Im looking into buying a Air band radio. I think i need one with UHF and VHF frequencies from the reviews that i have read.

Have a look at this LINK

My budget is around £70 but havent got a clue which is the best one to buy?


Can anyone help?


Thanks

It depends what you want to listen to. You need VHF (116-139 MHz) for civil and UHF (225-400 MHz) for military, generally speaking. And to be really up-to-date the VHF needs to go up in 8.33KHz spacing.

The ones on that page are outside your price bracket - the symbols are the red airliner for civvy and the pointy black jet for military. Most have a number of memories that you can program with your favourite frequencies.

Have a read of these:

http://www.ukmidlandscanner.co.uk/r5rev.htm

http://www.airsupply.co.uk/enthusiastsinfo.html

You might need to try ebay.

Basically i just want to visit my local airfields, RAF Marham and Lakenheath with the kids and listen to the airplanes landing etc.

Do i need one of those expensive ones to do this?

Mil aircraft to the best of my knowledge have both uhf & vhf systems. I am not aware whether you can listen to them on uhf, a vhf scanner will pick up the air band frequencies, around 115mhz to 130mhz will let you listen to the civilian aircraft and the mil stuff, when they are using vhf.

vhf will be adequate enough for what your planning, im sure the spotters may say otherwise, but a decent scanner the kids will appreciate, and be able to operate shouldnt break the bank.

You will need UHF for what you want to do.