parnass@ihuxf.UUCP (Bob Parnass, AJ9S) (06/20/84)
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At last count, there were about 21 scanners here (got
another one yesterday) of various brands, not all on at one
time! I have serviced Regency, Bearcat, Plectron, Sonar,
Radio Shack, Craig, SBE, Motorola, and Heathkit monitor
receivers to name a few, and still have 2 Tennelecs waiting
for attention which they will probably never get.
Scanner features often differ not only by model but by
manufacturer. For instance, Bearcat programmables allow
enable/disable of the delay function on a per-channel basis.
Regency only permits the delay to be enabled/disabled glo-
bally, that is, for all the channels at one time.
Both Bearcat and Regency, as well as Radio Shack offer some
good models. Stay away from the Bearcat 100, and scanners
made by JIL, Fox, Tennelec, and Robyn.
In the name of cost cutting, some newer models have done
away with the concept of a "channel bank", i.e. the ability
to select/deselect a group of channels at a time. The bank
concept was a good one. It may be inconvenient to operate a
30 channel scanner without banks (e.g. Regency MX3000,
HX1000A) if you operate the way many scanner hobbyists do.
Heath's new scanner is really a Bearcat 20/20 in semi-kit
form, and should appeal to those who want to monitor the
commercial aircraft band.
Bearcat was just purchased by Uniden, maker of radios and
cordless telephones.
My favorites are the Bearcat 300, the Regency M400 (just
discontinued), and the Regency K500 (predates the M400).
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Bob Parnass, AT&T Bell Laboratories - ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass - (312)979-5414