When will everything become digital for police scanners?

Question

I have a few police scanners, and I just purchased a new hand held police scanner, which is analog, and a friend of mine, who works at a Radio Shack told me yesterday by the end of 2013 that everything for the scanner will be digital, and today I was at another Radio Shack, and the employee I spoke with today told me by mid 2013 everything for the scanners will become digital. I do not want to buy a scanner with digital tuning, because they are quite expensive, but I am sure that the price will go down by next year sometime, but when is the exact date when the scanners will need to be digital? I would like to know so I can save my money to purchase both a mobil digital scanner and a base digital scanner.

Answer 1

They are wrong about that. Many police depts in the USA will not switch to digital for a long time because it is VERY expensive and the cities just can't afford it. It may be happening in your city though.



I think they are just scaring you into buying a new scanner.

Answer 2

So called "police scanners" receive a lot more than Police.



Even for police, it is up to the specific agency if/when they convert. I have not heard of any federal mandate for police or any other two-way spectrum user to go digital.



Same for other 2 way and low bandwidth VHF services.

Answer 3

i think of its in basic terms like a widely used police scanner different than it tunes extra like modern motor vehicle radios (the place it chooses the best reception for a channel and you do no longer turn knobs like on an previous radio) as adversarial to police scanners that require you to song the knobs that circulate the little stick back and forth to locate the precise bandwidth. i'm undecided yet that sounds perfect to me.

Answer 4

Radio Shack sells decent scanners (made by the

top two scanner manufacturers, Uniden and GRE),

but the sales personnel are usually full of crap.



Many police departments have "gone digital" to prevent

criminals from using ordinary scanners to evade capture.

Some PDs use encrypted transmissions, so even if one has a scanner

with APCO-25, police communications cannot be usefully received.





If you can't afford a digital scanner,

buy analog and do without police reception.