Ryanelias26
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What is the differnce between the frequency number for the Police and the input frequency for the same police dept
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N4JNW
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The input frequency isn't used in scanning. Police departments, as well as Fire, EMS and other agencies use repeaters. A repeater takes a signal on one frequency, the input in this case, and retransmits it on another frequency.
Think of it like this. The Police car radio isn't powerful enough to talk to dispatch when they're across town. But, it IS powerful enough to transmit to the repeater, which then retransmits the conversation over all police radio's.
When programming your scanner, you program in the first frequency, or the "output" of the repeater. That way you hear everything. If you were to only program the input frequency, you would only hear stuff when a police car, or other radio was close to you, or if you were close enough to dispatch.
Think of it like this. The Police car radio isn't powerful enough to talk to dispatch when they're across town. But, it IS powerful enough to transmit to the repeater, which then retransmits the conversation over all police radio's.
When programming your scanner, you program in the first frequency, or the "output" of the repeater. That way you hear everything. If you were to only program the input frequency, you would only hear stuff when a police car, or other radio was close to you, or if you were close enough to dispatch.
An input frequency is only if the police frequency is on a repeater. The input frequency is a weak signal that is transmitted to the repeater antenna. The repeater antenna amplifies this signal exponentially so that units over a wider area can receive it. This is the output frequency that you listen to. You can put the input frequency into your scanner but you will only hear something if the police units are very close to your location.
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