Jus got one today(Uniden bearcat BC350C). Not really use to it yet. Any hints on what frequencies are the TwinCities police in? I havn't try it in my car while driving to different places yet.
Minneapolis (and likely St. Paul) use fairly sophisticated digital trunking systems which require relatively sophisticated scanners to listen to. They also communicate more and more via computers, and less and less via voice. So you might not have all that much worth listening to.
I just googled this. Not sure of it's validity http://forums.realpolice.net/showpost.php?p=136824&postcount=13 http://www.milliron.net/AL7KT/scanner_laws.htm
True. To legally have a police scanner in your car you need to have a HAM radio License. They are really easy to get though. The digital trunking systems used around the TC use 8 frequencies and switch frequencies constantly. If you have the right scanner and all 8 frequencies you can listen, but those scanners are usually a few hundred $$$.
what part of town are you in? like someone mentioned, a lot of the metro area police and fire depts are now on 800mhz trunking digital... and those that aren't probably will be fairly soon. on digital already... henn co, anoka co, ramsey co, mpls, st paul, metro state patrol, and others i'm not as familiar with. the problem with all of this is that the 350 won't be able to pick it up. oh, an exception to the 800mhz stuff is fire dept page out... some of those are simulcast on the 800mhz system, and vhf/uhf. so you might still be able to hear that stuff. you could take a look here for some info, although with the fast paced change to digital a lot of it is outdated. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?stid=27 here is a link to the digital info. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=3508 other things to listen to that are often good for lolz... frs radios, private security, collage campus security, mall security, aircraft. a couple other good websites for info... http://geocities.com/mn_metroscan/ http://www.scanfan.com/ have fun! dave
Out of the Uniden line up...which would be the best to use to pick up 800mhz? http://www.uniden.com/products/productlisting.cfm?cat=scanners&filter=Mobile
FYI, it's highly unlikely that Fire Dept pagers will go to an 800 mHz system. The pagers don't require the kind of range possible with the trunked digital systems (many departments use the same tones, they're just far enough apart that they don't reach. IIRC Golden Valley Fire and Red Wing Fire use the same pager tones, there are others) so it'd be a waste of money. Any department that hasn't switched yet will be doing so very, very soon. It's part of a Homeland Security directive that began after 9/11 so that agencies could communicate more efficiently. They're a huge help on the fireground when we're doing mutual aid so that we can communicate with other departments directly rather than having to carry multiple radios and coordinate each of them.
the only uniden ones that will decode/work on the minnesota... twincities area (and rochester) system are the BCD996T base/mobile, and the BCD396T handheld. http://www.uniden.com/products/productlisting.cfm?cat=scanners&filter=Digital for just picking up 800mhz frequencies, it looks like any of them on the page you listed would do that, but most of them won't follow the trunking, or decode the digital signal that the minnesota system uses. only the 396 and 996 will do that.
