Suggestions for other things to monitor

[KE0MD]

Hey all!

Now that I've got the hang of KSICS, and figured out how it all works, looking for other things to monitor. I'm in Allen County (Iola), got our city/county UHF freqs programmed, as well as neighboring Woodson Co, and will probably put Neosho, Burbon, and Anderson counties in as well. Have also added local Ham ops, all FRS channels, and CB Channels 9 and 19 to the scan list as well. Anyone got any suggestions as to what other things to monitor - things that might not be listed in a db such as radio reference?

 

[n0lqt]

There are dozens of available "services" to listen to.

Aircraft
Railroads
Commerial
Space
Ham
....

Start with your Limit Search function. If you're able, do repeated searches during different hours and on different days of the week over the same sets of frequencies. This will yield better results, since some "services" are more active at different times. (although, you'll be absolutely amazed what you sometimes hear on, say, a business band itenerent frequency in the middle of the night... ) Search a couple of MHz at a time rather than a whole band so that you go back over the same frequencies multiple times over the space of a minute. When you hear something, "temp store" it and mark down the time and frequency on a list or spreadsheet to go back to later and ID it from the RR database.

One often over looked band is the VHF-lo band (30-54 MHz). Now that the 11 year sun-spot cycle is on the up-swing, "skip" is starting to really roll in. A couple of weeks ago, on the 10 meter ham band, I worked Greenland, Iceland, France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina at around 28.6000 MHz sideband in less than two hours. Although not quite that far, you will frequently get 500 to 700 mile FM "skip" in the VHF-lo band at the peak of the cycle.

 

[rankin39]

You might try scanning the marine band frequencies. Since this is Kansas, and, apart from the Missouri River and a few lakes, there's little marine traffic, you can hear a variety of illegitimate uses of these channels. At night I've heard what were clearly thieves hitting target businesses in Johnson County several times, and driving down near Wichita I heard a group of hunters communicating about the location of game. People buy marine talkies for a variety of strange purposes.

Bob, WoNXN

 

[n0lqt]

... People buy marine talkies for a variety of strange purposes. Bob, WoNXN

But they take their little plastic sail boat with them when they take the occasional bath... Doesn't that make them legit???

 

[rankin39]

But they take their little plastic sail boat with them when they take the occasional bath... Doesn't that make them legit???

I talked to a JoCo deputy about it and we agreed that's what rubber ducks are for.

 

[Gmod12]

I have the local utility companies in my scanners. That way if there is a problem, I'm ahead of others in getting supplies needed to deal with such issues. It's nice knowing at least 30 minutes before the entire town loses water or the status of the power outage.