Over the past 20 years the hobby of scanning has somewhat changed. The signals you can listen to on a scanner these days are less plentiful than they used to be thanks to a lot of communications going digital. Gone are the days of monitoring the police and most other emergency services and not forgetting the analogue mobile phone networks. In some respects the hobby has declined as the number of “in the clear” signals have decreased. A lot of scanner users these days own a radio to compliment another hobby such attending air shows. It is very likely that aircraft communications and marine radio traffic will stay in the clear for the foreseeable future.  Some people might argue the need for an expensive scanner just to monitor a little air or marine traffic and many users are put off by the complexity of some scanners or simply the costs. Enter the TSC-100R!

The TCB-1100 is TTI’s flagship multiband CB radio with front mounted speaker and DIN sized form factor. It has been designed to be mounted in several different combinations where space is at a premium. The best thing about this type of design is that the radio can be mounted in a free DIN size dashboard space in a vehicle. Many cars and vans have a spare DIN slot available so this radio could fill that gap with something attractive and useful.  Some earlier attempts have been made at DIN mount radios by Team in Germany but whilst the TCB-1100 looks similar I am informed by the supplier that this model has a different PCB to the Team models and some additional features not found on models like the Roadcom FS.

The Misumi WCS-99XII-M video scanner tuned to a domestic video sender on 2412 MHz, within the 2.4GHz licence exempt ISM band. Other finds have included wireless CCTV cameras, amateur television signals and even an illegal wireless camera on 1040 MHz in the aeronautical transponder band!

This review of the Musumi WCS-99XII-M video scanner was kindly supplied by David Norris, G7VDI.

I bought this scanner with ATV on the 23cm and 13cm  (1240 to 1325 and 2310 to 2450 MHZ) amateur bands very much in mind. It handles PAL and NTSC signals, which are frequency modulated. (Secam signals are not supported).

This review was made possible by Sharman MultiCOM Ltd, with thanks to Murli for the loan of the equipment.

The TCB-771 is another fairly recent addition to the radio of CB radios made by TTi. It follows on from the popular TCB-770 that has been around for a number of years. TTi have taken some comments on board regarding the operations of the radio and got rid of the dual function control knobs that were often criticised for being difficult to operate especially under mobile conditions.  Another improvement has been the ability to connect the radio directly to 12v and 24v supplies, thus making it ideal for use in trucks and other vehicles with a 24v system without the use of a voltage dropper making the possibility of frying the radio somewhat lower.

This review was made possible by Sharman MultiCOM Ltd, with thanks to Murli for the loan of the equipment.

It’s hard to believe that over ten years have passed since PMR-446 was introduced across Europe as a licence free short range radio service. The simplicity of the service combined with low cost radios has been a key point that ensured the popularity of the concept from day one and proved to be a credible alternative to expensive licensing and contracts for small to medium sized businesses alike.  PMR-446 isn’t without its problems in heavy use areas due to the limited number of available channels but in most cases CTCSS and DCS can help minimise the issue of busy channels.