Fire v. Police Feed
Well, since I am a retired cop, I prefer the police feed....but I have the advantage of actually recognizing the dispatcher's voices so I know which talk group it is without looking.....however, it is also true that law enforcement uses secure communications with laptop computers and cell phones more and more. Really the only "action" on the police channels which you can hear blow by blow information are the "in progress" situations such as robbery in progress, burglary in progress, canine tracking, and of course, my favorite, the vehicular pursuit. It is extremely rare to hear any investigative information passsed by clear analog voice transmission.
Fire Dispatch and TAC channels tend to provide more information by voice and you can hear the action as it happens when they are fighting a fire or performing a major rescue.....particularly interesting during severe weather as they usually get the report first (in Pinellas County, Fire/EMS runs the 911 operations center).
The best is to have both worlds simulaneously but on different feeds. If you are not aware, you can create a stereo feed by having one feed in WinAmp and tuning the balance to the far right and then having a second feed come in by webplayer....this effectively puts the webplayer feed on the left speaker....similar to the way pilots listen to two frequencies at once, one in each ear.
At any rate...I am hopeful someone will fill the void when I leave. I am already in process of preparing to reprogram my scanner for my trip....as a licensed ham operator, I am one of the lucky ones that can legally have a scanner in my car, but that is for another thread.
Thanks all for the complements.
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Sgt. (Ret) Kevin Heyboer
Amateur Radio Call: KD4UYR
Active HAM since 1993
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