Anyone have any experience with GRECOM scanners? I am looking at the 300.
Thing is though since I’m also a student pilot was tossing around the idea of the Sportys Radio.
Its mainly for listening to listen to and get down the communications aspect of flying.
Thanks
For that purpose you can listen to liveatc.com for free. Most of the traffic you’ll hear on your scanner will be IFR (or VFR pilots who have acquired bad radio habits). If you’re a student/VFR pilot you don’t need all that fancy lingo. For example IFR traffic has to read back their communications. As a VFR pilot you only have to acknowledge with exception to things like hold short instructions. You’ll quickly learn how annoying it is when a pilot doing touch & go’s reads back (yelling) every word to the tower. Frankly, from my experience, listening to the scanner and flying the plane and communicating are totally different experiences. Listening to the scanner is passive and you’re usually scanning several frequencies such as clearance, ground, tower, approaches and maybe centers. When you’re flying the plane, you’re interactively involved in the communication but it comes second to flying the plane. As pilot of a plane you’re generally only concerned with the communication that pertains to you or your area as opposed to all the other chatter going on around you. Obviously if you’re at your local airport and you hear a C-17 or 737 coming in, you’ll want to be aware of that but it’s not a big deal to you unless you’re landing behind them. Again, being tuned into one freq while flying the plane is very different than scanning a bunch of different channels.
Currently I have a Radio Shack hand held scanner that is dying (scan button no longer works) after 8-10 years of abuse. Prior to that I had a Uniden and Sportys that lasted about half as long. The idea of having a transceiver is nice but you really don’t need it. I usually keep my scanner in my bag when I fly, but I’ve never needed it. My local tower told me to call them on the phone if I have radio problems. You can always land the plane or watch for the light gun.