New Brand Of Scanners

[x635 4,066]

Looks to be a new player in the Scanner market.

Is anyone planning on buying a Whistler scanner?

Whistler Announces Entry into Radio Scanner Market

Bentonville, AR – (September 23, 2013) – The Whistler Group, Inc., a leading industry supplier of Laser/Radar Detectors, is announcing entry into the radio scanner market. Whistler has purchased the intellectual property of scanner industry leader, GRE America, Inc., and plans to launch a complete line of scanners under the Whistler brand.

Whistler is proud to enter the scanning receiver business, picking up popular scanner models often characterized by hobbyists as easiest to program and use. Whistler scanners will include: handheld and desktop/mobile digital scanners with full keyboard, a handheld scanner with USA/Canada database built in, and two models of VHF/UHF non-trunking scanners. The assortment will include the first and only scanner that works on newer modulation protocols including P25-Phase II.

Models feature an Object Oriented User Interface, context sensitive help menus and three soft keys for easy programming, Digital AGC and superfast DSP for clearest possible audio on digital signals, user upgradable CPU and DSP firmware and an alert LED which can be programmed to light when any object goes active.

Whistler is committed to advancing state of the art technology in scanning receivers. “This is an exciting opportunity to produce quality product that keeps up with changing industry technology. We look forward to making positive contributions to this industry”, states Jesse Hopkins, President/CEO of Whistler.

Whistler brand scanners will be available for retail and distribution in the first quarter of 2014.


About Whistler

Whistler has been a leader in automotive laser/radar detection systems for over 40 years. Throughout the years Whistler has innovated and patented important product advances, resulting in first-to-market accomplishments and top performance rankings. Whistler also offers a complete line of Power Inverters and Diagnostic Inspection Cameras. For more information please visit Whistler Group | High Performance Radar Detectors and Electronics.

[EMT111 149]

From what i understand, they purchased GREs piece of the scanner business, and are putting out what GRE would have put out as their next generation of scanners. As for having the first and only scanner to do P25 phase II, Uniden beat them with both the BCD536HP and BCD436HP.

[res6cue 67]

Old news. Like EMT111 said, Whistler bought GRE's intellectual property when they went out of business last year. The scanners they've announced so far are nothing more than re-badged GRE and Radio Shack designs (GRE manufactured most of Radio Shack's recent scanner models). Whether or not Whistler follows through on their promise to come up with new designs and features remains to be seen.

As for having the first and only scanner to do P25 phase II, Uniden beat them with both the BCD536HP and BCD436HP.

Not quite. The GRE PSR-800 was already capable of decoding P25 Phase II by October 2012 via a firmware update. The two new Uniden models were released just a few months ago. Technically yes, Whistler hasn't released their re-badged version of the PSR-800, but Uniden was way behind GRE on TDMA decoding. I was a beta tester for Uniden back in mid-2012 when they attempted to get the HomePatrol to decode TDMA, and it was a failure due to the scanner not having enough CPU/DSP horsepower to pull it off.

Edited April 25, 2014 by res6cue