very* old list - some of the entries are 15+ years old (back when there *was* a demand for VHF high-band channels).

These days everyone's gone digital, uses data-transmissions (my local taxi company doesn't actually have voice-radios in their cars any more - it's all done on a LCD panel...) or uses mobile-phones.... so ideally you need a scanner with digital-decoding capability - and given that there are several encoding-methods in use, this won't necessarily come cheap!

[Biggles]

I thought there used to be a couple of analogue PMR trunked systems around the 161MHz mark near here but can't be sure if they are still active. I think it was maintenance/repair people which isn't all that exciting really. The 160Mhz could have been a second harmonic of VHF lowband around 80MHz. Depends on what kind of Rx is was received on.