Hand Held Radio Scanners - Which is the Best Radio Scanner For You?

Hand held radio scanners today have the capability of being programmed and have the capacity of storing thousands of channels and also to monitor those channels in the hundreds per second. There are many different models with some great features, so you'll want to look at several to find which is the best radio scanner for you.

Scanners can also handle the various methods of modulation such as AM (amplitude modulation), FM (frequency modulation) and WFM ( wide-band frequency modulation). Radio amateur bands are also covered as are weather information transmissions, industrial, business, taxi services and hobbyist transmissions.

With a wide variety of choices and manufacturers, the best scanner, unlike most radios, can receive signals transmitted at a wide range of frequencies, allowing users to listen in on a variety of different communications including air traffic control,emergency services (police, ambulance and fire), hobbyists (Citizens Band), race teams, astronauts...et cetera.

Basic hand held radio scanners have 100 channels and that's probably going to be enough for a hobbyist just starting out. At the other end, the top of the line Bearcat scanner has 25,000 channels that can be programmed.

You can program a name to correspond with the service so you can see at a glance who you're listening to, and program up to 100 frequencies in banks of 10 for simpler access. You can place channels that are related to the same topic in one bank and then with the push of a button access only the channels in that bank.

If someone wants to use the scanner to listen to only one type of frequency, like the fire department, and they live in a small town, they won't need a huge number of channels. But someone living in a large town or city will need more channels to listen in on the police department transmissions.

Most police and fire departments use radio frequencies and channels that are linked through a trunk system. If you want to listen to police and fire frequencies, then you will want to get a scanner that has this feature.

A Uniden bearcat radio scanner is an excellent choice, especially if you want high speed scanning. You may not really need all the options on their state of the art models, but with all the different Uniden radio scanners available, you are sure to find a scanner that fits both your needs and your budget.