Overheard
Jerry writes “I’ve been an avid reader of Popular Communications since 1987. Love it. A question comes to mind with all the digital stuff out there. How prepared is the handheld scanner market to enter into the digital signal world? Will our old analog handsets become antiques overnight or is there a possibility of an antenna ‘add on’ to convert digital RF to analog?”
Well, Jerry, you’re in luck. Unfortunately Jerry wrote this question almost a year ago and up until recently I haven’t had a very good answer for him. But there is hope on the horizon.
Let’s tackle the later questions first. Will our old analog handsets become antiques overnight? Probably, if your local area converts to a digital system. One thing to keep in mind is that digital systems are relatively expensive for agencies to make the switch. So even though digital systems have been around for some time, most areas in the United States are not abandoning their older technology.
Probably the next time your city, county, or state radio system comes up for replacement, digital will be a concern. Depending on how many units and the geography of the area, it may or may not be practical to consider digital technology. If they do, however, your existing radio won’t work to receive it. While some sort of external converter is possible, in all reality, it would almost have to be a complete receiver that outputs the signal on a frequency your regular scanner could receive. Possible, but not practical, I don’t think.
Airplanes were the first to adopt radio on a
wide scale after ships, and the prevailing mode was AM. This older aircraft
has new radios added to it which are just visible at the bottom
of the center console.