Michigan Veteran - Phoenix Newbe

[mnsrefer]

Greetings,

I brought a 396 from Michigan at the beginning of Winter (as I live here now).
Like my 2 year experience in Michigan with the 396, I realize it will take a while to download, access and weed out what is desirable. I had finally achieved that in MI when I moved here!

One observation before my problem. The scanner community appears quite scarce here.
Very few messages herein and most Radio Shacks don't even carry trunking equipment.
In Michigan (even before a law change two years ago making vehicle scanning legal) the activity was huge. Every entry in the Michigan forum would change numerous times during a given day. Many calls for impromptu meetings and sharing of data. Anyway, glad to be here in Arizona.

I find Maricopa Sherriff and State Troopers along with Phoenix Fire dispatch RF quite active.
Trouble, however, nailing down Phoenix Police. I have loaded both legacy analog and
digital systems and in 4 months of monitoring I'll bet I have locked on no more than 4 times.
I use both this website's data base as well as the Southwest Scanner bible. Double checked all my settings and still thry fall silent. I know there is action out there because I hear the pistol shots in da hood and see Phoenix's finest engaged in service all the time.
Once right outside my window with close call on and still not a peep.
I have all of the control channels installed and searching and get (pretty much only) sky Harbor parking activity. Don't even pick up ENC squelch (if I did, I would feel better)!

Is this department on some sort of cell phone standard (or something)?

Regards,
Mike

[wlmr]

Originally Posted by mnsrefer

Greetings,

Trouble, however, nailing down Phoenix Police. I have loaded both legacy analog and
digital systems and in 4 months of monitoring I'll bet I have locked on no more than 4 times.

Originally Posted by mnsrefer

I have all of the control channels installed and searching and get (pretty much only) sky Harbor parking activity. Don't even pick up ENC squelch (if I did, I would feel better)!

Is this department on some sort of cell phone standard (or something)?

Regards,
Mike

Greetings!
The PD's legacy analog is long gone. They use P25 digital trunking. (Nothing cell-phone-ish)

If you live somewhere in the middle of Phoenix, try locking out all the control channels except for the main ones for Simulcast A.

If your scanner chooses a control channel at a site that PD doesn't use it can be a very quiet system. A good example of a mostly quite site is the South Mountain site. The parking traffic you mentioned is the very rare thing that gets heard from there.

If you live South of South Mountain, try Simulcast C.

Unless you have entered in the talkgroups that the RR database has listed, try leaving your scanner in the open mode and locking out the encrypted talkgroups as they occur.

You shouldn't have to wait more than a few minutes for some activity on your scanner. It's quite a busy system.

Where you live can affect what you hear, the coverage geography is designed for the radio users, not the scanner enthusiasts.

I'll let others here tell you where and when any scanner groups meet. I've heard of one that meets the last Saturday of each month but not sure where.

[AZScanner]

Info here: http://incidentcommandpage.org/ - they need to update it though as it changes location sometimes.

-AZ

[wlmr]

Originally Posted by AZScanner

Info here: http://incidentcommandpage.org/ - they need to update it though as it changes location sometimes.

-AZ

Yea, that's the one I was thinking of.

BTW AZScanner, I thought I learned that the url you listed above had some generic scanner programming files for different models of scanners. I looked and couldn't find anything otherwise I'd recommend to the OP above to download one of them to at the very least have a example to work from.

Of course the fact that I couldn't find them might not mean anything.

[mnsrefer]

I greatly appreciate the response.
Regards,
Mike

[AZScanner]

Originally Posted by wlmr

Yea, that's the one I was thinking of.

BTW AZScanner, I thought I learned that the url you listed above had some generic scanner programming files for different models of scanners. I looked and couldn't find anything otherwise I'd recommend to the OP above to download one of them to at the very least have a example to work from.

Of course the fact that I couldn't find them might not mean anything.

Yeah they used to have that, but it's gone now. I guess they figure RR has it covered.

-AZ