My New [Old] Scanner Wire Aerial

Check out my latest scanner aerial. It's basically a piece of wire with a BNC connection lol. But guess what. It works really well. It came with this weird home made airband scanner I managed to pick up. Not the scanner pictured in this post. The air-band receiver this antenna came with doesn't work. All I'm getting is noise.

Proper old school aerial. Much better than these two

I've had a look at it and I think the problem is a blown fuse. So I'm gonna have to get some fuses. There's three different types inside this receiver. The one that looks like its blown is a T100ma 250V (S) Slow Blow. Hopefully replacing this does the trick and I can get it to work. I'll make a post about it soon and show some pics etc. Somebody has literally made it themselves. It's very basic, but the person who made it obviously has some knowledge with electronics / radio building. It's quite an interesting item. 

Works just as well as a stock antenna. If not a little bit better. 

Scanner in the picture: A very fitting, old school Realistic Pro 50

There is an RX receiver inside called something like "R & EW CH Airband RX". Never heard of it. Not that I'm the all-knowing RX receiver man or anything. I know nothing about receiver components that are installed on the internal boards. However, I can't find out much about it online, so maybe its a bit of an unknown. But yeah, I'll post some info about it soon. Might wait until I get the fuse. But that could be a while as it is out of stock in the few places I've tried.

Quansheng UV K5 - Best Place To Buy?

If you don't want to read, the best place to buy from in my opinion is Aliexpress. It's the cheapest place without a doubt, and anywhere else you may be considering buying from [eBay, Amazon etc] has almost definitely sourced their stock from either Aliexpress or Alibaba anyway. It's all coming from the same place. So you are getting the exact same product from Aliexpress that you would buy from eBay, Amazon, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace etc, only paying far less money.

One of my Quanshengs all brand new in the box

The only downfall is you are having something delivered from Asia / China rather than your own country, which can put some people off. But I have ordered a fair few UV K5's now from Aliexpress, as well as other items like antennas, aerials, leads, multi-meters, SMA / BNC adapters etc, and have had no problems what so ever. They all arrived within 5 - 7 days to the UK.

For first time buyers

On Aliexpress there is a "welcome deal". This gives first time buyers / users of the site the opportunity to get a large discount on the first item they buy. If you buy more than one item on your first order, only one item is eligible for the welcome deal discount. You can choose which item you want to select for the welcome deal discount. I just choose the most expensive item, which was the Quansheng radio. Works out really cheap.

And I've also got to give a shout out to EVRI. I think Evri deal with the shipping from abroad for Aliexpress once it lands in the UK, and it has been excellent. Their tracking system is absolutely spot on. Keeps the buyer informed every step of the way, as does Aliexpress' tracking also. If you want to read a review on the K5 / K6 before making your decision on whether to grab one or not - take a look here: https://lcrmadx.blogspot.com/2023/11/quansheng-uv-k6-review.html

Here is the post that I said - if you don't want to read

Well, I've bought quite a few Quansheng UV K5's over the last 6 - 12 months. So I thought I'd write a quick and to-the-point post about where the best place is to buy one from. I'll let you into a little secret. When I tried to buy my first UV K5, I did so on eBay. I found it, paid for it, but then came across the Aliexpress website.

The price I paid from the eBay seller compared to the price they were selling for on Aliexpress was quite a difference. Once I seen those prices on Aliexpress, I did a quick bit of research online [Reddit and few other sites] to see if Aliexpress was safe and legit. Turns out it was for the most part. But many people said to only buy from sellers with over 95% positive feedback. I have largely stuck to that and had no issues at all. And to be honest, I have bought from a few sellers with lower feedback scores than 95% and still had no problems. But its a good rule of thumb to stick with.

Upgraded Quansheng enters the matrix

Needless to say, I was not happy paying £30 GBP on eBay for a K5 when they were being sold on Aliexpress for much much less, so I made up an excuse and asked the seller for a refund because I had bought the radio in error. He gave me a refund no problem, but I did feel a bit bad about doing that. Anyway, I couldn't turn down a bargain like that, so I left him positive feedback and moved on.

A few Quanshengs later and I'm planning on getting the newest model next, the UV K5 (99). It's supposed to be really good. Out the box It has a much wider frequency range than the older models [20MHz - 1000MHz]. With such a wide range it makes me feel like it might not be worth modding it with egzumer. 

But, I have read that without the mod, there is a design / software fault with the stock software. And its something like this. When the torch light is activated the radio can freeze and needs to be turn off and on again to be usable. So perhaps installing egzumer would get rid of this issue. I'd have to test it. I'd probably never use the torch anyway, so may just leave it with the standard stock software.

GRECOM PSR-295 Overview

I've been impressed with all the GRE / GRECOM receivers I've had over the years. I love reliability, and the GRE branded scanners I've had have always been reliable, and very capable. When I found out that GRE was Japanese [Japan-based], the reliability made sense. Even though mine says Made in China on the back lol. The PSR-295 is a really good scanner. It has way more features than I really need. But for the right person it ticks many boxes. Mine had an non-stock antenna, a Uniden Bearcat, and it seems like it was geared / fine tuned toward Airband frequencies. Picks up well in other areas too, but seemed stronger in airband.

Paused is monitor on this scanner

I like how easy it is to manually scan with the 295. The screen is also very good. I like scanners that have the orange / amber light up displays, and this model has a nice one. Only problem is, I think it largely contributes to one of the things I don't really like about this scanner. And that is the battery life. The battery life is quite poor. I always used normal batteries, but I would definitely recommend rechargeables or have it plugged into a mains adapter.

Those batteries drain pretty fast

One other thing I found requiring a bit more work to manage was the 1000 channels. I think this was a bit too much for me. And it seemed a bit confusing, as it just randomly picks a channel bank, so everything seemed a bit all over the place. Maybe it was just me, as I'm more at home with scanners that have 200 channels maximum. Each to their own I suppose.

GRECOM PSR-295 Quick specification

1000 channels

Frequency Range:

25 - 88 MHz

118 - 174 MHz

216 - 512 MHz

806 - 960 MHz

1240 - 1300 MHz

Takes 4 AA batteries

The monitor function is actually called pause on this scanner. A one push button operation that works well. For an averaged sized scanner, its extremely light in weight. Personally, I like something that's got a bit of weight to it. With a bit of weight a radio feels better in the hand and feels like a well built quality item. This does feel fairly well-built, but its almost a bit too light. But some people might love that.

Overall its good. It has a dedicated HAM button, alpha tagging features, a PC / IF jack on the side so it can [I believe] be connected to a computer [I never did it], and a fairly good frequency range. I actually sold my one [in the pictures + video] not long ago. And it wasn't up for sale for very long. It was snapped up quickly. I don't regret selling it as I have many scanners, maybe too many. Including more GRE / GRECOMS, so I can't keep them all. But yeah, a good receiver. And at the right price I would buy another one.

Realistic Pro 26 Scanner Receiver

I've wanted the Realistic Pro 26 scanner for quite a few years. With a good frequency range [25MHz to 1300MHz no gaps] and some good features, I thought it would be perfect for me. But when I finally got one it quickly lost its appeal. Don't get me wrong, it's a good old school analogue receiver, and I couldn't wait to get my eagle talon hands on it. But there's just too many things about it that I don't like.

 

My hands were going a mile a minute. But then they slowed down.

First off, what I actually like about it

I love the screen when lit up. It has a nice orange amber glow. Scanning is fast [it has hyperscan]. It has a "limit" option, where the user can set the receiver to scan through a certain range over and over again. Takes 4 AA batteries. I much prefer the 4 battery scanners, my GRE 255 takes 6. But it gets a pass because its a great receiver. The Pro 26 has no gaps in the frequency range [that I know of] like so many other scanners do. And, the Pro 26 is smaller than I thought it would be.

What I don't like about the Realistic Pro 26 Scanner

The volume knob

It's like nothing I've experienced before on any other scanner. It needs to be turned almost all the way round to full blast to have any decent volume. My other scanners volume knobs only need to be turned to not even a quarter and they are up quite loud. The Realistic Pro 26 is quite weird in this way. It can pick up normal FM radio stations fairly loud without turning the volume all the way round, but in other frequency areas like Airband, NFM etc, it needs to be turned up almost the whole way.

The Pro 26 on Airband, picking up an airport. It's a looker, but not my cup of tea

The Speaker

Whiles its not terrible by any means, it certainly not great. And no, my Pro 26 does not have a blown speaker. I've seen a few reports of this online. It's completely fine. But it certainly doesn't sound as clear as my other scanners. The sound seems quite suppressed.

The Headphone options

Now I'm not sure if it is just my particular scanner, but the headphone jack on the Pro 26 appears to be mostly MONO. As in, it comes through one ear much more dominant than the other. I think this scanner is mono as standard.

To add insult to injury, the volume seems to stay the same when listening through headphones. That includes any beeping, like button presses and low battery alerts. I did find the way to turn the bleeping off for buttons presses, so at least that's something.

I know its an old scanner, but some of these things have been annoying. There is a bit of a cult following for this receiver, and I can see why in some ways, but I'd rather use the GRE PSR 255, or my old Realistic Pro 70 over this any day of the week. Or, in saying that, maybe even the little Quansheng, too! I see you tomorrow.

GRE PSR 255 CB Radio Video

Here is a quick video of the GRE PSR 255 picking up someone talking on a CB channel. Just for confirmation. This video has been put up here for an item for sale on eBay, to show that it works. This is the actual item that's for sale on eBay UK. It's a great, low priced scanner that picks up signals well. For a more in-depth overview of the GRE PSR 255, have a read of this review post.

#GRECOM #Radioshack #Japan #Realistic

Testing Different Aerials For Scanning

Testing out different aerials I've been buying from Aliexpress. They are only cheap, but here are two aerials. One [the black one] came with an SDR dongle I bought many years ago, and the other is a telescopic aerial I bought very recently. I honestly thought the telescopic aerial would beat the little old mini aerial that came with the SDR dongle 10 years ago, but I was wrong. It was actually the other way round.

I did some very accurate but quick comparisons with these two, and the silver telescopic is nowhere near as good. I had SDR running and picking a guy on a HAM frequency talking [somewhere in the 144 - 145Mhz range]. I had a normal scanner sitting listening on the same channel. And what I did was swap between these two aerials using SDR on a desktop computer as the HAM man was chatting away.

The difference was quite noticable. The smaller aerial could just about pick up the voice, although it wasn't clear at all. But the silver telescopic couldn't pick up anything but choppy sounds that were indiscernible. It was fully extracted. And I tried it totally retracted too.

The normal scanner with a stock antenna beat them both by miles. It was the best and most clear at picking up the HAM man in this quick test. I think this may be, in part, due to the materials that each antenna is made from. The normal stock antenna I believe is mostly copper. The other two, especially the telescopic, are cheap metals that don't grab signals as good.

Saying that, the black aerial is still quite good, and I might buy a longer version one which has two curly parts. Where the wire / aerial has been twisted round and round. One curly bit a quarter way up and one around 3 quarters the way up. lol. Not sure how to explain it properly. But yeah, I think that one would be quite good. It comes with a BNC connection.

If I get it soon I might post some sort of comparison. And with it having a BNC connection I'm going to try it on some normal scanners and see how it compares to a normal receivers stock antenna. Stock antennas are usually pretty good, so it could be interesting. Check back in soon.

My Old DVBT/DAB/FM RTL2832 R820T Dongle

My old and still in use RTL DVBT/DAB/FM RTL2832 R820T SDR Dongle. This is one of those dongles from back in the day that came with a Matt-type covering. Over the years it has become like really sticky, and dirt attaches to it like crazy. Really good dongle though. Not 100% sure but I think it starts at around 25MHz and goes up to either 1.3GHz or 1.7Ghz. There still seems to be signals popping up at around 1.7GHz, so I think it goes up about that high.

Look at the state of it. It's all sticky. But it still works well. I just try not to touch it, ever. Top marks for reliability though. Gives off a blue light when plugged in.

There are much newer ones out now with better tech, but I've been surprised that after all these years most don't cover much more range than this one does. There are a few that go up to 2GHz by Hamgeek, but not many. This is one of the reasons why I haven't upgraded.

This one can pick up everything and more [because there are no gaps] that my normal analogue scanners can receive. It's got a coax connection. It's not bad at all, and I would buy another one of these. I bet they can be picked up for really cheap on eBay. My only issue with using it is radiation.

I think this dongle, and all dongles like this give off massive amounts of radiation [EMF] when in use. Even though the dongle is on the far end of a 5+ meter USB extension cable and over the other side of the room in the window, every time I use it I start to feel sick. I don't think this is a placebo or just a coincidence, I'm convinced it's this dongle.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to EMF than the average person, I don't know. But I don't feel like this [queasy] when I use a normal scanner. So, to be honest, this is the reason that makes me quite hesitant to use this dongle regularly over a normal scanner.

Newer UV K5 8 Come With a Better Antenna

Older Quansheng UV K5 8 came with an antenna that was almost completely plain other than the number 8 embossed on the side. The newer, but same model UV K5 8's come with an upgraded aerial that says: "U / V Antenna" on the side. Well, at least mine did. In my opinion, after testing both aerials, the newer "U / V Antenna" [pictured below] is better. It seems to pick up signals better and slightly clearer than the older "8" model. I would be tempted to buy a few of the newer ones for some of my normal scanners. I've been quite impressed. You can find the Quansheng radio with updated antenna here.

I think even the blue screen UV 5R model comes with this new antenna now. Although I haven't actually bought one, it does look like the newer antenna is on the 5R in the product images from the seller. So yeah, I think any radio bought now, unless old stock that's yet to be sold, will come with the new aerial.