Best scanner for a tv news stringer?

[Stringer Guy]

I need to be able to know of any major events that occur in San Diego county (not just SD city). This means officers, dispatchers, ems and fire. I'm looking for a handheld system for about $200 or less. I need to hear of these events as-they-happen so I can drive to the scene and film it for the local news.

It would be especially nice if it worked with the El Cajon, Lakeside, Santee and Alpine.

What am I looking for and do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure if I need analog or digital, and I don't understand what trunking is.

[SkipSanders]

Unless you find something used, you're not going to get anything that will work for that price.

You need trunking, digital supporting scanners, for the County RCS, though the San Diego City system is (so far), non-digital.

You need a Uniden BC396T, or the newer BC396XT for portables from Uniden, or the equivilents from GRE, such as the PSR500.

Digital = expensive

Typical new prices for these radios are in the $400-$500 range. This is nothing, compared to the price of video cameras suitable for stringers, as it happens.

Older digital capable radios may or may not be able to deal with rebanded systems, once San Diego gets rebanded.

See:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Category:Digital_Scanners

for information on what the capabilities of various Digital Scanners are.

[Stringer Guy]

Thanks for your reply. I ended up getting a Radioshack Pro-106. It's digital, triple-trunking, and supports APCO-25 (I was told I need this, although quite frankly I can't figure out what systems use this).

I programmed in 868.41250c "South Zone" as my "control channel", but am a little confused if I am supposed to enter the other ones, like North Zone, East Zone, etc. I don't understand what these "zones" and "hills" are. Are they just whatever tower/antenna I'm closest to is? And even then, how do I know where the "south zone" is, specifically?

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=499

I hear my nearby PD (El Cajon) and various ems, fire, sheriff and police from san diego and such, but I still have this eery feeling that I'm missing something, because I don't get a lot of traffic on my radio. Sometimes if I'm out driving it gets something every 1-5 seconds, but at home it can be like 1-15 seconds. I'm just afraid I'm missing out on something.

[PStuart]

I am not familiar with that particular scanner, but I can give you some insight.

If you want to hear anything City of SD (SDPD, SDFD, city works, etc) you'll need to program the cities system, it's pretty straight forward on the RadioReference page.

CVPD, NCPD, Some Sheriffs stations, I believe El Cajon, Coronado operate on the RCS South System. You'll program the control channel (868.4125) and start scanning on that. You have the option to scan anything going through that control channel (I think its called open-mode on the Radioshack scanners) or just the channels (talkgroup ID's) you program in (which I believe would be called closed mode). Some channels or talkgroups are simulcast on the North zone or East zone (Mutual Aid's, Commands, Law Air, Med Air) but I don't have much information to offer as far as that goes.

I have my systems (or zones) setup under SD City, RCS SOUTH, RCS NORTH and then conventional. Within each system I have groups programmed by department (CVPD, NCPD, etc) that I can turn on or off. Once again I have very very limited experience on the Radioshack scanners.