Equipment recommendations?

[newsleader]

Several years ago cobbled together a scanner in a hurry when our local police went to unencrypted Motorola MotoTRBO system, using an old bearcat handheld scanner that had to be modified and an elderly windows laptop with software to decode and send the stream to Broadcastify.

It still works - usually - but if I wanted a simple system to replace this today, probably with a more modern scanner, what would you recommend getting without breaking the bank? Are there any scanners that do all these functions directly without the laptop? Something more simple and less expensive than a laptop for this purpose? The goal is only to provide basic access to this department's radio transmissions to the public. Not an advanced hobbyist nor am I likely to spend the time to become one, so I'm looking for something I can set and forget.

 

[newsleader]

For what it's worth, the system we're monitoring is the city PD in Staunton, Virginia.

 

[krokus]

There is nothing about that PD's radio system in the database. (At least not under Augusta County, which it appears to be located in.)

Are you certain it is MotoTrbo, and not DMR? (In case you're not aware, Trbo is an extension of DMR, basically.)

 

[rivardj]

Looks like the Police system is DMR.

Staunton City, Virginia (VA) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

 

[polkaroo]

If it's conventional, you could buy a cheap chinese DMR radio and use that to stream through a Raspberry Pi or similar? Wonder if there's an Android app... can also use an old Android phone too.

 

[radiofmdance]

I recommend raspberry pi 4, it is the one I use on an fm radio and it works super well