Culver City to LA

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slinger2424

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If I were to set up a scanner in Culver City, about 10-15 miles from downtown LA, would I be able to clearly get all the LA City Fire/EMS and LAPD calls?

Anyone know how reliable this set up would be?

Thanks :)
 

brandon

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You should be able to... especially LAPD their signal is very good. It reaches all the way into San Diego and parts of Riverside County. 15 miles from LA should be no problem.
 

Radio_Lady

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Aside from the obvious consideration of antenna and specific location, most of Culver City should be pretty well suited to hear most of LAPD's repeated frequencies. All of the West Bureau "base/dispatch" frequencies for sure (Hollywood, Wilshire, West L.A., and Pacific patrol areas, and West Traffic Division), and most of the other bureaus too.

For a few of the other areas, especially some Valley frequencies, it could be a little problematic, especially if you're in a shadowed area, like tucked up against the hills southeast of Jefferson/Overland. It just depends on which TX site they're using.

Keep in mind that LAPD's 15 tactical frequencies and 23 divisional "enhanced/fallback" (aka "Simplex") frequencies are used in a mix of repeater and simplex mode, usually depending on each officer's choice. When repeated they should all do pretty well, but when they go simplex the range will be reduced dramatically. It's not terribly unusual to hear only one side of a car-to-car conversation, when one unit is going through the repeater and the other is in simplex.

I don't know LAFD's coverage contours very well, but since they use repeaters for so much of their traffic, most of their signals should get into CC just fine.

Finally, if you're fairly new to monitoring LAPD, you're not going to be hearing most routine calls being dispatched, as they go by MDT only and not by voice. But the voice frequencies will keep your scanner plenty busy with the urgent and emergency calls and all the other things they come up with to talk about.
 
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Radio_Lady

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slinger2424 said:
Thanks for the replys so far! I have a friend down there and was looking at setting up a scanner there to stream so I or anyone else could hear it :)
I don't know the details of how it works, but there are two LAPD feeds running 24/7 at http://publicsafetyfeeds.com/ (among a number of other feeds). One seems to cover Central and South Bureaus mainly, and the other is for the Valley Bureau. It sounds to me like neither one covers the West Bureau well at all, so maybe a scanner located in Culver City would be just what they could use to have the entire city covered. From where I live I can't reliably pick up West Bureau with my scanner, and it would be great to be able to hear Hollywood and vicinity from home.
 
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