What do you Scan and Why?

Hello All

Ya know, there are a lot of new folks popping in here all the time and a lot of Old Regs in and out and a BUNCH of old and new who don't sign in but just look over whats happening in here.

So I was sitting starring at a number of forums wondering, Why scan this? Why scan that? why are you listening to truck delivery drivers or Police?. So I figured I'd post it up in here and see what kind of fun comes from this.

What do you Scan and Why? ..

I live in Southern Fannin County Texas and I scan for several reasons. I work around Emergency Management and am involved with Emergency and Business Communications. I am also Pentecostal and with these uncertain times with Terrorism, War and the up and down economy I scan to hear what's happening around me. I've learned when prices are high and Luck is low people start doing dumb stuff. But when Life gets Really bad for everyone, The scanner is often more informative then Television and other media. I guess I'm waiting for doomsday - So I scan mostly Public Safety and some utilities. I don't think scanning the Feds or military has any point until after the Battle begins, but before it and what leads up to it comes out in local Public Safety and utilities such as fuel, electrical and communications.

So - Y'all get the drift on this? Jump in and take a swing!

I love scanning. The reason is that I know what is happening around my city even before it airs in the local news. Right now what is happening in Mexico I monitor the fed. more often, because I just live a few minutes from the border more less 15minutes max 20minutes.

I love listening to my scanner all day long. I monitor Round Rock PD & FD and that's it. Around here are Williamson Co. SO and they are encrypted and then there's Austin, but I not interested in the big city crap.
I've been listening to scanners since the old analog radio days. My dad got me interested back in the early 60's. I can still remember Charles Whitman climbing to the top of the UT tower in 1966 and killing 16 people and wounded 32 others. From that day on, I was hooked. And now, 45 years later, that scanner goes EVERYWHERE I go and is turned on.

I live in the Plano/Allen area and like you I want to have all I need to hear when things go bad. I work on the edge of Dallas so when at work I listen to Dallas PD/FD. When at home just Allen and Plano. But daily I just have it on, not every day or anything, just when I am doing certain things and have it going in the background for the most part, then when I know something is going on, wreck, hear sirens, see smoke etc I kick it on to see whats going on around my neighborhood. So 95% PD/FD is what I listen to. I have all the local HAM stuff loaded as well but pretty much just for when things get rough, either storms or if the big one comes(insert disaster here). I figure with HAMs and local PD/FD you should have a pretty good idea whats going on and not just what they tell you on the TV.

I'm disabled and was a firefighter or 22 years. Besides ham the scanner gives me something to listen to. [I get bored otherwise] Mostly listen to Dallas PD and FD as my antenna is inside and I don't have any digital gear [YET]

DPD/DFR here! And a healthy dose of the DFW ATC stuff. The only other career I considered was an air traffic controller, but a color blindness thing kept me from that. So I enjoy listening to what might have been. But with the new HomePatrol listening to the federal stuff is now pretty easy and quite interesting...I listen because I enjoy it. And don't watch TV, so evenings are www and scanners. And some HF stuff, but living in an urban condo, the noise problems are pretty severe.

I don't really listen to any one thing. I'll listen to police/fire/ems for a while and then switch over and listen to business or aircraft. I guess I have a short attention span. However, living in San Antonio, the home of NoVoice, I find that listening to police/fire/ems is getting harder. More and more agencies and other small communities are going over to the dark side. I'll be throwing a big party when the City of San Antonio and Bexar County ditch that system. But I know I'll have to wait until at least 2014 before I can tap that keg.

Having attempted scanning in your area for YEARS, I think I would tap that keg just at the THOUGHT of NoVoice going away!!!!!

Here I listen to local PD/FD State Police and surrounding counties on whats left on analog.Also listen to the Indiana Safe-T system on RR.Been listing to scanners and tuneable radios for 40+ yrs.Just becouse I'm nosey.

Mark

My scanning hobby began in 1976. Then, I owned a Bearcat IV. I enjoy listening to scanners because I want to know what is happening in my area & on the road. It is part of my electronic arsenal. I also have a Beltronics Vector 995 & Cobra 25 classic with K40.

Bottom line: I like to break the law.

Man, I guess I'm all over the place...

I mostly monitor law enforcement. If my scanner is on, rest assured the local LE is getting monitored. Mostly New Braunfels PD, Comal SO and DPS when I'm in my county. On the way to work it's always local LE (exclusing SAPD/BCSO). Generally, I listen to fire and exclude medical calls (I'm tired of those already).

Usually always monitoring the known fed frequencies for the area, and when in The City I monitor the fed band for newbies.

Railroads on occasion, especially out in the country by my house where a bunch of private lines serve the 3 cement plants/quarries in the area. Good way to know where I need to go to see some cool trains.

Aircraft/Airport when I'm at work, about 1/4 mile from SAT. Medevac monitoring at this time also.

Milair/Military, rarely when others report something good or at airshows (the only way to enjoy an airshow).

Amateur radio is a great hobby, but I don't tend to "scan" them unless I'm spinning through to make QSOs. This is generally at night time on HF. At the same time, I usally roll to some USAF/USCG/NASA/COTHEN freqs also to hear what's going on.

Public Works/ Utilities/Businesses- hardly ever unless it affects me (power outages especially).

FRS/GMRS/MURS/Itinerants only at large events where I might see some coordinators using them. Never to listen to the common citizen blabber about losing their kid at the mall.

CB I avoid like a plague infested corpse.

My scanner files follow a template for every file. I'm not a big fan of the "search" bands on scanners because I can't also monitor what I actually have programmed in. So I have certain lists that are on every 500 file I have. A federal known list, state LE known list, a federal unidentified list, a DPS statewide list, an AAR list, an interop list of state interop freqs, and an FRS/GMRS/MURS/Itinerant list. That way, no matter what city (V-scanner) I'm in, I have instant access to freqs that apply statewide.

My first choice is Military Air. thereis so much activity here at Dyess AFB it can almost get overwhelming, B-1B's, C-130's, as well as tons of trainers that come into use Dyess and the Abilene Airport. then ehtere is the Brownwood MOA's which I can hear, some cool fighter activity, as well as the refueling tracks overhead.

Next would be all of the public safety stuff in the area. I can easily listen to 3 different counties, Taylor, Jones and Calahan, and all of their VFD's as well.

EMS in the city of Abilene is a private company and all of their comms are in the clear on VHF.

Last is the City of Abilene. The EDACS system carries all of the city services in analog with the exception of the PD which is all pro-voice, and the FD which is half and half. Everything is dispatched analog, with the responding units digital. All EMS calls and other single company responses are moved to Tac-2 which is all digital. Fireground ops use Tac-3 which is analog, as are Tacs 4-8.

Because I work for the fire departtment and was invloved in the planning and testing of the system I have a 7100 handheld assigned to me that I keep at home and can monitor all of the digital stuff as well.

i keep my 396t with me at all times. At home i have a couple of desktop scanners and live feeds to local LEO and the troopers. Also scan fire and ems. I have ham gear so i monitor some ham repeaters too. I scan because i like to know what the sirens are hearing are doing. I also scan because it is something that i find interesting. Even if it is just two local leos on the tach channel talking about dinner or someone their looking for. Fire and ems i scan because i just find the traffic very interesting, also because i know where the wrecks or fire scenes are and i can avoid them if i need to get somewhere. In the truck i do have a CB and i have had interesting conversations on it, but it does come in handy more often than it annoys me. The 396t i mentioned earlier is setup to scan any of the counties that are around me because i have been known to not come home for a few days and just sit on campus and sleep on campus with gas being where it is. So if i crash on a couch or in the truck or in the library or computer lab i can still scan some of the local traffic.

I live 1000' above and 6 miles south of San Jose airport, so I see a constant stream of planes heading in and out of the airport, as well as another stream of aircraft doing long final approaches to SFO. I sometimes turn on the scanner to listen to the tower and Norcal approach channels.

I also listen off and on to the local PD.

Over the last month or two, I've been getting into railroad monitoring and figuring out the jargon (approach diverging, track warrants, highball, etc.).


My summer home is beachfront overlooking a busy harbor entrance, and there I monitor various marine radio channels with my scanner, as well as using some AIS feeds to monitor some of the ship and ferry traffic.

But mostly, I enjoy homebrewing antennas and comparing different types. Just today I built a twinlead J-pole centered on 42.5MHz. So I'm logging various CHP channels from Gilroy/Santa Cruz on up through Solano and into Sacramento. Now I'm checking to see how it performs on other bands such as airband ATIS stations and NOAA VHF weather stations. My wife just sighed and shook her head when she walked into the bedroom to find twelve feet of antenna hanging from the vaulted ceiling. At this point, she doesn't even ask what it is.

I listen to the Denton County Fire and Police departments. Citys of Lewisville, HighLand Village, and Flower Mound, I like to know what is going on around me...My wife has asked me how do you listen to three or four scanners at the same time, I tell her that listing to five things overloads me so please be quite.

Wow, Interesting .... Got a little bit of everything in scanner monitoring. I really prefer listening to the State of Texas more than my local law and fire. I've got TFS repeaters going now and listening to the State Fire Attack at Possum Kingdom on Granbury. 159.4200 I love monitoring the Fed stuff too, never had much luck with Mil-Air, could be my location.

Good stuff - Thanks for the contributions ...

W5TWX said:

I love listening to my scanner all day long. I monitor Round Rock PD & FD and that's it. Around here are Williamson Co. SO and they are encrypted and then there's Austin, but I not interested in the big city crap.
I've been listening to scanners since the old analog radio days. My dad got me interested back in the early 60's. I can still remember Charles Whitman climbing to the top of the UT tower in 1966 and killing 16 people and wounded 32 others. From that day on, I was hooked. And now, 45 years later, that scanner goes EVERYWHERE I go and is turned on.

Click to expand...

Would LOVE to monitor Round Rock... Are they on the GATRRS or??? if they are, are the freqs simul 1,2? and ID's are listed in databse? I can't get a thing!

I started scanning around the time I got my ham license in the early '90s. LEOs is about the only thing that interests me.

I live in the Dallas area and sometimes it can get interesting, especially DPD Deployment. I do a lot of driving between Dallas and Austin so the scanner is always with me.

Listening for the Feds (FBI, DEA, etc.) is like hunting rare DX on the ham bands. You never know when they'll be in the clear.

What I Monitor & Why

When I'm home (Porter, TX) I usually have MCSO District 3, MCHD 1, TXDPS, and Porter FD going on my BCD396XT so I can keep up with what's happening locally.

At work (fire dept just west of downtown Houston) I have HFD A1-8, Hedwig PD, Spring Valley PD, and MVPD on the Zetron console in dispatch. Usually I will scan METRO PD 1, HPD including NW, Westside, Spec Ops, and HCCO Precincts 1 & 5, and all the known Federal channels downtown. What I monitor while at work is mostly for situational awareness in case a chase is coming toward our territory, etc.

My first scanner that my Dad gave me was a BC100XLT that only had Houston PD programmed into it back in the early 90's. Guess that's when I got hooked on the hobby that turned into a career.