Scanners For Cop Watching

[iowajm780]

Myself and a friend of mine were thinking of starting up a live YouTube stream. We would drive around the city on weekend nights going to police calls like fires, car crashes, unruley crowds, etc. There would need to be atleast two of us or maybe more depending how busy it gets. First thing would be a scanner setup in our cars. We both have our ham radio license so having one in a car is legal. The two major public safety systems are 800MHz p25 simulcast systems so would probably need a SDS series. Question is would it be better to have a SDS200 properly mounted or a SDS100 to be able to removed from the car. This would be handy if we would need to step out of our cars to record video and not miss something. The 200 would be nice and loud but contained to the car. I would just plan on the SDS series and not bother with something that may not work properly.

Who knows if we get good at it to become stringers and sell our footage to the TV stations. Besides with the problem of not so nice law enforcement people, any issues could be documented. I think it would be kind of neat to go to calls espeically if I am on the same side of town, but with my luck the crime scene will be on the other side. I think citizens have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Any ideas??..

 

[SA_tx_88116]

Please don’t do this the police will very quickly become aware that their being watched and then your police agency will encrypt its radios and you’ll ruin it for everyone. So if I were I would listen at home or in the car but don’t follow the police or go to calls it’s dangerous to you and officers so if I were you I would keep what I hear on the radio to myself, and this is the same with fire and EMS calls. And live-streaming this on YouTube could get your city or someone else to take legal action on you because a lot of personal information is shared over police radios (home addresses, ID info, names, etc.)
Thanks for coming here before doing this.

 

[GlobalNorth]

If you wanted to be stringers, you might have made a go of it in the 1960s or 1970s. No one effectively pays for local news stories any more and most TV news is national with some fluff pieces thrown in. Local newspapers are all dead. AM radio? Rebroadcasts of national feeds.

 

[chrismol1]

Watch the movie Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal Ok? Now use as a blueprint to avoid and not do everything he did

 

[W9WSS]

I would advise against this practice vehemently. One of the reasons the Bolingbrook IL Police went encrypted is that a group of local citizens would beat the police, fire, and EMS to calls before emergency services arrived. It was the same group and were quickly recognized. As the previous wise people who commented before I did on this thread, it is not advisable to do what you described in your initial message.

If you want to get involved with your community, consider joining the local ema or possibly the Fire department. Then you would have every right to respond to an emergency scene as long as you are officially a member of a sanctioned team or public safety group. Then you would follow your agency’s policies to respond to HQ or directly to the scene.

 

[natedawg1604]

I would strongly advise you carry out this plan....if you want every public safety agency in your area to go fully encrypted.

 

[pb_lonny]

Simply don't do it. We have just lost all our emergency services here to the big E...

 

[Hit_Factor]

.... I think citizens have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Any ideas??..

News media will probably ignore you as your 'news' won't fit their agenda.

 

[IC-R20]

It's a highly saturated market already cornered by LoudLabs/OnSceneTV and RMG Media. Unless you live in NYC or LA forget about it, you'd basically be doing it as a hobby first and mostly only like some of those New England fire buff groups plus like others said you're often already beat out by people already there when it happened recoriding on smartphones, news stations don't care about your BlackMagic with ergonomic shoulder rig and follow focus, just being there having enough of the action in frame. There's plenty of "auditor" videos on YouTube already to entertain you and show what happens when you do that.

You'd have a better chance at trying your monetary luck with a metal detector and that's saying something.

 

[ka3aaa]

people like you and others that do stuff like this are one of the main reasons that we have encryption being used by police depts and even some fire depts.

do yourself a favor and don't do it.

 

[xmo]

Go for it! Skip the cops and go straight to the fire calls. Think of the drama. Lives at risk! Rescue squads. Structure fires. Evacuation of trapped people!

Get on scene first! Document slow response times.

You could be famous - as the catalyst that starts the trend to encrypted fire agencies!

 

[a417]

F in the chat for all these lamerz...I can't wait till you're on Dummy Krueger or Van Balion, I'll say I knew you when! You really want street cred, you need a XTS or APX with NAS, bruh.

 

[belvdr]

I just knew there was a dumpster fire around these forums. Boy, did I find it!

 

[xmo]

Well, it was an (apparently) serious initial post and there are a great many people who lament the loss of their monitoring hobby due to the spread of encryption often caused by the actions of a few people with poor judgement.

 

[kc8gjh]

You are one of those people. Showing up at car wrecks and other situations to film something just to see how your tax dollars are spent. You are just trying to get 15 minutes of fame trying to see if something bad is going to happen so you can say you're the one who filmed it. No news agency is going to buy crap from you. Spend a night with one of your local law enforcement people or fire departments and see yourself how your tax dollars are spent. The money is spent well because the men and women of law enforcement and fire/rescue work their butts off and put up daily with stuff you couldn't handle for 2 minutes. People like you who want to show up everywhere do nothing but get in the way and also make departments consider going to the big "E". I personally cant stand people like you who want to do this but that's just me.
Employed by a Law enforcement agency for 37 years. Not a good idea to do this. Rant Over.

 

[jtwalker]

F in the chat for all these lamerz...I can't wait till you're on Dummy Krueger or Van Balion, I'll say I knew you when! You really want street cred, you need a XTS or APX with NAS, bruh.

Nah, just paint the SDS100 day-glo green!

 

[Ace9133uwu]

Sigh. 😒
I remember when I wanted my “15 minutes” running a Facebook scanner page for my community at large. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot like I did, OP. No legal trouble came from what I was doing, but some local LEO’s picked up on the page and to say the least, didn’t necessarily approve due to whackers rubber-necking every single call.
When I say every call- DOA’s, OD’s, domestic cases, shootings & stabbings. Every false fire alarm and smoke/odor investigation. Vehicle accidents, train strikes and the like.
I shut it down following the non-fatal shooting of a LEO within my “monitoring zone(s)”.
I like the idea of using a scanner for my hobby, and as a tool for situational awareness, and not much more than that. Do I go to the occasional structure fire? Sure, but I don’t take it to the extreme(s) that some do.

Be careful, OP. What you’re suggesting is an extremely slippery slope that you won’t be able to crawl back up.

 

[wtp]

just a thought..
if you want to report news, has joining a legit news agency come into play yet ?
you can get a neat jacket with NEWS on it and even a hat.
a placard for your car and wallet, that might let you get closer to news worthy stuff.
and if you think the folks here are negative, just wait for the folks that want local news by someone with a phone.
and i think this is the most positive post yet.
and even if it is legal as you stated, a cop might confiscate your stuff and then you get to tell it to a judge.
and his view of interference with duties might be different than yours.
but the news folks can do a lot more.

 

[KC1UA]

I have an idea.

Stormchasing would be a nice option. Perhaps on mopeds?

Almost 34 years in LE before retirement here. Don't. Do. This. Please.

 

[Ensnared]

Myself and a friend of mine were thinking of starting up a live YouTube stream. We would drive around the city on weekend nights going to police calls like fires, car crashes, unruley crowds, etc. There would need to be atleast two of us or maybe more depending how busy it gets. First thing would be a scanner setup in our cars. We both have our ham radio license so having one in a car is legal. The two major public safety systems are 800MHz p25 simulcast systems so would probably need a SDS series. Question is would it be better to have a SDS200 properly mounted or a SDS100 to be able to removed from the car. This would be handy if we would need to step out of our cars to record video and not miss something. The 200 would be nice and loud but contained to the car. I would just plan on the SDS series and not bother with something that may not work properly.

Who knows if we get good at it to become stringers and sell our footage to the TV stations. Besides with the problem of not so nice law enforcement people, any issues could be documented. I think it would be kind of neat to go to calls espeically if I am on the same side of town, but with my luck the crime scene will be on the other side. I think citizens have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Any ideas??..

You can stand fairly close to a bee hive, if you are relatively calm. However, if you are without forethought, you could kick the bee hive & see what happens. I concur, this is a very stupid thing to do.