Basic desktop scanner for Bloomington, Indiana?

[Sherrikat]

Hi, all -

So, I jumped the gun and bought an analog Whistler 1025 scanner, which I now realize will not working for police/fire her in Btown. I got some good info from ofd8001 and wyshack about trunking and P-25.

It seems I need a scanner that will work with either the Indiana Project Hoosier SAFE-T (Motorola) or the Indiana Project Hoosier SAFE-T (P-25) (I'm not sure which is which and what Bloomington is on).

Can anyone recommend one to me? That's pretty easy to program? My husband got me a RS digital one about 4 years ago and - truly, I'm fairly intelligent - but I could NOT figure the manual out for the life of me. I ended up selling it.

Any advice would be very appreciated! Thanks, friends!

 

[afdscan]

Hi, all -

So, I jumped the gun and bought an analog Whistler 1025 scanner, which I now realize will not working for police/fire her in Btown. I got some good info from ofd8001 and wyshack about trunking and P-25.

It seems I need a scanner that will work with either the Indiana Project Hoosier SAFE-T (Motorola) or the Indiana Project Hoosier SAFE-T (P-25) (I'm not sure which is which and what Bloomington is on).

Can anyone recommend one to me? That's pretty easy to program? My husband got me a RS digital one about 4 years ago and - truly, I'm fairly intelligent - but I could NOT figure the manual out for the life of me. I ended up selling it.

Any advice would be very appreciated! Thanks, friends!

You might want to take a look at the Uniden HomePatrol scanners. I would recommend the HomePatrol 2 because it will accommodate the P-25 Phase 2 systems when your local county upgrades. They can easily be programmed with just your zip code. Then you can modify the program to listen to just what you're most interested in hearing. You can also download software that allows you to program the scanner however you want. There are plenty of "how to program" videos on YouTube. The HomePatrol scanners can be found on Amazon or you can also find them at scannermaster.com

 

[INDY72]

Yes you need P25 assuredly as your county uses the SAFE-T P25 trs which is Phase I currently but will go to Phase II in a couple of years.

Sent from my LG-K330 using Tapatalk

 

[Sherrikat]

Thank you, Milf and Tim! Holy moly - those bad boys are PRICEY! Well, hubby and I just retired in June and we used to love to scan. Lots of time for it now, so it's probably a good investment. You've been very helpful! Happy scanning!

 

[speedway_navigator]

https://www.uniden.com/scanner/id-BCD325P2/BCD325P2_Handheld_TrunkTracker_V_scanner

This model looks to do everything the home patrol units do but don't have the frequency database built in and require 3rd party software to program. I use Freescan on my BCD396T, his website does not list this radio but I have seen some references here that say Freescan will work on this model.

 

[Sherrikat]

Jay, thanks, but I ended up getting the Home Patrol 2 and love it!

 

[k7joe]

Using an outside antenna really makes a difference on the HP

The only thing I don't like about the HP is that you don't know which tower you are receiving and that matters some times.

I'm told there is an extreme upgrade but not sure if that upgrade gives the info on which tower is being monitored. I can usually tell using signal strength. bloomington likes to go to "localized" coverage, especially when there is an event in town, so as not to tie up several radio sites simulcasting the same broadcast at the same time. When they do that, for me, it requires a directional antenna and knowing which tower to point toward...

Bloomington, Hindustan, Knights Ridge, Nashville, Bedford, Martinsville, are the primary towers for the area as far as I can discern.

 

[Sherrikat]

Oh, K7joe, I'm a casual user I guess, because I don't know about towers, but I'm getting lots of good stuff on my HP!!

 

[k7joe]

Got ya. Well.. plenty to listen to ...

Monitoring INDOT Seymour sub station is really helpful with the snow and bad weather - the snow plow drivers talk a lot about road conditions. Only problem is that their accent is twangy - sounds like the tow truck on the movie "Cars" ... like they all moved here from back-water Kentucky or something. Ha ha.

Do you notice the dispatchers at the Central dispatch center can be very slow to dispatch EMS services? - I'll hear a call come in, say, police requesting ambulance from s MVA ... and from the time we hear a request call to the time the dispatchers get the tones out is often more than 7 minutes. A newspaper reporter tipped me off and said to watch for that - she is working on a story about it for the Herald.

Scanner is way more reliable for local news since there are no local TV news channels here.

Have fun -

My music quote: you can stab it with a steely knife but you just can't kill the beast.

 

[INDY72]

It should never take more than 5 minutes tops even in an busy queue for request for EMS to get paged out. It takes 10 to 30 seconds to type it into the system, and hit enter, about 2 seconds for it to pop on the Fire/EMS dispatch/control screen, and then maybe another minute or so tops for that person to set it up on the CAD and send it, with it going out on locution within seconds to a minute depending on the size of the queue, or maybe a minute or so longer if they use manual dispatching. Now back in the day, when it was all done by phone and manual dispatching, it could take longer.