monitor rather than scan

[bostonballer]

is anybody familiar with any police feeds for major cities that monitor a single frequency rather than scanning up to 20 frequencies within the department? for me, it's simply not enjoyable being unable to follow an incident.

 

[webstar22]

It would be a huge waste of a scanner to do that.

 

[tampabaynews]

Major police departments have more than one channel. Tampa is not really a major city, but they have six dispatch channels. It would be silly for someone to have one scanner per channel, especially something like NYC. Many major cities will also switch to a tactical channel when a call gets hot, and they can't be streamed.

 

[rdale]

is anybody familiar with any police feeds for major cities that monitor a single frequency

I think LA breaks them up, here in Lansing the feed providers break them up, just depends on the provider. Major cities should definitely find some way of separating, otherwise it's useless. I really hate the ones that combine multiple services (Fire / EMS / PD) because PD & EMS usually compete for airtime and nothing gets through at all.

 

[tampabaynews]

I think LA breaks them up, here in Lansing the feed providers break them up, just depends on the provider. Major cities should definitely find some way of separating, otherwise it's useless. I really hate the ones that combine multiple services (Fire / EMS / PD) because PD & EMS usually compete for airtime and nothing gets through at all.

I agree.

Someone down here streams two very busy law enforcement agencies along with two busy fire departments on one feed. Even though someone else is streaming the fire departments.

Although I don't have a need to use those feeds, it got so busy listening to them on my own I had to put each LE agency on its own scanner and all the fire departments on one.

 

[rdale]

And that's one of the big reason I wrote ScannerLive. You get control over the feeds and can do whatever mixing/matching you want...

 

[NR8O]

Hey Boston, I agree with you, but it's a question of hardware and cost. Check out this thread on the NYC Feed Appliance and you'll see what I mean. http://forums.radioreference.com/live-audio-administration/193677-update-nyc-feed-appliance.html

I'm a feed provider and the county I live in has the area broken up in to 3 different dispatch areas so I provide 3 different feeds. Luckily everything is still analog and I had the extra scanners sitting here so the cost was minimal to get set up, each scanner just monitoring a single frequency. If things were to go digital it would be a different story. I would just scan the county in a single feed.

 

[NR8O]

And that's one of the big reason I wrote ScannerLive. You get control over the feeds and can do whatever mixing/matching you want...

I don't think ScannerLive solves the problem of multiple frequencies being on a single feed which is what we are talking about here...

 

[rdale]

I don't think ScannerLive solves the problem of multiple frequencies being on a single feed which is what we are talking about here...

Sure does! Check the webpage or demo for more info. It allows feed providers to send the same frequencies, but they can be on different feeds instead of all in one. That allows the end user to decide which ones to mix / not mix.

 

[NR8O]

Sure does! Check the webpage or demo for more info. It allows feed providers to send the same frequencies, but they can be on different feeds instead of all in one. That allows the end user to decide which ones to mix / not mix.

Ok, I checked it out, and it looks like a nice program but what Boston is talking about is a feed provider, who in a single stream is providing 20 frequencies that are being scanned. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see where ScannerLive provides the ability to just monitor one frequency out of 20 that are being provided on a SINGLE stream.

BTW, downloaded the demo of ScannerLive. Cool app!

 

[rdale]

Sorry for the confusion. It doesn't provide that ability to a feed with multiple sources... It eliminates the need for feed providers to do an all-in-one. Without software, you would have to open up multiple player windows so many providers just sent all the output to a single feed. This eliminates that restriction/hassle for players, so providers have a little more leeway in making separate feeds.

 

[ScanYak]

IMO, I would rather listen to multiple scanned frequencies at the same time so I don't miss anything. I have realized that in resent years this hobby has brought in many new listeners that are learning how to hear radio traffic and convert to what is actually taking place at the incident. The revelation to this is evident on some of the posts on my scanner site posting board.

I have been listening to police and fire monitors and scanners since the late 1960s and have learned the ability to sense something different in the transmission from partial routine radio traffic. With 30 years of fire ground action I sometimes forget normal listeners have trouble visualizing what is happening. Most younger people were brought up with TV where visualization is done for them. (I digress)
I find it very easy to listen to 20 channels without a problem.

 

[rdale]

Yak - it's one thing to listen to 20 channels at a time... It's another to have a major fire going down with a person trapped, but you only hear bits and pieces because the online stream is stuck on a LEIN channel with a drivers license number being repeated, or on EMS with chatter about a kid with a scrape on his arm. By then you missed the entire rescue operation.

 

[talkpair]

In a nutshell, resources are a big factor.

Does the provider have the resources (mad money) to afford more than one radio?

Does the provider have the antennas for multiple radios, or willing to sacrifice some sensitivity when using a splitter?

Does the provider have the computing power and enough sound cards to support multiple streams?

Does the feed provider have the bandwidth required to broadcast multiple streams and still have enough bandwidth left over for their other internet tasks?

To an extent, resources also are a factor for listeners......in particular dialup users.
A dialup user may have adequate bandwidth to monitor one stream, but no more.

In my case, I prefer to monitor single channels for the same reason you mentioned.........I have the radios.......I have the antennas, but lack reliable bandwidth to broadcast into the internet.