Hi Kirk, The Scanner issue boils down basically to what you want to listen to and whether you want it to go mobile, base(home) or both, this will dictate the size of the unit and maybe the cost?
Majority of the Airband is VHF on AM which is more or less 'line of site' reception!
The radio you mention is good but there are more modern and compact units on the market with the 8.33KHz spacing now needed to receive a lot of frequency's clearly! an eg would be the Icom IC-R5 great receiver from a superb communications company! remember 'you pay for what you get'!
Have a look at some of the chit-chat on this forum!
http://www.allaudios.org/group-758.html
Regards, Steve