Coming to TX, help needed

[steveh552]

This summer I will be making a trip to Dallas to pick up my kids. This will not be my first trip to Dallas but it will be my first with a scanner. I tend to stay on the North Side of town, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and a Courtyard by Marriot at Josey (sp) to give an idea of where I have stayed in the past, usually due to being fairly reasonable rates.

Anyways for the trip, I will be coming in to Dallas via I35 from OKC and leaving Dallas Via I30 to Little Rock. I am doing that just to keep the trip intresting and a change of views, coming from the north does add about 85 miles to my trip.

If anyone can provide a fav list for the HP1 for these areas, or can give me idea of what will be intresting to listen to in Dallas that would be great. I am asking before I go through and start trying to make one. I do have the GPS puck but the national database gets annoying after awhile.

I mainly have an interest while traveling of Highway Patrol/State Police, Police, Fire/EMS/Med helos but while in Dallas I am sure DPD and DFD will be plenty to keep me occupied.

 

[hiegtx]

This summer I will be making a trip to Dallas to pick up my kids. This will not be my first trip to Dallas but it will be my first with a scanner. I tend to stay on the North Side of town, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and a Courtyard by Marriot at Josey (sp) to give an idea of where I have stayed in the past, usually due to being fairly reasonable rates.

Anyways for the trip, I will be coming in to Dallas via I35 from OKC and leaving Dallas Via I30 to Little Rock. I am doing that just to keep the trip intresting and a change of views, coming from the north does add about 85 miles to my trip.

If anyone can provide a fav list for the HP1 for these areas, or can give me idea of what will be intresting to listen to in Dallas that would be great. I am asking before I go through and start trying to make one. I do have the GPS puck but the national database gets annoying after awhile.

I mainly have an interest while traveling of Highway Patrol/State Police, Police, Fire/EMS/Med helos but while in Dallas I am sure DPD and DFD will be plenty to keep me occupied.

Steve,
I can provide you with a list for Dallas. From where you're planning to stay, you'd be able to hear quite a few of the area's trunked systems:
Carrollton, Lewisville, Irving, N.E. Tarrant, Richardson, Plano, Garland, Mesquite, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Denton County, and probably the Fort Worth/Tarrant County system (depending on your antenna, of course). I use the R/S 800MHz antenna on my HP1, when I don't have it connected to an external antenna at home or on my truck.

Dallas PD & Dallas Fire Rescue are both on very strong Uhf frequencies. I can hear them at home (about 5 miles from the transmit site) with no antenna at all.

For Texas DPS, as the State Troopers are called, you'll be in Region I your entire trip. DPS is making more use of MDT's for routine traffic. Note that often, the system is run duplex- the base transmits on one frequency and the mobiles are on a different one. So, you might only hear one side of the conversation. However, for areas farther away from a dispatch center, both sides of the radio traffic is carried on a mobile repeater. In many cases, troopers work more through the local sheriff's office of the county they are in, than they do with their own dispatch.

There's also quite a bit of medevac activity in the DFW Metro area. Besides the frequencies in the database, Careflite, which has four copters in the area (five if you include Granbury) does their initial crew dispatch on this LTR Passport system. While that system can't be trunk tracked, it can easily be scanned conventionally, and there is minimal other traffic other than Careflite's ground ambulances.

As far as your hotel choice goes, you may want to reconsider, or at least make a further inquiry. Not because of the hotels themselves, but because of construction. TxDOT is now in the first stages of a major reconstruction and widening project along LBJ Freeway (I-635). With some of the bridges for streets crossing over the freeway being demolished in whole or in part, pending replacement, it may create more traffic headaches than you like. See this page for more.

 

[steveh552]

Thank you for the very detailed reply. Is DPS district 1 also cover from Dallas through Texarkansa on my trip towards Memphis? Coming in from the north where would you suggest looking for rooms? My ex-wife is driving up from College Station with our kids and I am picking them up in Dallas which is the sole purpose of the trip.

 

[hiegtx]

Thank you for the very detailed reply. Is DPS district 1 also cover from Dallas through Texarkansa on my trip towards Memphis? Coming in from the north where would you suggest looking for rooms? My ex-wife is driving up from College Station with our kids and I am picking them up in Dallas which is the sole purpose of the trip.

Actually, for Texas DPS, that's Region "I" (the letter). And that region does cover your entire projected route in Texas, entering coming south on I-35 into Dallas, and heading out northeast on I-30 into Arkansas (AWIN country) through Texarkana.

If you like those two hotel brands, I'd hit their websites. I just took a quick look. Both have multiple locations on the north side of town, and both have some locations in Dallas & Richardson along the Central Expressway (Hwy 75) corridor, as well as others not far from LBJ & Josey, out of the immediate work zone. US Hwy 75 is what I-45 turns into when it gets to Dallas (changes names at about I-30, downtown). Depending on whether she comes up through Waco (on I-35) or takes a more easterly route and catches I-45 to get to Dallas, any of these locations would still be easily accessible. Plus, you'd be east of the major construction area, for when you were ready to continue on to Arkansas.

For traveling in Texas, outside of the Dallas metro area, if you have the Statewide APCO-25 Channel Plan in the list, you have everything Texas DPS already. The same frequencies are reused over & over. Use that, the Medevacs, and let the GPS activate the counties you're traveling through & you're pretty well covered.

When you get time, pm me your email address. I may not have a whole lot of time to tweak a favorites list till this weekend, but should be able to modify mine then. Basically, pull the more distant stuff that I can hear using a rooftop antenna, or when I'm out & about on the south side of the area, but would not be in range from where you'll be.

 

[steveh552]

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