MARANATHA, with a simple radio scanner, you can listen to people using radios to communicate. In rural areas police and fire, etc. still use these radios, but in larger cities, these services use radios that jump from one channel to another to accomodate more users. This is called trunking and it is difficult to listen to and follow a conversation with a simple radio scanner. A digital trunking scanner can follow these conversations easily. It is important to know what is going on around you in an emergency so that you can be "one up" on everybody else. The one I'm thinking about buying is the RadioShack PRO 2096, which goes for $499. It's steep, yes, but it is top of the line. I plan on getting this next week at a local store and start practicing using it. Some people, I've read, even leave theirs on all the time, that is what I want to do, too.
Wasabell, the good thing about ordering stuff one week is that I can then report about getting it the following week and even later as I "play" with the new stuff and report about it's usefulness. Like the 12V DC thermoelectric cooler I got last week, I tried it out on a battery "power station" which was fully charged. It only lasted about 2.5 hours before it ran out of power. These coolers use up a lot of energy. I'll have to get an energy system more substantial to be able to run one of these in an emergency situation, and it's a little one. It'll be handy on roadtrips though as I can keep things cold in the car and in the hotel room.
