Air show scanner recommendations?

[DaveG]

Not looking to transmit, just receive.

Don't know much about them but after going to AirVenture the last few years, I really think it's time to bite the bullet and get one.

I'm interested in opinions on issues like battery life (rechargeable alkaline vs lithium), range of frequencies (including jet teams), ease of programming, speaker quality, durability, and anything else that I should consider.

A friend at Oshkosh had a Yaesu FTA550 transceiver that he liked a lot but it had alkaline batteries. Available for about $200. The FTA550L includes the Lithium battery and goes for about $100 more.

https://www.amazon.com/Yaesu-FTA550L-Ha ... -550&psc=1

Thanks!

Dave

[mazdaP5]

I picked this guy up for Oshkosh this year and was not disappointed. Easy to find channels, I went through two pair of AA battery through the week.

https://www.uniden.com/shop/communicati ... d-scanner/

[DaveG]

What frequency range should I make sure that I have? Civil air is great and all, but I'm on an approach path to McGhee-Tyson in Knoxville and we get a lot of KC-135's, T-45's, P-3's, P-8's, AWACS, and other military. Will I be able to listen in to them?

Dave

[Scott Rose]

hmmm... I assume most scanners have some sort of audio output? Could be interesting to overlay scanner audio on airshow videos...

[FM104]

ALL scanners have at least a headphone output, from which you can easily take a signal to record. For a dedicated line level output that is not affected by the volume control, you will need to go to a desktop style scanner (as opposed to a handheld type).
Joe

[K5DH]

Civilian aviation (comm) is 118 to 136 MHz. Military aviation (comm) is 225 to 400 MHz. Many scanners don't cover the mil air range, so do your homework.

radioreference.com is a good web site for scanner listeners. Lots of info available there, including frequency lists.

[bdk]

Is there a way to port that audio into a video camera or phone recording or does that all have to be done in post-processing? Seems like it would be hard to synchronize after the fact.

[kalamazookid]

Is there a way to port that audio into a video camera or phone recording or does that all have to be done in post-processing? Seems like it would be hard to synchronize after the fact.

I would assume running a 3.5mm aux cord from one of the outputs on the scanner into the audio input of a video camera would do the trick. I've done something similar by running a live audio feed from an external source through a video camera, both while recording to a memory card and capturing to a laptop, and it has worked just fine. Of course, you're not going to be able to listen to the scanner while you're using the headphone jack to send the audio to the video camera unless there are multiple audio outputs on the scanner. The input from the scanner would also override the video camera's microphone unless your camera has the ability to handle multiple audio inputs.

I'm not sure if that process would work for a phone. I guess it would depend on how your audio is recorded. If you can use the headphone jack on the phone as an audio input, I think that it would probably work in a similar manner to the method described above.

[zingeraviation]

I picked this guy up for Oshkosh this year and was not disappointed. Easy to find channels, I went through two pair of AA battery through the week.

https://www.uniden.com/shop/communicati ... d-scanner/

I actually recommend the next model up, the BC125AT. It is the same as the one in the link but it also covers the military bands.

Picked mine up about two years ago for $90 on eBay and I'm sure you can find it for about $100 somewhere.

There were A LOT of people at Oshkosh with the BC125AT, and it's become the go-to scanner these days. Can also be programmed easily via a computer.

[DaveG]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think the BC125AT is where it's at.