Multiple Radios

[harleymac1]

I am new to scanning and was reading through the forums. One gentleman was describing his radio room and mentioned having as many as 5 scanners. Other than the obvious analog / digital divide why is more than one needed with all the storage the newer ones have. Thank you for educating me.

 

[RaleighGuy]

I usually run two at the same time (though I have about 6, one that runs 24/7 for a Broadcastify feed) one monitors statewide system while the other on the local system to decrease the chance of missing traffic I want to hear. Additionally, my different scanners have different capabilities, such as NXDN, DMR, P25 Phase 2, etc. Also, during an emergency or event I might lock onto the main talkgroup/frequency while using another to scan the agency involved. Finally, sometimes I'm using one in search mode while the other monitors known channels.

 

[tvengr]

The advantage of using multiple scanners is you will miss less. If you are monitoring fire and PD on the same scanner, you will miss fire transmissions while PD is talking and vice versa. Same goes for monitoring multiple agencies.

 

[a417]

One gentleman was describing his radio room and mentioned having as many as 5 scanners.

...well, we know for a fact it's not @buddrousa ...

 

[buddrousa]

Ok I run 16 4 Analog 15X's 6 996p2's 5 536's 1 sds200 3 state police district's adjoining counties 2 adjoining states you get the idea.

 

[eaf1956]

...well, we know for a fact it's not @buddrousa ...

Buddro would be bored with only 5 scanners.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

I used to run a fire audio website about a decade ago. Back in the day I had about 6 scanners devoted to each county's fire channels I was able to pick up at the time. If Philly had a working job and another county went to work, I could handle both jobs' audio with relative ease. On jobs where numerous counties were involved, I could pick up each's response traffic and splice it into the same audio file.

 

[buddrousa]

I more than 5 Handhelds in my car.

 

[marksmith]

Easy one. The more scanners you run simultaneously the less you miss and the more you hear. By definition, with one scanner you can only listen to one thing at a time. If the police, EMS, fire and other agencies are all responding to a call, you can listen to a little scattering of comms from all of them and miss a lot, or you can run 4 or 5 radios and hear about everything at the incident. In many cases, I am more aware of what is going on than some of the agencies at the incident because they are only listening to their single channel.

 

[trentbob]

We have an old saying in The Newsroom. The more you scan the less you hear.

I use 6 by my bedside and two in the car. Because I listen to different systems and analog frequencies if I try to listen to them all on one radio it's really a slow go and you're going to miss a lot of information. I might miss a bank robbery down the street while I'm listening to a car stop in the next Township.

 

[harleymac1]

So what you all are telling me is that, just like my ham radio, firearms, and motorcycle hobbies, this hobby is gonna cost me lots of money too!!!! My wife is gonna hate me me. More.

 

[buddrousa]

One word of advice LIE ABOUT THE PRICE.

 

[a417]

"someone was just getting rid of it..."

 

[lu81fitter]

I feel deprived. I use 2. BCT15X for analog and a 996P2 for digital. I primarily monitor my locals (mostly VHF-HI). Illinois State Police are obviously on STARCOM which is where the P2 is used, along with a couple DMR locals. When it gets busy, I can open up both radios and get most everything. It's a pretty rural area here, so I usually have no problem.

 

[TailGator911]

Over time you will develop your own monitoring system, and after a lot of trial and error you will come to find just what you need to make scanning a defined science, of sorts. I assign different scanners to different systems so as to hear everything in my immediate neighborhood, and then beyond. When something major happens, you will see how it all works in unison, and then it makes sense.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

I have two at bedside, one that moves room to room with me at the house, two in the car and one in my work truck plus three I’m going to be using for feeds.

 

[n5ims]

One thing that might not be clear when folks say running multiple scanners means you miss less. Typically if each scanner is programmed the same and scanning the same channels you'll end up with them all stopping on the same transmissions and you might (will) miss other transmissions. This is because during the quiet time while they're scanning they will (most likely anyway) end up stopping on the one active transmission during quiet times. For example they might all keep stopping on the channel that officers use to run licenses which is very busy but you end up missing the transmissions for a team that keeps transmissions very short and only transmit when really necessary (but is very interesting stuff).

To keep this from happening you program them for specific agencies. For example you might have one set to scan only the state police, one for the county police, one for the city police, and one for the city fire channels. That way they won't all end up on the one busy channel and you missing the interesting traffic on others. Remember that my example is a very generic one and your situation may be different. It may be that one scanner is set for one set of local channels (likely a busy one and several less busy and less interesting ones) and the next scanner is set for another set of local channels for the same agency. Like in my example, you may have the license check channel on one scanner that's turned down most of the time and another scanner has only the channels for that special interesting team.

 

[lu81fitter]

I have radios I use in my vehicles as well. Not a fan of using feeds. I think it adds to the argument for ENC, but that is for another thread. Using multiple radios for me is about listening to all that is available.

 

[ladn]

Other than the obvious analog / digital divide why is more than one needed with all the storage the newer ones have.

When I was a newspaper photographer, I had at least three scanners in my vehicle, plus a two way radio. While the scanners of yesteryear didn't have the channel capacity and sophistication of today's scanners, a scanner can scan many channels, but can only listen to one channel at a time. A large incident will generate radio traffic on multiple frequencies, from multiple departments.

In my case, I had one scanner for law enforcement, one for fire and emergency services and one that had misc. and secondary frequencies. I also had a handheld for when I was on scene. Each scanner went to a different external speaker. It took some practice to get used to, but worked quite well.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

We have an old saying in The Newsroom. The more you scan the less you hear.

Now if only we could find a way to grow more ears or have more than one brain