Police...etc scanner Recommendations

[ceyko]

Anyone here use them at all? As I understand there is analog and digital, but analog should be fine for what I need - I THINK.

I use an iPhone app to monitor specific channels during severe weather which is primarily spotters to know what is where - better than the news can do. However, a couple of weeks ago we had several tornadoes (that did not make news) that ended up killing power from my area and up into Oklahoma.

1st a lot of those went "offline" from an app point of view
2nd due to cell tower usage, data speeds were terrible.

With that said I want to buy into a portable (battery powered) scanner to monitor these things. A bonus would be if it had a long range radio, but that does not seem to be an option.

Anyway - trying to figure out what a good bang for the buck scanner is and do I need digital for what I'm trying to do? The police stuff is interesting during the storms, but it's not applicable to saving my butt. Mainly looking for something that keeps working during power outages and reduces battery usage on cell phones...etc.

[lowthreeohz]

Www.radioreference.com will have more info than you ever care to know. Most public agencies are moving away from analog conventional and are now a mix of proprietary modulation schemes, or newer stuff conforms to p25 standards. You can find a scanner to suit your needs from $50-500 depending on how fancy you want and how many agencies you want to listen to in your area. Start by figuring out what they are actually transmitting and work backwards from there.