How Do YOU Scan?

[Sporrt]

I rarely 'scan' for more than a minute.

I like to use dual watch to monitor a city-wide frequency that simulcasts in-progress, shots fired calls, etc., can also hear requests for police helicopter, and canine. And a Tac frequency. If I'm interested I can switch over to a district/zone, after hearing the city-wide simulcast.

Sometimes I'll keep the local district on low volume in the background.

 

[djg320]

I have a digital scanner running normally (monitoring state system) along side an analog only scanner for local stuff. If I need to park on a frequency I have radios I'll turn on and keep with me.

I don't worry about recording too much, I might jot something down. For the big stuff I have my Broadcastify feeds.

 

[jmp883]

- Listening to multiple radios concurrently
- Jumping from frequency to frequency (or talkgroup) to follow an event
- Recording scanner audio to play it back through a mixer in order to improve the sound
- Google-mapping event locations
- Constantly tweak your groups and quick keys to better monitor your area
- Memorizing 10-codes and beat maps

Listening to multiple radios concurrently - Yes
Switching frequencies to follow an event - Yes
Recording Audio - Yes
Mapping - No, not usually
Tweaking scan/talk groups and quick keys - Not usually
Memorizing 10-codes - No

At home I have 5 scanners in my shack. The first radio scans northern NJ PD/FD/EMS. The 2nd radio scans FDNY. The 3rd radio scans local railroads, and the 4th radio scans Newark Airport ATC. The 5th radio is used for recording when an incident of interest occurs.

At work (I've been an emergency services dispatcher for 25 years) I listen to my agency's PD and FD/EMS channels, the towns that immediately surround my town, and via Broadcastify, whatever I feel like listening to that particular day.

 

[desert-cheetah]

I have a Home Patrol II mounted in my car that is on whenever the car is. The power source comes from the USB port I also have it plugged into the speakers with the aux in plug, which allows me to control the volume either on the steering wheel or the radio dial.

At work, I generally listen to my 436, but sometimes will stream cities in other states such as San Diego or Las Vegas with an ear bud per agency. One time I had San Diego in the left ear, Seattle in the right and my 436 through regular headphones over both. That didn't last long, though, because it got to be too much trying to keep it all straight, but usually having my 436 and another city is okay. I can tell them apart from locations given (obviously) and because the dispatch centers sound different.

 

[Blackink]

How do I Scan?

1 channel at a time, even when using multiple scanners.....

 

[captaincab]

I usually run 1 scanner i keep county fire dispatch as priority channel an scan mainly the 7 county police channels. I am also a dispatcher for incident page network so keeping the fire dispatch as priority channel lets me hear any fire dispafches or ems ones. I also on busy nights or weekends keep a small 10 channel handheld scanning our 10 fire tac channels. I am lucky my county is still 500mhz analog for police and fire. We have a small system 7 main pd channels 7 secondary or incident channels 7 simplex channels. For fire 10 tac channels 4 simplex tac channels 2 ems ops channels 1 shared command channel with pd and a 500mhz dispatch channel that repeats the lowband dispatch channel