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Beartracker system any good?

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Old Jan 25, 2006 | 10:05 PM
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Default Beartracker system any good?

I'm thinking about getting a police scanner for a few months now and was wondering about the Uniden BearTracker. I'm usually a very safe and curteous driver, but knowing if there was a police offier within 3 miles of you would still be a very good thing. Does anyone have any experience with how well it works? It seems like it would work a hell of a lot better than a radar detector.

Also, I've heard that the feature only works in certain states due to some places not having the repeaters on the cars. Is there a way to find out of they work in your state without having to find out the hard way?
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 08:13 AM
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There's no way a scanner will give you the same kind of warning as a radar detector. A scanner will let you listen to police radio but it gives no indication of where broadcasts are coming from and it only works when someone is actually talking on the radio. The guy running the radar trap ahead of you isn't going to be constantly announcing on the radio where he's located or what he's doing.

The only advantage a scanner might have is for airplane tracking - if they are tracking speeders from a plane then they will be talking to the patrol cars to tell them who to pull over. Even then you wouldn't really know where they were - just that they were around somewhere.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 09:13 AM
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FYI:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/showpost....8&postcount=15

Uniden does have a list of the states. I think it comes with the Beartracker if you buy brand new. Also, I'd sell mine to you cheap if you want. It would be the head unit only.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 09:17 AM
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Send me a PM if you want one cheap...like $25 + shipping.
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 03:17 PM
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Originally Posted by WhiteBird00
There's no way a scanner will give you the same kind of warning as a radar detector. A scanner will let you listen to police radio but it gives no indication of where broadcasts are coming from and it only works when someone is actually talking on the radio. The guy running the radar trap ahead of you isn't going to be constantly announcing on the radio where he's located or what he's doing.

The only advantage a scanner might have is for airplane tracking - if they are tracking speeders from a plane then they will be talking to the patrol cars to tell them who to pull over. Even then you wouldn't really know where they were - just that they were around somewhere.
the BearTracker feature doesn't operate by allowing you to listen in on police communications. It receives signals from the repeaters that are on top of police cars and sounds a warning if the signal is strong enough (meaning a police car is near).
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Old Jan 26, 2006 | 03:23 PM
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Yes, but my understanding is that the repeaters don't do anything unless a transmission is being made. In other words, if the radio band is quiet then the repeater is undetectable.

As someone mentioned earlier, it doesn't seem to work very well - he never got a single alert even when he got pulled over. I wouldn't want to risk my license on something like that...
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