Greets Allan,
 AH> I am new to Scanners and would like some information concerning
 AH> Scanners before making my purchase of a Scanner. First what is the
 AH> difference between a scanner that says 50 channels and 10 Bands versus
 AH> a 100 channel and 12 Bands? Not all scanners scan the same Frequencies
 AH> do they? What about some pros and cons about Hand Held Scanners versus
 AH> Stationary Scanners? Thanks for any and all information!
Okay I hope the following info is what you need, I've been into scanning
for a couple of years now so I'll tell you what I know :)
 
I assume when you say bands you mean the frequency coverage. 10 bands and
12 bands simply means that the 10 band one covers 10 modes of transmission
against 12. (no doubt someone will correct me on this if I'm wrong). 50/100
channels means you have 50/100 memories if you like to store your favourite
channels in, thereby enabling you to call each one up at the touch of a 
utton
or if you like, you can program in your favourite 50 to 100 frequencies and
put the scanner in scan mode where it will just keep running through all 
channels and land on a frequency that has a transmission at the time.
 
The fact of not all scanners scanning the same frequencies isn't strictly 
true. Most if not all scanners will do the same range but you'll find that
the more expensive scanners hold a greater frequency coverage, enabling you
to listen to a lot more services.
 
Pros and cons about hand held scanners - well the first one being that it's
portable so you can take it with you, whereby a stationary scanner is just
that, a non-portable. Hand held scanners can run on their own power 
supplies (usually a plug pack of some kind) but this defeats the purpose
somewhat. Hand held scanners are usually supplied with a "rubber duckie
" antenna, some of them not quite tuned to cover all the frequencies 
properly. Stationary scanners on the other hand enable you to fit an 
external aerial and mount it somewhere on your roof, giving you a greater
variety of services to listen to without any static or signal loss.
 
There we go :)
 
Cheers,
Frank
... DOS never says "EXCELLENT command or filename"...
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