Best frequencies in Astoria, Queens area?

[Billz1981]

Hello, all. Years ago, I was a (very) casual hobbyist, but I haven't picked up a scanner since high school. On a whim, I just purchased a PRO-164 on Monday. I thought it would be an especially neat time, with the blizzard in the area and all.

I'm admittedly pretty much a newbie, and I'm just getting into the swing of things programming my 164 using Win97. The Radio Reference database has been invaluable with frequencies, especially for PD and FD. I'm wondering if anyone in the Astoria, Queens area has any good suggestions for me as far as interesting frequencies to listen in on. Especially things off the beaten path that I might overlook. For example, someone on another thread mentioned the baggage frequency at JFK which seems like a neat idea.

 

[SCANdal]

1981,

Okay, here's a starting point: NYPD, FDNY & EMS SYSTEMS

Astoria, being in the confines of 114 police precinct, is covered by Radio Zone 32. Scroll down the left column and look for RZ 32. Zone 32's assigned TAC channel is B (check the right hand column), but with department radios now having access to just about all the TAC channels, I'd load all of them in. Units too far away to talk to each other on the TACs will instead use the Queens Boroughwide channel, PBQns (dominated by the Shea Stadium detail during baseball season).

Since the Grand Central Parkway just about splits Astoria, I'd add the Traffic channel to monitor the Highway Patrol operating on the GCP.

I don't know where you are in Astoria in relation to any MTA facilities, but Transit Division 3 covers the subways (actually el's by you, check NYC TRANSIT and TBTA's RFK channels and their point-to-point channels ( TBTA ) are usually pretty busy with disabled autos, MVAs, and debris-in-the-roadway type jobs.

Again, not sure where you are in Astoria in relation to the water, but I'd load in all the Marine Channels. NYC MARITIME RESOURCES

You are in FDNY*EMS's Queens West area. From the link at the top, I'd load that channel, 154.400R, 186.2 for FDNY, and all the fireground channels.

There are a number of city parks throughout Astoria; you'll find the Department of Parks and Recreation talkgroups on DoITT's Citywide Radio Network (their UHF trunked system). All the details (and a slew of other potentially interesting talkgroups) are available from the home page of N2NOV's website.

All of my hospital records are very dated (Mount Sinai Queens still shows up as Community Hospital of Western Queens), so I can't offer you much help.

There you have it. Let us know if we could be of further assistance,

SCANdal