What can you receive with a handheld radio scanner?

Question

I'm in England and am thinking of buying a handheld radio scanner (the Uniden 3500XLT) and am just wondering what kind of stuff you can listen to. I know there's aircraft but what about police, ambulances. taxis, trains etc? If a train/bus driver or a police officer nearby uses their radio would my scanner pick it up? I should add that it is for personal use only; I'd just like to "listen in" on all those everyday transmissions that go on around us as it would no doubt be fascinating.

Answer 1

Many transmissions are digitally encoded now, such as the police, but you may still pick up stuff from aircraft, buses, etc.

Also many organizations use higher frequencies than they used to - usually out of the range of many scanners.

There are a few web sites around that give precise details of frequencies for most areas.