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Optoelectronics Scout
The main reason any scanner hobbyist would want to purchase a frequency counter is of course to find all the elusive frequencies, sure your scanner has a nifty search function but sometimes you just have not got a clue what frequency or even what band your intended target transmits on. Is he using UHF or VHF? there are visual ways to help in your quest such as the aerial being used on the radio (Generally vhf uses different ones to uhf) but with a frequency counter you don't need to know this as soon as he transmits you have got him. The optoelectronics Scout is the number one choice amongst scanner hobbyists I have used mine for over 3 yrs now with excellent results. The Scout is approximately 5" high by 4" width there is an LCD display a quarter of the way down and underneath this are 3 switches and a button the first switch is the power on/off switch the second is the filter switch. If this is turned on then it filters out all the random frequencies that are going on out there and will display 0.0000 until a frequency strong enough to be "captured" by the counter is received. Switch it off and you will see all sorts of random frequencies jumping around,I believe this is due to constant radio waves that are travelling through the air but are not strong enough to give a "Hit" rather like when you were at school and everyone in Assembly was speaking at the same time, you could hear all the talking but none of it was intelligible. The next switch is the Capture switch which is used to capture frequencies into one of the 400 memories there are two settings for this simply on or off. The button has slightly more functions than the switches, it is used to wipe memories, set Vibrate mode, set the gate and recall stored frequencies in conjunction with one of the switches.To wipe memories you power off the scout whilst simultaneously depressing the button and all ch's are cleared this is what you would do after you have found frequencies logged them and want to reset it for another outing. To set vibrate mode for discreet monitoring (the other option is beep) then depress the button whilst powering up the Scout. Sometimes with a full battery power this can be embarrassing because if you are somewhere quiet and the scout receives a hit then the vibration is quite powerful and can be heard vibrating, I once had to explain to someone in a shop that it was my pager and to ignore it "It will go off soon". Setting the gate basically sets how many trailing zeros it has. The first gate is 0.00 second is 0.000 third is 0.0000 and the fourth is 0.00000 to set the gate the third switch (marked capture) must be set to off and the button depressed until the required gate is set. Personally I always set it to the second setting 0.000 this is sufficient for most of the frequencies I am likely to come into contact with for example 462.3625 would be shown as 462.362 it becomes second nature to add the extra 5. I believe this is the only setting you can use when in capture mode anyway. To recall frequencies from memory the filter switch must be set to off and subsequent depresses of the button will scroll through the memories. Out in the Field Okay so what we want to know now is how well it works out on a frequency finding expedition.Whilst driving to the location I have a scanner holder that used to be sold by Maplins (and maybe they still do sell it) and hook my scout onto this. Okay the Scout does or does not come with a clip I have bought one which did but heard of others that did not, anyway mine broke so I made one myself by drilling two small holes into the back (Take it apart first otherwise you may drill into the PCB) and utilizing a disused Icom transceiver belt clip. There was then the small task of adding two screws and pushing them through the holes and then secured by two suitably sized nuts. Whilst driving along any transmissions are instantly recorded and alerted by a couple of beeps for the first hit of a frequency, if this frequency is recorded again then one beep is emitted. Any frequencies a few kHz either side of the recorded frequency is treated as another hit of this frequency e.g. 456.9875 recorded hit then a subsequent hit of 456.9900 would be treated as a repeat hit of 456.9875 and would beep once. These slightly off frequency recordings can be caused by a number of factors including being slightly out of range etc. Walking around a busy radio environment such as a city centre and the scout will start work straight away getting hits from radio transmissions many being pager signals in the 153MHz area which can become a bit annoying. Many times I have gone to look at the frequency recorded only to find another blasted pager hit! Fortunately there are ways to filter these signals out, Optoelectronics sell Filters although I myself have never used them and I don't know if they are made for our pager system which probably works on a different frequency range to the US. One way I have found to filter them out is to use a UHF aerial, the only problem being there is that you will now have to get that bit nearer to get hits from VHF signals. Whenever I visit a new town the Scout goes about it's job beeping away happily recording frequencies. To be honest the Scout does its job very well whilst walking around Town ( or anywhere else) if someone keys up their radio then the scout will catch the frequency used and record it. As for range well it is hard to give an exact range but I have found that my Scout is more sensitive on UHF than VHF, for example if I take the aerial off a UHF Transceiver and do the same to a VHF transceiver then the scout will record over a greater distance for the UHF than the VHF transceiver. Out in the street I could not give an honest answer but roughly would say that about 30 yards is probably the range to record accurate hits on a 4 watt UHF. To give an example of greater wattage receive range, I have picked up Ambulances in the street behind from a much greater range than 30 yards, I believe the ambulances generate about 25 watts. Computer control The scout does support computer control and does indeed come (or did do when I bought mine) with a floppy disk or two to get you started but I have never used it.I believe that connections would be made via the socket on the top marked CI-V which also doubles for REACTION TUNING. This can be accomplished by using the correct type of cable which goes into this socket and the other end going into a special socket on the scanner (A modification is required for the AOR8000) Models supported are The later AOR models and some Icom models, I believe there is a opto board which can be added to the Realistic pro 2006 type scanners. This facility allows the scout to find a frequency and immediately tune the scanner to this frequency, so not only do you find the frequency being transmitted you can hear it also, I have missed out on many hits my scout has found by not using this method, The scout finds the frequency and by the time I've tuned my scanner in the transmission has long gone. With reaction tuning all the work is done for you. The only drawback of this method is you try walking round with a scout and a scanner hooked up together and I think you will find that it becomes too cumbersome and you will end up getting tangled up and bogged down with all this on one hip. There is one more annoying thing that I found with shouts from the missus to "Turn that thing off!!" Anyone who has used a scout will tell you of the number of times it receives hits from Pagers, well try driving around on reaction tune and you not only see the frequencies of pagers being recorded, You have to listen to them too!! They do not make interesting monitoring! Is it worth the money? At well over 300 Quid this unit is not cheap.But if you need the best then the best never does come cheap. I do believe that it is well over priced for the functions that it has. If someone offered you a scanner that had 400 memories and did not a lot more than scan for 300 quid you would tell them where to go. Admittedly it has a capability of being computer controlled but so does my Icom ICR2 which cost less than half the price. It is quite ugly and although it will stand up to the knocks it does not look that well made from the outside as far as aesthetics go. At this price it is only for the serious scanner user. Do I regret spending the money on mine? No way! It has been like a friend to me over the last few yrs and has given faultless operation. If I was to lose it today, tomorrow I would be saving for a new one. Model used: Scout 40 serial # 690136 Specifications |
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reviewed.[ Aor 8200 ]
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I Have seen
many reviews in Radio magazines etc. that have reviews with too much technical
jargon words such as "sinad" "Spurious Rejection." This sounds very technical
and efficient but What does it mean? Well to be honest I do not know (Maybe
some day I will find out and add a page explaining this.) So if you have come
to this page for a technical review you are in the wrong place.This review
will be explained in Layman's terms how sensitive is it? you will not get an
answer like -10 dB Sinad.I will tell you what sort of range you can expect
to get.