Seeing as there is such a wealth of knowledge on here. Can anyone recommend a cheap radio scanner. I've seen everyone recommends the uniden but don't really want to spend that much for a toy, so is there a cheaper alternative anyone can recommend??
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premmington
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Olderisbetter
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My mate uses a quansheng walkie talkie that has had a software modification to listen to the airband I think it was less than £20
MattF
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"software-defined radio"
I had to google what that was
One day, you really need to Google: Plasterer's radio.
premmington
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One day, you really need to Google: Plasterer's radio.
No... I have lived a sheltered life...
brightspark
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i have an unused uniden bearcat scanner mod bc235xlt it says 300 channel 12 band on it , dont realy know owt about them on what it can pick up it used to pick up analogue phones up but thats as far as it got 
does the colective know if its up to much 
does the colective know if its up to much 
cocker
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One of these should do it . Mine's a uvk5 with a free upgrade off the interweb , egzumer .
Picks up all sorts .
Baofeng do something similar .
they're less than £20
Arent Baofeng FM only? I thought some aircraft transmissions were still on AM modulation therefore not resolved by a fm only receiver.
The Quansheng does AM & FM.
A dedicated scanner the likes of a bearcat etc will be faster and better suited to scanning and have better filtering than a chinese sdr based walkie talkie, but it'll also be more expensive. If you eventually want to go really mad Yaesu amongst others (icom etc) make some stunning high end kit. Years ago I was a licensed ham in the UK and was lucky enough to have a extended loan of someone elses Yaesu R5000 scanner, and 100Khz-2.6GHz AM/FM/FMW/SSB/CW with a spectrum analyser on the display for the band along with tv decoder etc. It made my scruffy collection at the time of a AR88, homemade rigs and recrystalized pmr sets and modified cb's look like toys, it just did everything. On the minus side, it took completely away the point of amateur radio. You didnt have to know anything to get good results, just have spent a lot of money.
On a practical note, if your home based, any half decent scanner would be improved with a wideband antenna too, the higher the better, outside in free air. I used to swear by a royale discone mounted on the chimney pot. You will instantly become the reason people have radio reception problems and get red faced neighbors bellowing at you when you put one up though, even if you only have a reciever, or even if you never connect anything to it.
I use a cheap sdr dongle to sniff signals sometimes, they are great bench & diagnostic tools to have about. Also great for testing car remote keyfobs, just tune in the frequency and hit the button on the fob and see if its actually putting a signal out before faffing about trying to pair it the car or dig deeper.
The Quansheng does AM & FM.
A dedicated scanner the likes of a bearcat etc will be faster and better suited to scanning and have better filtering than a chinese sdr based walkie talkie, but it'll also be more expensive. If you eventually want to go really mad Yaesu amongst others (icom etc) make some stunning high end kit. Years ago I was a licensed ham in the UK and was lucky enough to have a extended loan of someone elses Yaesu R5000 scanner, and 100Khz-2.6GHz AM/FM/FMW/SSB/CW with a spectrum analyser on the display for the band along with tv decoder etc. It made my scruffy collection at the time of a AR88, homemade rigs and recrystalized pmr sets and modified cb's look like toys, it just did everything. On the minus side, it took completely away the point of amateur radio. You didnt have to know anything to get good results, just have spent a lot of money.
On a practical note, if your home based, any half decent scanner would be improved with a wideband antenna too, the higher the better, outside in free air. I used to swear by a royale discone mounted on the chimney pot. You will instantly become the reason people have radio reception problems and get red faced neighbors bellowing at you when you put one up though, even if you only have a reciever, or even if you never connect anything to it.
I use a cheap sdr dongle to sniff signals sometimes, they are great bench & diagnostic tools to have about. Also great for testing car remote keyfobs, just tune in the frequency and hit the button on the fob and see if its actually putting a signal out before faffing about trying to pair it the car or dig deeper.
Haha no I never used it out and about, it was in my shack full time hooked up to various antennas. Irrc it weighed about 40kg & I had to build a stronger bench for where it sat to use it.
I saw one at a event inside a radio tent and they had a full sized equally vintage scope next to it for displaying a lissajous pattern to tune it in, interesting but I felt pity for whoever had to lug that lot into a tent in the middle of a field...
For portable I had some Realistic brand scanner that I got cheap when Tandy's finally shut down in the UK and had their bankrupcy clearance sales everywhere but I cant remember the model.
You can listen to live ATC feeds on the internet, if you want mobile you can listen on a smartphone with 4g if the airport is covered. They are community run mostly and just a scanner or dedicated reciever tuned to the frequencies with a audio->ip bridge feeding a stream some hosting server.
www.broadcastify.com
There's loads of Realistic brand scanners on ebay for cheap compared to the unidens etc. You'd have to look up the coverage for the model online to make sure it covered the mode and frequency but the info is out there. They're not as robust built as a uniden etc, but they work better than a Baofeng or equivalent imho...
I saw one at a event inside a radio tent and they had a full sized equally vintage scope next to it for displaying a lissajous pattern to tune it in, interesting but I felt pity for whoever had to lug that lot into a tent in the middle of a field...
For portable I had some Realistic brand scanner that I got cheap when Tandy's finally shut down in the UK and had their bankrupcy clearance sales everywhere but I cant remember the model.
You can listen to live ATC feeds on the internet, if you want mobile you can listen on a smartphone with 4g if the airport is covered. They are community run mostly and just a scanner or dedicated reciever tuned to the frequencies with a audio->ip bridge feeding a stream some hosting server.
England Live ATC Aviation Audio Feeds
England Live ATC Aviation Air Traffic Control Audio Feeds on Broadcastify.com
www.broadcastify.com
There's loads of Realistic brand scanners on ebay for cheap compared to the unidens etc. You'd have to look up the coverage for the model online to make sure it covered the mode and frequency but the info is out there. They're not as robust built as a uniden etc, but they work better than a Baofeng or equivalent imho...
Pop down to your nearest military airbase and ask the plane spotters sitting outside. I go by Lakenheath most days and there's sometimes 100+ people watching the planes, most of them have radios.
ajlelectronics
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Look at the inexpensive Tidradio H-3. It is a transceiver but easy to disable the Tx. You can put all of your frequencies of interest into a spreadsheet on Chirp and upload it easily. I have a list for use around S. England available which has most of the channels you would find useful and disables the Tx on everything but the PMR 446 channels.
Newlands
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A mate recommended one of these - I got a K6 from Aliexpress for under £20, and flashed the firmware with this firmware.
I also downloaded Chirp, but this is all new to me so I haven't really got my brain to understand how it all works. Need a tutorial from my mate.
I use Flightradar24, and have managed to track a few flights taking off from Gatwick while listening to the ATC they are receiving from the tower.
Olderisbetter
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That's the firmware I have
