Airband Scanners
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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Airband Scanners
I'm a student PPL, and I'm looking for a reliable, reasonable quality, good receive sensitivity, good audio quality, and good range airband radio scanner. Needs to be light, portable, battery operated, usual standard features like frequency lock, auto scan, etc. Would be nice to be able to pick up FM radio as well. Don't want to pay too much (£80 max) because this is only really to get me through my PPL. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Join Date: Sep 2005
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Yeh mate spend your 80 quid on another lesson , you really dont need a scanner , I assume its to listen in to atc exchanges? More ofetn than not you can only pick up direcctor/approach atis etc's anyway not much use to you really youll confuse yourself. If your at a nice small friendly airfield you would do just as well sitting in the tower for a while and listening in to whats goes on . Your PPL flying training will be more than enough to help you with the radio , and youve got the RT exam too, if all else fails try ebay
Join Date: Apr 2002
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Find something else to waste money on
Banny 42,
I, like you, once bought a scanner as a tool for learning radio speak. It cost me £70 and was the worst purchase I ever made.
First of all, I found the owner's handbook had been written by a techie for techies, so it was useless to me.
Secondly, I found that you needed, either a permanent aerial going up to first floor level (which I could not have as I live in a ground floor flat) or you had to take the scanner to some high place for it to pick up anything even from local airfields.
Spend your money on a decent R/T course, you'll find it very much more effective and far better value for money.
Broomstick.
I, like you, once bought a scanner as a tool for learning radio speak. It cost me £70 and was the worst purchase I ever made.
First of all, I found the owner's handbook had been written by a techie for techies, so it was useless to me.
Secondly, I found that you needed, either a permanent aerial going up to first floor level (which I could not have as I live in a ground floor flat) or you had to take the scanner to some high place for it to pick up anything even from local airfields.
Spend your money on a decent R/T course, you'll find it very much more effective and far better value for money.
Broomstick.
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Some "interesting" responses there. I bought a scanner when I was learning. It was a cheap Maycom (you can get them on eBay for about £50). I equipped it with a 12" whip antenna from Maplin (£10) and sat it on the window sill in my kitchen.
I live 10 miles from the airport, and definitely not line of sight, yet I can receive Tower/Approach/ATIS and the vast majority of ground comms. I found it easy to use, and just having it sat there burbling away in the background for a couple of months I found quite useful.
I would certainly agree with the RT course however. The 2-day course I went on was probably the best money I spent during the whole PPL learning experience. I finished it with my RT written and practical complete, and my standard of RT 1000% better.
I live 10 miles from the airport, and definitely not line of sight, yet I can receive Tower/Approach/ATIS and the vast majority of ground comms. I found it easy to use, and just having it sat there burbling away in the background for a couple of months I found quite useful.
I would certainly agree with the RT course however. The 2-day course I went on was probably the best money I spent during the whole PPL learning experience. I finished it with my RT written and practical complete, and my standard of RT 1000% better.
Join Date: May 2005
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I've got a little Maycom AR-108 (about £60-70), and aside from being handy at airshows, it's very handy to get the ATIS before a 20 min drive to the airport to find out the wind has just picked up 
It's also handy for when sitting around the club on a less than perfect day waiting for the weather to clear/wind to die down - at least you get to hear what's going on.
It's also handy for when sitting around the club on a less than perfect day waiting for the weather to clear/wind to die down - at least you get to hear what's going on.
Join Date: Oct 2006
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I have bought the Icom IC-A24 with the VOR function.. it's not that special but does the trick, i rather have a descent tool that i can use for some years while flying.
Join Date: Nov 2000
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I've got a Sony Air 7 which is fine for listening in to what's going on locally (OK I can only hear the aircraft's side of the conversation unless I go upstairs and turn the squelch off, but no big deal).
But I mostly use it for listening to Radio 4. Oh, and it was nowhere near your price point, but electronics are vastly cheaper now than they were then.
But I mostly use it for listening to Radio 4. Oh, and it was nowhere near your price point, but electronics are vastly cheaper now than they were then.
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Airband scanner
I am currently studying for my RT exam and i think its useful to listen to the radio from the ground. I have a low budget (£70) and i found the maycom ar-108 airband receiver which looks quite good. anyone have this reciever and how good is it?
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I use that one as well and it works well,... but the range is very limited... about 10-15 km at maximum for tower. Aircraft on the ground is about 5 km with a minimum of obstacles.
Sheesh123, I have a surplus scanner which I purchased a few years ago and have never used. It is mains or battery operated and scans 29-54Mhz, 108-174Mhz and 380-512Mhz. It is not a hand-held but is intended to sit on a table. It measures about 8" x 6" x 2" deep. I can't remember what it cost me, but you can have it for £30.
Join Date: Aug 2000
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The range is almost nothing to do with the radio but everything to do with line of sight. If you are on a hill you will hear loads - if in a valley only airborne stations. The only way of increasing the range at home is to put an outside aerial on a chimney.
Join Date: Dec 2003
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As Muffin states VHF is a LOS comms system, if you ignore the earth hugging bit at certain freqs.
What you can do with a scanner, is to get an antenna that covers your main band of interest.
I have an ICOM R5. The standard antenna is a rather weedy affair. It has to cover the range of the unit which is from Medium wave i.e. in the upper KHz band up to about 1200 MHz.
Because I listen mainly to V/UHF freqs I bought an antenna that is tuned to that frequency band. Cost about £20. It improved my listening no end. Still need a good LOS though. It will improve the S/N ratio.
What you can do with a scanner, is to get an antenna that covers your main band of interest.
I have an ICOM R5. The standard antenna is a rather weedy affair. It has to cover the range of the unit which is from Medium wave i.e. in the upper KHz band up to about 1200 MHz.
Because I listen mainly to V/UHF freqs I bought an antenna that is tuned to that frequency band. Cost about £20. It improved my listening no end. Still need a good LOS though. It will improve the S/N ratio.
I have a yupiteru hand held scanner which does give good reception,a maycom 108 which we also take to LGW to use when by the end of the runway,it still gives quite good reception here 30 miles away, but the best scanner I have is a Signal corpn one-it is home based, has a dipole aerial attached to it on our chimney-we are very high up and it picks up loads of freqs and it can get the LHR approach sometimes both sides of the transmissions,and the LGW tower--if you see one on ebay that is in good nick buy one-it is an elderly scanner but fab-saw one go recently for 275.00!
Good Luck
Good Luck
Join Date: Oct 2003
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I have a Yupiteru MVT-7100 - best scanner I have ever used (for airband).
Available from eBay. Not made any more unfortunately. Fantastic reception on VHF airband. I use it to pick up the latest Met from London Volmet before I go aviating. At other time it is tuned to the "comedy channel" on 124.6
If you want to increase range - move to the top of a tower block or buy a base station antenna and mount it on a mast on your roof
Available from eBay. Not made any more unfortunately. Fantastic reception on VHF airband. I use it to pick up the latest Met from London Volmet before I go aviating. At other time it is tuned to the "comedy channel" on 124.6
If you want to increase range - move to the top of a tower block or buy a base station antenna and mount it on a mast on your roof
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The Signal 528 is the best airband scanner that was ever produced - not been made for about 15 years now unfortunately. The Japanese firm that made them were airband specialists and when wideband micro controlled scanners became available, nobody wanted airband only ones and the market dried up. They still command a premium price on the second hand market.