New from Ventura County, CA

[Marleysurf11]

Hello!!! So I live in Oxnard, CA and starting to get the itch back. I used to listen to local PD/Fire in high school, things have been busy but I'm hooked again. I ran Into a guy at a local fire that had a Badfeng scanner. Said it was decent and cheap so I just got one, I can't wait to start listening again!!! Any info on local frequencies or tips would be much appreciated. Pretty much into local police/sheriff stuff, marine and air would be cool too as I live in the channel islands harbor. Thanks in advance for any help, I'm super stoked to learn how to program this thing and go from there!!!

 

[K4EET]

Hi @Marleysurf11 and welcome to Radio Reference (RR)!

Here is Ventura County and Oxnard in the RR database:

Ventura County, California (CA) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Ventura County, California (CA)

www.radioreference.com

 

[ladn]

Any info on local frequencies or tips would be much appreciated.

Welcome back to the hobby and RR.
Baofengs and their like have a rather slow scan rate, but are ok if you're only scanning a few channels. They also aren't very selective, so strong signals on adjacent frequencies may desensitize reception on the frequencies you are interested in.

Be careful with your programming, since the radios are capable of transmitting as well as receiving. Here's a link from a current conversation on how to inhibit transmitting: Baofeng - Baofeng UV-5R disable transmit. Also, for receiving purposes, I usually avoid programming PL tones because agencies sometimes change tones (or published information isn't accurate). If you're locked into a channel with the wrong PL tone, you won't hear anything, but if your radio isn't locked to a PL tone, it will be unaffected. The downside to open squelch is you may also hear cochannel users that are outside of your interest.

Your radio is analog only. Ventura County is in the process of migrating to a digital system, using frequencies outside the range of your radio: Ventura County moving to 7/800 Phase I P25 trunking system by 2020

 

[AM909]

... Your radio is analog only...

I.e., focus on the database entries that have FMN, or the rare FM, in the Mode column. Your analog radio won't decode the other digital modes (e.g. P25, DMR) – you'll just hear data "noise" on those channels.