Am I the only one?

[GeraldP]

I realize that my aging eyes and ears play a large part in listening to my scanner, but I have difficulty understanding what many dispatchers and others are saying because of their fast talking. I can understand the need for fast communications in the aviation realm, but rapidly dispatching, say to a file, isn't necessary, in my opinion.

For me, it aggravates me and causes me to not cease listening. Repeating the above title, am I the only one?

 

[jtwalker]

Try putting a better external speaker on scanner, one where you can adjust bass, midrange and treble. I personally like extra bass. But agree some dispatchers are harder to understand.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

In some (but certainly not all) cases, the dispatcher is simply repeating what the officer already has on his MDT/MDC, so the speed isn't as much of a factor since he can just read it.

 

[trentbob]

A lot of it has to do with the way the headset is set with the microphone at a distance from the mouth of the dispatcher, also, like 50 years ago, it was so difficult to understand control towers and pilots. It was like code, less foreign speaking Pilots but more accidents LOL

I remember in my County's Radio Room while I was monitoring, there was one headset that kept getting swapped from Zone to Zone. Nobody wanted it but it was still in play until finally somebody.. threw it out.

Pretty much says it all.

 

[bill4long]

rapidly dispatching, say to a file, isn't necessary, in my opinion.

For me, it aggravates me and causes me to not cease listening. Repeating the above title, am I the only one?

Well, here's the thing. Your opinion doesn't count. What they are doing is not for your listening enjoyment.

 

[TGuelker]

As a retired mechanic, my hearing is shot. 45 years of air hammers and impacts have bent all the little hairs in my ears. On top of that I have tinnitus.

My wife doesn’t care to listen to the chatter, so I use Bluetooth earbuds. The sound is very clear since the earbud speaker is right at my ear, with no extraneous noise to cover up the traffic.

 

[brndnstffrd]

As a retired mechanic, my hearing is shot. 45 years of air hammers and impacts have bent all the little hairs in my ears. On top of that I have tinnitus.

My wife doesn’t care to listen to the chatter, so I use Bluetooth earbuds. The sound is very clear since the earbud speaker is right at my ear, with no extraneous noise to cover up the traffic.

I have heard some people with tinnitus and hearing loss recommend using bone conduction headphones. I have no experience with them, just figured it was worth mentioning

 

[iMONITOR]

Definitely some dispatchers are worse, or better than others. When we see dispatchers on TV shows (not real life), they try to inject various personalities, humor, sexiness, ETC. In real life I've known a few dispatchers and some have been awesome, others sound like they're half asleep (because they probably are), and others mumble, some others are harsh! Dispatchers are difficult to find in some areas, good ones are rare. Sometimes a person's accent can make them very difficult to understand. Sometimes their eating dinner or just chewing gum.

Some of the newer Uniden scanners have record capability with and instant replay under your control for those times when you miss something or it bears repeating.

 

[wtp]

i have been listening to a police radio/scanner since about 1970.
the wife has about 11 years in.
she still will say what was that, but not as much anymore.
police talk in their police language and it takes time to know what the could say.
and like any job each get quicker at it. so it speeds up.
so with a good speaker or sound system, you should get to know what that might say and that is half the battle.
like the rocky horror picture show, anticip..........pation, you have to anticipate the next word or phrase.
i took a ride with a sheriff deputy and said what the signal or code was so he did not have to look it up.
i told him he has to change "accident" to signal 4 all the time, this is your new language.
keep listening and enjoy.

 

[majoco]

Surely if the intended recipient of the message didn't understand it, he/she would ask for clarification. ATC and aircrew have been taught how to speak clearly and how to position the microphone - not directly in front and about 300mm/1ft away to prevent "puffing" and they do tend to use 'standard phraseology'. I don't know if the fire trucks have noise-cancelling mics and it's a noisy environment so I guess they tend to shout which is the worst thing they could. Some of the worst microphone technique I've heard surprisingly comes from the hams.

 

[ofd8001]

I think the above post is spot on. If fire trucks/police cars/ambulances had difficulty hearing the dispatcher, they would ask for a repeat. If a dispatcher cannot be understood on a regular basis, then remedial training or another career may be appropriate. So if you are not hearing a lot of repeat requests, the issue, I'm sorry to say, may be on your end.

Sometimes it takes time to develop an "ear" for hearing public safety communications. I've had many people in my fire department vehicle ask me how I can hear the radio with it turned so low. I tell them, "listening is an art/skill developed over time."

Also, there are many newer models of scanners that have a Replay feature for situations like this until you develop that "ear".

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I realize that my aging eyes and ears play a large part in listening to my scanner, but I have difficulty understanding what many dispatchers and others are saying because of their fast talking. I can understand the need for fast communications in the aviation realm, but rapidly dispatching, say to a file, isn't necessary, in my opinion.

For me, it aggravates me and causes me to not cease listening. Repeating the above title, am I the only one?

For me, the P25 really mucks up the transmissions. At times the dispatches are very clear, other times extremely loud and distorted, and then weak and muffled. Some dispatcher rattle off stuff overly fast and so I use the replay, sometimes repeatedly to get an address or signal code.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

A lot of it has to do with the way the headset is set with the microphone at a distance from the mouth of the dispatcher, also, like 50 years ago, it was so difficult to understand control towers and pilots. It was like code, less foreign speaking Pilots but more accidents LOL

I remember in my County's Radio Room while I was monitoring, there was one headset that kept getting swapped from Zone to Zone. Nobody wanted it but it was still in play until finally somebody.. threw it out.

Pretty much says it all.

I worked for /\/\ back in the 1980's when a city in south Florida bought their new Smartnet 800 system to replace an aged but serviceable UHF system. Along with all the new consoles were included all new Plantronics headsets. I was in dispatch on the night of the cutover. The dispatchers unplugged old headsets from console and plugged into new console at the cutover moment. Within 15 minutes the complaints came in that the system was "scratchy just like the old system". I alerted the supervisor who distributed the new headsets. They could have saved 7 million bucks by simply changing the headsets......

 

[ratboy]

I have a lot of trouble understanding a lot of what the ATC and planes say. The particular radio I listen on is a large part of it. I got one of those headphone to bluetooth adapters to take the scanner audio and send it to my car stereo. The audio is tremendously better, but wow, those squelch closes really thump on the subwoofer on a couple of handhelds I have. I had an older BT adaptor that seemed to be even worse on the squelch thumps, to the point I just gave it away. The one I have now is 50% as potent on thumps as the old one is. A couple of years ago, we were near O'Haire in Chicago and the thumping made us just listen to the speaker in the radio. We had a lot of, "What? What did he say?" without the clarity of the dash speakers helping us.

 

[bob550]

I've found that with my local PD, the dispatcher often sounds like they're transmitting while at a party. The transmission includes heavy background noise of several people talking simultaneously. I would think that was annoying for the officer on the receiving end.

 

[MUTNAV]

Surely if the intended recipient of the message didn't understand it, he/she would ask for clarification. ATC and aircrew have been taught how to speak clearly and how to position the microphone - not directly in front and about 300mm/1ft away to prevent "puffing" and they do tend to use 'standard phraseology'. I don't know if the fire trucks have noise-cancelling mics and it's a noisy environment so I guess they tend to shout which is the worst thing they could. Some of the worst microphone technique I've heard surprisingly comes from the hams.

I wonder if having a nice strong sidetone helps/would help. It can give the speaker a great feedback to the transmitted audio.
When working on aircraft related things, the feedback helped me adjust the mic to where it needed to be (especially on the heavy David Clark headsets). Just wondering.

Thanks
Joel

 

[modrachlan]

Try putting a better external speaker on scanner, one where you can adjust bass, midrange and treble. I personally like extra bass. But agree some dispatchers are harder to understand.

This, absolutely. Once I started monitoring using either a quality speaker or headphone set, my ability to copy increased a huge amount. I like the classic Fostex 6301 powered speaker for this purpose, and skipped the headsets designed for the comms industry and swear by the venerable Sennheiser HD-25, legendary for music recording and mixing, super lightweight and comfortable, with amazing detail.

 

[scannersnstuff]

i have been listening to a police radio/scanner since about 1970.
the wife has about 11 years in.
she still will say what was that, but not as much anymore.
police talk in their police language and it takes time to know what the could say.
and like any job each get quicker at it. so it speeds up.
so with a good speaker or sound system, you should get to know what that might say and that is half the battle.
like the rocky horror picture show, anticip..........pation, you have to anticipate the next word or phrase.
i took a ride with a sheriff deputy and said what the signal or code was so he did not have to look it up.
i told him he has to change "accident" to signal 4 all the time, this is your new language.
keep listening and enjoy.

Gee you're old. Lol.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Dispatch.

While this may bother the hobbyist, image what it is like to be a EMT, FFer, or LE having to listen to a dispatch center that is located in what sounds like an indoor warehouse with no partitions or sound deadening material, a dispatcher with a speech impediment or a very strong accent, poorly selected / poorly set up radio audio, a car radio monkey engineered to fit on a police motor, etc. for 10 or more hours a day.

Everyone tries to get the best gear they can for pennies, but very few agencies/end users consider the dispatch or broadcast area [a van truck, SUV, motor, etc.] to be anywhere near relevant. Some things can be fixed - I knew a dispatcher who brought in and hung up bath towels to deaden reflective sound from a wall. Others can't.

When I trained new officers out of the academy, I had a comms supervisor record their transmissions so that they could hear what they sounded like. Some talked like they were in flight ops in a war zone, some whispered, some used 'uhhh....' far too much, etc. The feed back was so helpful that the comm supervisor ended up adopting it for their new hires. Tempo and tone, no matter the incident, was critical to be heard and understood.

The goal was to sound like a 25 year veteran as a airline captain, not a screaming mimi.

 

[PDXh0b0]

As a retired mechanic, my hearing is shot. 45 years of air hammers and impacts have bent all the little hairs in my ears. On top of that I have tinnitus.

My wife doesn’t care to listen to the chatter, so I use Bluetooth earbuds. The sound is very clear since the earbud speaker is right at my ear, with no extraneous noise to cover up the traffic.

Over a decade working the engine rooms of offshore tugboats, I wish I would have worn my muff 100% of the time, tinnitus sucks, and as we age and the eye sight goes.... but boy I had allot of good times, well using pneumatic slag/chipping hammers on the haul to prep for paint wasn't much fun