Whistler WS1010 Analog Handheld Scanner

Nice radio, worked fine. I messed up and ordered the wrong radio and had to return this on.e.

This is a pretty good analog only non trunk tracking scanner. I use it to monitor airband.

I gave this scanner four stars. It's pretty good for $75 or so. I have more powerful scanners, even hand-helds, but they are also much more expensive.The good news is that the whistler is easy to learn to use. It is very fast, 40-stored channels per second, and 80 steps per second in search mode. It sips power, four AA batteries last a long time. I've run it four hours a day for over a week now and the low-battery indicator has not come on. The stock antenna is pretty good. I have third-party scanner antennas with BNC connectors, but they do not seem to do any better.The scanner will pick up anything from the Amateur 10 meter band down (or up depending on your viewpoint) to the amateur and utility 70-centimeter band, so 29 Mhz to 540 Mhz.The bad news is that there are many gaps in coverage. Some of this is forced on scanner manufacturers by the FCC, but oddly, even the amateur 220 Mhz band (1.25 meters in-between the 2-meter and 70-centimeter frequencies) band is not supported. This is probably my biggest gripe. The FM broadcast band (88-108 Mhz in the U.S.) is also not supported, but I have lots of radios covering these frequencies.There are 400 memory channels divided into 10 banks of 40 channels each. You may store any station in any memory location. In addition to user-assigned frequencies, the scanner has a built-in memory with the most common police, air, ship, fire, weather, and amateur frequencies nation (U.S.) wide. Pushing any one of the buttons dedicated to these bands will find stations for you, and you can store them in memory by pushing one button.This device will not follow trunked radio systems becoming ubiquitous in big cities across America. This is not, however, a criticism of the device. There are trunk-following scanners, but they are much more expensive.In the end, it is only 1/3 of the scanner I'd like, but easily does 90% of what I really need. For the price, that's great!

After struggling a little with the instructions, as trying to understand how to lockout certain channels and then unblock them is not very well explained. Unblocking it's easier to reinitialise the complete scanner than attempt to release channels you decided against.Slightly disappointed with the airband as the steps between selected frequencies, means I cannot get an exact frequency for my local airport. Being a few decimals out leaves reception with background noise.My main use is marine, listening to the various boats and marines where I live.Battery life seems quite suitable, although I would prefer to see a genuine Whistler 12v adaptor as an accessory (but they don't do one).Backlight button only give you 10-15 seconds of illumination before switching off, and doesn't seen to have a always on option even on mains adaptor.Audio quality acceptable and clear.If you are a distance from the transmission source an external antenna is an option and might be worth the additional cost.Marine range weather dependant, from waterfront is about 10-15 miles, depending on shipping size. Smaller boats receptions is limited over that distance, whereas large passenger liners and container ships reception is good.

This radio is great for picking up weather stations but the other functions do not work such as the emergency response of fire/medical. I still keep it with me in my pack for weather update in my area. I gave it at least 4 stars for the build and some of the functions. It might need a larger antenna for other function programs.