I have one of those scanners; got it for approx. $90 at Radio Shack about 10 years ago. Problem with this theory is; cell phones were on (I forget the specifics, but if it turns out to be important I can drag out my files for the numbers), say, frequencies 890.00 to 893.065, or some such. Higher and lower freqs were for ambulance, fire, etc, which I wasn't interested in. I had no life back in those days, not like now fiendishly following every moment in this case on my laptop... so I scanned the cell frequencies, had my scanner set on a rotate cycle to go round and round on this narrow band. If the scanner caught a live channel it'd lock there, until I manually clicked it to go on. If a call was a "good one" I listened, um, yes, eavesdropped. I did enough legal searching to know the FCC considers cell calls to be a transmission, not a broadcast, so it's not for my consumption, so I kept most of this pretty close to the vest, if Ya know what I mean. But I did hear some pretty good juicy stuff, so and so arranging trysts with somebody else's wife, and even heard my dentist hooking up with my ex-husband's current girlfriend!! WooHoo! ahem. BUT since that time, cell phone companies have switched from analog to digital, or maybe v/v, and my scanner doesn't pick up nothin' anymore. Now, that's not to say there can't be later greater ones that do!