My interest in radio comms and scanning commenced in the mid to late 1980's. I was living in a regional town in northern NSW. I cannot recall exactly how I became interested in radios. However I ended up buying myself a Uniden UHF (477Mhz) HT, Royce Slimline UHF (477Mhz) and a Tandy Realistic desktop scanner. The UHF's allowed me to link in with a network of younger people throughout our region and these people became close friends. The Tandy scanner was a bit of an overkill as it was the top model they had but the only frequencies in frequent use were the Ambo's, fire, police, SES and VRA. For obvious reasons the police frequencies were the most used. My interest in radios/scanning oddly stopped when I relocated to Sydney for university and work. I did however do the marine ROCP licensing course.
Ever since buying my first car/4x4 I've always had a UHF CB installed.
Earlier this year I decided to do the course to become a licensed HAM radio operator. With the privilege that comes with licensing I've spent a bit too much money on equipment. One item that I've purchased is a Uniden UBCD396XT scanner (with the remote head). The Uniden scanner programming system seems to be quite counterintuitive compared to the Tandy scanner I had in my youth. I must admit trunk tracking, close capture were not features offered in my first scanner.
My radio comms equipment list:
- Icom IC-7100 multi-band ham radio
- Yaesu VX-7R quad band handheld ham
- Yaesu FT1D 2m/70cm handheld ham
- Icom ID-5100A 2m/70cm mobile ham
- Uniden UHF CB mobile unit
And my new favourite toy which is a limited production run 50th anniversary Icom ID-51A 2m/70cm handheld ham radio. The production run for this limited addition model is 5000 units worldwide.
Apart from HAM HF local amateur radio (repeaters) is dead at night so I decided to purchase the Uniden UBCD396XT. My career was a registered nurse and as such I do have an interest in emergency services communications. That's where the Uniden scanner will step in. Albeit in a limited level given the SA police and Ambo's are now using encryption.
My health care profession, HAM and scanning background has me taking a role in WICEN which is a state by state emergency communications network of Ham operators. Love it
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