Police and Fire Scanner?

All scanners will receive NOAA weather frequencies, so that's covered.

Look up your area on RadioReference.com and find the frequencies for other desired services.


Be aware that many agencies, police departments in particular, have "gone digital",
and many of those are also encrypted.
More expensive scanners will demodulate P25 digital transmissions,
but no scanner will undo encryption.



Currently there are two manufacturers of scanners,
namely Whistler (producing the same items as were formerly made by GRE
but with different model numbers), and Uniden-Brearcat.

Both offer about the same features for about the same money,
and you will find reviews that favour one over the other
with severe criticism of the failings of the one not preferred.

Both sides are right and both are also wrong.

My preference would be for Bearcat for relative ease of programming,
but Whistler for certain performance characteristics.


I have models made by both Uniden and GRE,
and I find that there is little difference between them in everyday use.



For programming a radio, FreeSCAN software is very useful,
and there are others that have more capabilities,
but I haven't tried them.

They've all gone to digital pretty much in the developed world so all you'd pick up is mini cabs and even they are ditching their old radios sometimes. Search online, radio communication shops seem to have all gone.

you can get apps on your phone that do it for free (albeit over the internet). if you have an old smart phone just plug it in and connect it to an external speaker via 3.5mm connection.

eBAY has them, buy the wide band expensive one, not the handset type.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.Xradio+scanner.TRS0&_nkw=radio+scanner&_sacat=0