NotaSAAB

Yeah, I think this all pretty much clears it up for me. I'll be okay with not having public safety freqs. Thanks, all. So, maybe I'll get Yaesu FT-70DR or VX-6R to listen in on air band while having some Ham TX capability... and/or get a BC125.

Hmmm... are there affordable Ham or GMRS radios that would be worth considering for unencrypted P25 Phase I trunked? I'm going to see what I can do with scanning on my existing HTs to filter down to just the few RR channels of interest to speed things up. Then we'll see if I'm hearing what I think I should be hearing. Thank you all for your comments & suggestions.

I am in Dakota County. Until the western Class Is move to NXDN over the road, I'm not too concerned about that yet.

Yes, the problem in my state is when you sit down in a vehicle with that scanner, but I have to say getting the Technician license was simple enough once I got around to it.

I'd kind of like to have at least two capabilities in one device, if possible. 3 things in one would be great, but seems to be a regulatory non-starter. I've thought about the BC125AT... I'll have to see how specialized the charging accessories are to see if it's worth the trouble. I'd be interested in listening to railroad, air band, marine + perhaps public safety, but I'm not sure how useful that would be with the encrypted systems likely in use around me.

Thanks. So, the FT-70 is fairly good as a scanner? I'm not totally opposed to having more than one HT with me... having a combination of good scanning, some Ham TX capability and GMRS is my goal. If that means a separate GMRS radio, that's fine. If I can get good scanning and GMRS in one unit, that's alright, too. Ham is a nice-to-have, but can justify its own HT in my mind.

Yeah. See Sec. 299C.37 MN Statutes and particularly the part that says You can apply for a permit without the Ham license, but you have to show "good cause" and I actually am not real interested in listening to police frequencies on any regular basis anyway.

I recently obtained my Technician's license so I could legally scan in my state (MN) and obtained a GMRS license at about the same time as it seems more aligned with my potential use doing non-radio hobby stuff. Which handheld would be a good balance of scanning capability (sensitivity, speed of scanning, ability to select only certain frequencies for scanning) and GMRS functionality? For background, I have an old 20-channel Radio Shack handheld that served me well for a long time for scanning railroad band + 457.9375 (end of train device freq). I usually only want to scan 20 or less channels depending upon my location (based on the railroads of interest and what channels they use in that location). I now have a Radioddity GM-30, a BTech GMRS v2 and a Explorer QRZ-1 which I'm still learning. I also have a couple of Signal Stick antennas (SMA-M SMA-F). From my searches so far, I should be looking at setting up scan groups and enabling/disabling frequencies from scanning if my handhelds have those capabilities. Would I see any noticeable improvement in scanning/receiving performance with something like a Wouxon KG-935 Plus, KG-UV8H or KG-UV9PX? Is there another deviceI should consider, such as Yaesu FT-70DR or VX-6R based on superior scanning capability? If I have a good HT for my purpose, is there a mobile that would be similarly useful for my use case? I'm not really interested in TX much unless it's with friends/family on GMRS most likely unless there's some other mode that seems useful. I already have enough hobbies. ? Thank you!