Handheld Radio Scanner vs. the iPhone

I was recently discussing old technology with a classmate when the subject of radio scanners came up. I purchased my first scanner from Best Buy in the mid-90s, and my second one, from Canada, in the early 00s. My classmate asked me if it was worth purchasing one today, so I decided to dust mine off before giving him an answer. The results were pretty depressing.

1gjLa[1]

Radio scanners, like the ones I own, allow people to listen to radio transmissions. All sorts of things are being transmitted all the time. Unfortunately, advances in technology have all but made my old scanners all but obsolete.

For roughly a decade, I couldn’t turn on my scanner without picking up someone’s cordless phone conversation. Older cordless phones in the 45-50MHz and 900MHz range used to be everywhere — today, they’re all but gone. Modern cordless phones that operate in the 2.4 and 5.8GHz range are outside the range of most scanners. Additionally, many modern cordless phones are digital and use Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS), which makes hearing them with a low-end scanner like mine impossible.

Listening to cell phone conversations has never been simple, and today it’s mostly impossible. The only thing I was ever able to pick up were old analog cell phone conversations. Today, everything is digital. Strike two.

Three slightly less creepy broadcasts most handheld scanners can pick up are police, emergency, and airport transmissions. It took me a while to find them, but I was able to pick up a few broadcasts of these types with my scanner. But, there’s a much simpler way to do this today. 5-0 Radio Police Scanner for iOS allows you to listen to police and emergency broadcasts from all over the country, while LiveATC allows you to listen to Air Traffic communications from airports all over the world. There are ad-sponsored free versions available, or you can purchase the full, ad-free versions for a few bucks each. Much simpler and more practical than using a handheld scanner.

5-0-Police-Scanner-iPhone-App[1]

The only other thing I used to listen to with my scanner was drive-thru speakers at fast food restaurants. (I get bored in long lines.) Like cordless phones, I believe most restaurants have upgraded their systems to 2.4 and 5.8GHz wireless headsets, making them impossible to listen to. No longer can I listen to the people in front of me order Big Macs.

There are newer digital scanners that I believe may be able to pick up some of these transmissions and broadcasts, but spending hundreds of dollars on a new scanner versus a couple of bucks on an iOS application seems tough to justify. If you want to listen to police or emergency vehicle chatter or airport tower communications, just download the app.

5 thoughts on “Handheld Radio Scanner vs. the iPhone”

  1. Like the CB radio craze. It was fun to have the gear and talk to your friends (while actually driving in a car!) But it’s all gone now. Are there public ‘chat rooms’ using cellphones? I mean voice ones. There used to be a way, at least around here, where you could dial a number on your phone and then do…something that would make it like a party line. Some kind of phreak thing. I don’t know exactly what it was. you could get on and talk to six or seven different strangers at once. It was called the hot line by my friends. This was back in my elementary school days, maybe 1977 or so. Funny, I haven’t thought of that in years and just seeing the scanner picture opened all these memory floodgates.

    THE
    AWASH
    AARDVARK

  2. Hey, Rob. Is the Uniden pic you posted the same model as what you have? We used to listen to scanners all the time back in the 70’s and 80’s, Police, Fire, Ambulance and Sheriff’s departments mainly. It was some great entertainment.

  3. I still have a few CB radios. I sold my 4Runner, and took out the good CB and put in one that worked, but was less than stellar. Once I get another 4X4 (probably in the middle-distant future), the CB will be installed. We use them all the time on the trail when 4 wheeling.

  4. Here in the Netherlands the police and other emergency services went to a highly encrypted digital network and everybody thought scanners were outdated (and secondhand prices for scanners dropped accordingly).

    I still have a scanner: it works great for hearing communication from airplanes and for scanning often-used amateur radio frequencies. Even a completely outdated simple scanner is much better at this than the scanning function inside an amateur radio.

  5. I remember years ago being able to pick up phone conversations as well – I am glad that problem does not exist anymore. Great information, thanks for sharing!

Comments are closed.