I'm an Amateur Radio Operator and have run a scanner 24/7 at my house for around 22 years now.
The Uniden models are very good and my current one, a BC175 is about 20 years old and still kicking. One tip I'll give is to buy one with an LCD display if you want it to last a long time. Another tip is to run it 24/7. If you don't want to hear it at night, turn the volume all the way down. It's generally the inrush current at turn on that kills electronic devices....that's why light bulbs always blow at turn on.
The larger the antenna you have and the higher it is, the more signals you will receive. Depending on what you want to listen to, the small antenna that plugs into the back of the scanner may do all you need or want. Your choice.
I've bought a lot of equipment from Amateur Electronic Supply over the years and they have pretty good prices and are good people to deal with. Here's a link to their scanner page:
http://search.cartserver.com/search/search.cgi?cartid=a-6994&category=newprices&maxhits=200&keywords=scanners&go.x=31&go.y=13They'll sell receive only items to anybody with money and Transmitters or transceivers only to licensed Hams, so buying a scanner from them won't be any problem.
Came back to add about handheld scanners. They have about a 6" or smaller antenna so the range is decreased again. Also, because they're small their selectivity isn't as good as the larger units...but having said that, a scanner doesn't have much selectivity anyway because of the large range of frequencies they hear. Again, they are an even shorter range receiver than the larger scanners by virtue of antenna size (capture area), so it depends on what you want to do with it.
Ka6otm
