police scanners, ac adapter, antennas?

police scanners, ac adapter, antennas?
i have a handheld police scannner radio shack, cheap model. I am currently using 2 AA battries in it. my questions are.

1. would using a a/c adapter or a car adapter give it more power and would i be able to recieve more frequencies. I am not reciveing much right now.?

2. i upgraded to the 8oo mhz antenna. is this just for 800 mhz or will it help all frequencies.?

3. would a more expensive handheld scanner pick up more frequencies or radio traffice from police and fire. ?

4. would a trunking radio pick up more right out of the box.

thanks for any info anyone can give me. :-)

Best answer:

Save your money. Most police and emergency systems are slowly but surely being converted over to digital signals which are also encrypted. This means that you can only scan some of the basic channels and even those will eventually be cleared off since the digial signals are generally better and clearer.

Using a car adaptor or an AC adaptor, however, will save you a bunch of batteries so that is prob. a good idea.

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1 Comment for police scanners, ac adapter, antennas?

  • 1. percival.sweetwater  |  January 15th, 2008 at 8:04 am

    1. Using an AC adapter rather than batteries only saves batteries. It has no affect on the power of your scanner reception.

    2. Any antenna is an antenna, but the more closely it’s tuned to the frequency you want, the better it picks up. Reception will become weaker as frequency deviates further away, but you’re talking about a very large deviation before it becomes noticeable to you. Your 800 MHz antenna is for a RANGE of frequencies centering around 800 MHz.

    3. A more expensive scanner MAY pick up more frequencies for you. A scanner will pick up the frequencies for which is was designed to pick up. If it wasn’t designed to pick up the frequencies that you’re looking for, then nothing you do to it (short of complete re-engineering the design) will change it.

    4. Not out of the box as proper installation, especially the antenna mounting will play a large part. And if it’s not designed for the extra frequencies, then it’s not going to pick them up, no matter how much you paid.

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