How do you use your scanners?

I'm curious to hear from some of the folks who post indicating they use one or more scanners as part of a job or "7x24" - basically more than the casual listening that I and many others typically do. I have a scanner on (typically not more than one at a time) maybe an hour or two a day on average, more on weekends if I'm indoors. I'm used to laws preventing scanner use in vehicles so I've never (well, almost) had one in my vehicle.

So for you "professional" listeners, what are you listening to and why?

Looking forward to some interesting stories!

I use a total of 4 scanners/radios at the same time. I use my Uniden BCD436HP to hear all of the P25 traffic in my area(South Texas). My Radio Shack Pro 197 is used for a large trunking system in my county(Nueces). A Uniden 750XLT for local police who are still analog VHF. And finally an Orion 800mhz ProVoice radio for ProVoice traffic in my area.

I listen because I have a lot of friends who are police in these areas. It's good to know what they deal with so when they come with stories, I'll have a better idea of what happened.

My listening area is(in Texas) Nueces County, Kleberg County, Jim Wells County, TxDPS, Padre Island National Seashore, Refugio County, San Patricio County, and Atascosa County. It's fun to listen to everyone at the same time.

... as a newspaper photographer for over 40 years I have radios in my car, office, living room and by the bed... I have 3 antennas on the roof as I cover many counties over a wide area... my first radio was a slide rule receiver (VHF Rat Shack Pro-1) and you could only hear one thing at a time... I remember my first scanners in the late 60's... 8 channels at once!... I remember my first programmable (Electra- BC 101)... no crystals, 16 channels! ('74)... when PL tones came to be in scanners it made a big difference... (less noise)... when keyboard programing came out (mid 70's BC-210) I knew hundreds of freqs in my head and was publishing listings then... CRB Research was one of the big sources too... my scan lists now are fine tuned and well mapped out so as not to get over loaded in one radio... I have learned that the less you scan the more you hear... I don't want to miss a bank robbery down the street because of an out of town car stop if you know what I mean... I've never put a zip code in a scanner... I've had many great front pages and awards because of my scanning skills (became Chief Photographer at my newspaper) and have mentored countless photogs and reporters in the art of scanning... scanners have made all the difference in my long, rewarding career... 73's... Bob...

I've only got one, and it's on all the time at work. I use it to monitor a few systems I run. Easier than having 3 portables running all the time.
Occasionally I'll hear something interesting, but most of the time it's just background noise. I don't use them at all at home, just don't want to play radio at the end of a long day.

I have five digital scanners and one analog that are set up in the shack. Generally, two or three on at any one time. All if there is action that those two or three can't follow.
The analog will run when necessary.
Larry

Not specifically work, but often when I catch a run, pertinent info will often come across the LE TGs, which our FD radios do not have. It's amazing what the Dispatchers sometimes figure we lowly VFF's do not need to know, but which can make a huge difference in life safety, or just plain efficiency in getting on scene and set up.:roll:

Also, I will often hear indications on the LE side that we are about to get toned for something. That sometimes lets me (and a few others who scan) go ahead and head for the FH. I know the Dispatchers do get awfully busy, but sometimes the delay between "Notify Fire/EMS" and the tones going off can get pretty long. If somebody is in the rig idling on the apron when the pagers trip, we can make some of that up, rather than having to respond from home...and then LE of course wonders what took us so long.:roll::roll:

One is on at home and I control/stream it while at work using Win500 and its client over the Internet. The radio is a Pro-106. A PSR-500 is also used while I am at home sweeping Mil Air and whatever else. A Bearcat 2500XLT is even connected to the antenna, but I use that to monitor a frequency from time to time or sweep a band. The vehicle carries a Pro-164 and a Pro-97 that sweeps. I have a Pro-668 that I use when traveling and sometimes at work to complement the stream from the 106 at home.

I would love to listen to the Thompson, Illinois prison once it's fully open this year. I'm only 10 miles away. I just hope Sentinel adds them to the database for an update to my 436 and 536.

Trains

I have a big love for trains. When I'm out taking photos of them, I have
my Radio Shack pro-60 with me. With all the frequencies for that band.
73's: Kevin.

I have my BC346XT on while in the car, monitoring local EDACS Fire,as I am an Emergency Social Services volunteer. Gives me more information during an event (fire, flood, gas leak etc.) Allows me to keep my fellow volunteers informed. Carry an Icom R3ss when I want to monitor the local airport CZBB.
Have my Kenwood TM-V7A to monitor the local repeater as well.
73 Larry

I monitor fire and police for whatever area I happen to be in or en route to. The time to hear the action is before you get struck in traffic or drive into the middle of a shooting. They are also useful when one is responsible for security operations, to know what is happening in your AOR.

I have a BCD396XT handheld I keep with me all the time, an HP-2 used at home and when traveling, and a BCD996XT to supply my feed.

At work, I stream my home county's fire and EMS over Broadcastify all day. I also have my BC125AT beside me using a RS mag mount antenna on the top of the hutch on my desk to scan a different local county's EMS and some ambulance to hospital comms. I cannot get ANY low band in the building...even with the RS antenna...too much RF.

Scanner at work is tuned to company low band VHF channels. I monitor them to keep tabs on what's going on.

Scanner at home (downstairs) is usually turned down but tuned to VHF fire dispatch channel for my county. When fire-house siren goes off across the street, I turn up the scanner if I am curious what happened.

Scanner next to bed is normally set to two tone station code squelch for the firehouse. However, wife and I sometimes put it on county trunking system before going to sleep to find out what the police and fire folk are up to on a hot summer night. It does get quite entertaining.

the two modern scanners I own stay at home (Pro652 and Pro668) and serve to monitor my work radio network, both legacy analog and our new Astro 25 network, as well as general monitoring. My first (and oldest) scanner, Pro-2020, circa 1983, is used for occasional aircraft monitoring, but mostly stays parked on my UHF ham repeater.

I'm currently using three scanners: a PRO-197 and a BC860XLT for my feeds and a PRO-652 on the desk next to my computer as my "everything" scanner. I also use Gordon's Scanner Radio app in my truck to listen to feeds over Bluetooth.

Growing up I two police officers that lived on the same block I did, 1 was a Police captain and the other was a State trooper. They both go me hooked listen to the scanner and help get the right channels to listen to.

A few years later I became police officer, in my squad car I has the State Police and the county Sheriff department on the side of the county worked in scanner. Some time we used the our scanner to listen to each but talked on our channel if did not have mutual channel to talk direct Want I mean was I talked on my car to car channel they listen on a scanner to said, then they would talk on their car to car channel I would listen on my scanner. < old day interop&#8217;s lol>

Now that I am retired and living in a different area than I worked I still listen to the local LEO, VFD, and EMS.

I started out with combo AM/FM Public safety band radio, thru the years I had various 3 different Bearcat crystal one, regency scanner , 5 different radio shack ones. Now I got the HP-1

I remember the old scanner / interop trick. I listen to their channel and they listen to mine. Like a homemade duplex system. We also had a low power, short range, car-to-car where the dispatcher couldn't monitor, we would just remove the antennas on the handhelds. We would also send secret messages by clicking the mic so many times.

I usually have at least one going all the time, one of my Pro-106/PSR-500 "twins" along with another one going when I'm watching TV that is just for train stuff. I have the two because I miss so much with just one. At times I have 4 or 5 going at once, at low volume, two of them only scanning digital, two conventional PS freqs, and the train scanner. It's hard to miss much with that set up.

Here I run 3 GRE 410's 1 for conventional and trunked police, 1 for conventional and trunked fire, 1 for conventional and trunked ems, all 3 410's recorded 1 pro-197 logging KSP post 1, 1 Pro18 logging pro96com TACN TG's and UID's, 1 pro106 and laptop for pro96com remote setup for site id's in my car, 1 bcd536hp on proscan at home or fire dept TACN system, 1 bcd436hp TACN sites and 1 pro668 other p25 traffic , 1 pro 96 spare 1 pro2096 spare and 1 pro164 spare plus my old 2067 spare and my uniden bc8500xlt spare.

I'm a public safety photographer covering the tri cities area of Alameda County, California so having a Scanner is imperative to finding all the latest accidents, crime scenes, and rescues to document and report on. Currently I'm waiting for my first Digital Scanner to arrive in the mail, although I'm not new to Scanning having owned several GRE & Radio Shack branded analogs in the past. In summary I use my Scanners as work related tools.