The state of the Bay Area - is digital a necessity?

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LIScanner101

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Hello all,

As you can see from my signature I live in New York but I do quite a bit of business in the Bay Area so I always bring my BCT15X with me to listen in the hotel room. Up until now I’ve been very happy with all the analog scanning I’ve been able to do in that area (I usually stay in the San Bruno/Millbrae area), but I see more and more threads popping up about many Bay Area agencies going to digital systems. Many of them talk about the onset of it, but some of them also make mention that much of it is just talk and that there’s still time for the analog scannists.

I know my neck of the woods like the back of my hand as far as what my scanner needs are, but since there’s so much data for the Bay Area, I was hoping that maybe you local folks could do a New Yorker a real favor and tell me if I really need to get a digital scanner for this region, or am I still going to be “good” for the coming year.

Thanks!
 

officer_415

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Analog will be fine for now, at least in the area you're talking about. San Franciso, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are all mostly analog, with the exception of the San Mateo Sheriff's Office. All of the local police and fire departments (San Bruno, Millbrae, etc.) are analog.

The East Bay is going exclusively digital, and Marin County has been digital for some time. San Mateo and San Francisco are both testing 700 MHz digital systems, but it will likely be several years before any users are transitioned over.
 

K6CDO

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Agencies implementing in 700 MHz must go digital (FCC rules). Agencies implementing an open standards (P25) trunking system must go digital. Agencies not operating under either of the above scenarios have analog as an option.
 

LIScanner101

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Analog will be fine for now, at least in the area you're talking about. San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are all mostly analog, with the exception of the San Mateo Sheriff's Office. All of the local police and fire departments (San Bruno, Millbrae, etc.) are analog.

The East Bay is going exclusively digital, and Marin County has been digital for some time. San Mateo and San Francisco are both testing 700 MHz digital systems, but it will likely be several years before any users are transitioned over.

Sorry I never replied to this….:(

Thanks very much for the info, I truly appreciate it. I guess I can wait a little longer before I make the digital switch.
 

LIScanner101

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Agencies implementing in 700 MHz must go digital (FCC rules). Agencies implementing an open standards (P25) trunking system must go digital. Agencies not operating under either of the above scenarios have analog as an option.

Thank you very much for the info. I'm going to wait a little while longer before I drop coin on a digital, seems like I'll be OK for now.
 

LIScanner101

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Ok, so I'm in Burlingame right now listening to all the local action. Lots of PD stuff but I just heard a whole mess of fire trucks zooming past my hotel. Problem is, I'm not hearing any FD. What am I missing? I have all the local VHF and UHF fire channels but I must be missing something.... :confused:
 

kma371

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Ok, so I'm in Burlingame right now listening to all the local action. Lots of PD stuff but I just heard a whole mess of fire trucks zooming past my hotel. Problem is, I'm not hearing any FD. What am I missing? I have all the local VHF and UHF fire channels but I must be missing something.... :confused:

Should be here:

153.78500 160.17000 KMK564 RM 156.7 PL Control 2 Central Dispatch FMN Fire Dispatch
 

russianspd

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I think he was just offering a way for you to possibly track incidents in and around your area. Don't necessarily think he was saying you had to use the audio from the site.
 

UvGotIssuesToo

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Thanks, that's a pretty cool link! Still, I just like monitoring that stuff on my own scanner.

You previously said you were physically hearing all kinds of activity in Burlingame but not hearing anything on the scanner. firedispatch.com is another resource you can use to validate you have the correct frequencies programmed in your scanner. You hear something on the web stream but don't hear it on your scanner...chances are there's something wrong somewhere...
 

LIScanner101

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You previously said you were physically hearing all kinds of activity in Burlingame but not hearing anything on the scanner. firedispatch.com is another resource you can use to validate you have the correct frequencies programmed in your scanner. You hear something on the web stream but don't hear it on your scanner...chances are there's something wrong somewhere...


Sorry for the late reply here :( - thanks for the info. You do have a good point, I will check out what's being scanned on that site and check to make sure I have those frequencies plugged into my scanner.
 
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