Getting headaches from listening to many scanners? Possible?

[Danny37]

Sometimes if police action is happening on bordering lines of county's and I hear EMS is being called. I'll listen to both police channels with two scanners and listen to EMS on another one. So I have 3 scanners going off at once, all extremely busy with so much information to process that get frustrated and get headaches and I start shutting down scanners and end up listening to just one that has the most action. I was wondering if anyone else goes through the same thing and if not, how can you process so much different information at once without driving yourself insane lol.

 

[N8IAA]

Sometimes, I have 5, or 6 going at the same time. It is a learned thing to listen to more than one thing at a time. If the action is hot on one, I turn the others down. If what is hot includes SO and FD, I will use one scanner for each. Makes it a lot more simple! I actually can tell by the dispatcher's voice who is what. Been listening for over 40 years.
HTH,
Larry

 

[SouthSoundScanner]

To prevent headaches try this setup. Place one Scanner to your Left with let's say State, place scanner number two to your Right use County for this side. Last, Place the Scanner with the most traffic your HomeTown directly in front of you. Now both of your ears will pick up the most important traffic from the Center and your left ear will hear the left traffic and same on the right side. That should relieve your headaches because your brain can more easily sort things out.

 

[scover5555]

Agreed it is a learned thing. Think of it as if you were in a room full of people talking. You don't know what everyone is saying or talking about, but someone half way across the room says your name or mentions something your very familiar with. Your mind then focuses on what is being said from there.
Back in the day, all our counties and cities were on the same frequency. We also had scanners to hear EMS, fire and state police. Someone would walk up to the squad and hear the radios and ask what was going on. I would say I didn't know because that was so and so county. I was in tune to the voices from our department but at the same time, if something big was going on in another county, what was being said would grab my attention. Having a radio going while your doing everyday things when nothing is happening helps you learn to tune out the humdrum everyday things. Also try not to concentrate on every word every person is saying on the different freqs.
I still have a scanner going every day. Drives the wife nuts but I only hear it when something big happens.

 

[desert-cheetah]

Maybe I have the same problem because I don't do this on a regular basis. Sometimes I'll listen to an on-line feed with one earbud and my own scanner with another and I'll end up having to turn one or both off because my head starts to hurt from the overload. But I'm listening to multiple channels during that time, not just a few because something good is going on. That's what I don't like about online feeds, I can't pause it if something good starts to happen.

 

[Sportster77]

I use both my PSR-800 and PRo-18 at the same time by using a pair of stereo to mono adaptors then plug in a 2x mono to stereo adaptor and feed either a set of stereo speakers or headphones. This way the 18 is one ear and the 800 is in the other. If I want to listen to a specific action , I can pause that scanner and the other one will still continue scanning. Yesterday while cleaning the yard of leaves I was feeding the scanners into a set of Work Tunes headphones and had the radio playing @ a low volume to fill in the times when booth scanners were quiet.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Sometimes, I have 5, or 6 going at the same time. It is a learned thing to listen to more than one thing at a time. If the action is hot on one, I turn the others down. If what is hot includes SO and FD, I will use one scanner for each. Makes it a lot more simple! I actually can tell by the dispatcher's voice who is what. Been listening for over 40 years.
HTH,
Larry

So true.

I routinely have 3 to 4 scanners going at a time. When I first started doing that, I found it very hard to keep track of everything. Over time, however, I was able to "tune out" what wasn't quite as important when two or more scanners were receiving at the same time. Now it's second nature to be able to focus in on one thing but still know what's going on on the other scanners.

It definitely takes time, but if you stick with it, you'll get it.

 

[rbm]

I run 43 scanners at the same time. 24x7
Different agencies in different combinations in each scanner.

By setting the volume on each scanner to the same level you can focus your attention on what's important at the time.

It's like being at a large party and without moving around you can focus on various conversations.

The only time that didn't work for me was during severe and widespread flooding a few years ago.
At that time, every fire department, police department, EMS unit, state agency, Medevac helicopters, rescue helicopters, hams, FRS, GMRS, and everything else was constantly active at the very same time.
That did get to be a little too much.

Rich

When I get a Close Call hit on more than 20 scanners at the same time it can get a little noisy too.
But it does get your attention!
Uniden Close Call - CC DND - YouTube

.

 

[Danny37]

Maybe I have the same problem because I don't do this on a regular basis. Sometimes I'll listen to an on-line feed with one earbud and my own scanner with another and I'll end up having to turn one or both off because my head starts to hurt from the overload. But I'm listening to multiple channels during that time, not just a few because something good is going on. That's what I don't like about online feeds, I can't pause it if something good starts to happen.

Maybe it's because I'm relatively new, and don't scan much. I've been listening to scanners for about 5 years now. But sometimes I could go months without listening to one. But then there's just that one day when hear multiple sirens speeding past your house like all hell broke lose and nearly every agency PD, FIRE, EMS is so active and all sound so good but you get that overload from so much going on. I think my problem is that my 3 base scanners are stacked on each other instead of side to side. So I'll try that and see if it'll work.

 

[Danny37]

Sometimes, I have 5, or 6 going at the same time. It is a learned thing to listen to more than one thing at a time. If the action is hot on one, I turn the others down. If what is hot includes SO and FD, I will use one scanner for each. Makes it a lot more simple! I actually can tell by the dispatcher's voice who is what. Been listening for over 40 years.
HTH,
Larry

lol there's this one EMS dispatcher I've been crushing on for a while. After hearing her speak, I was immediately attracted to her voice. Too bad I hear that she's married.

 

[Danny37]

I run 43 scanners at the same time. 24x7
Different agencies in different combinations in each scanner.

By setting the volume on each scanner to the same level you can focus your attention on what's important at the time.

It's like being at a large party and without moving around you can focus on various conversations.

The only time that didn't work for me was during severe and widespread flooding a few years ago.
At that time, every fire department, police department, EMS unit, state agency, Medevac helicopters, rescue helicopters, hams, FRS, GMRS, and everything else was constantly active at the very same time.
That did get to be a little too much.

Rich

When I get a Close Call hit on more than 20 scanners at the same time it can get a little noisy too.
But it does get your attention!
Uniden Close Call - CC DND - YouTube

.

47 scanners??!! Damn buddy, I wish I could process all that. You should a head of dispatch in your county since you process so much.

 

[desert-cheetah]

Maybe it's because I'm relatively new, and don't scan much. I've been listening to scanners for about 5 years now. But sometimes I could go months without listening to one. But then there's just that one day when hear multiple sirens speeding past your house like all hell broke lose and nearly every agency PD, FIRE, EMS is so active and all sound so good but you get that overload from so much going on. I think my problem is that my 3 base scanners are stacked on each other instead of side to side. So I'll try that and see if it'll work.

I've been listening off and on since borrowing a friend's crystal scanner in 1989. I've gone long stretches without listening, but in the past year or so I've been listening a lot more and now that I keep my scanner on my desk at work (with the antenna locked away so the cleaning people can't mess with it) I listen to it a lot more frequently.

 

[cherubim]

I shut all my scanners down for a week after a bushfire caused the evacuation of my area. Luckily it didn't affect where I live but it was just too close to home. I didn't just get a headache, but rather, a real sense of fear and uncertainty.

 

[scannersnstuff]

i went to my local intensive care unit <icu> for 3 day's. my wife asked me if i wanted a scanner. i chose my bc346xt. i don't really remember doing too much listening, or anything else for that matter. i was away from my radios for about 5 week's. it felt good to listen to them again.

 

[Danny37]

I shut all my scanners down for a week after a bushfire caused the evacuation of my area. Luckily it didn't affect where I live but it was just too close to home. I didn't just get a headache, but rather, a real sense of fear and uncertainty.

I agree.I've call 911 EMS for my mothers failing health and I've never once turn the scanner on to hear the call go over the radio. When it hits close to home, my scanners are shut off and are very last thing on my mind.

 

[SpectreOZ]

Whilst I agree with the suggestion that it's a learned ability to some extent, I believe it all comes down to your ability to multi-task which some appear to do easily whilst others will struggle a little, as theories vary it boils down to our ability to quickly shift attention from one stimuli to the next... that said it has the potential to cause headaches for some individuals in the same way a hard/taxing day at work can exhaust our mind.

To avoid sensory overload start off small and work up to a comfortable listening regime

 

[Danny37]

Whilst I agree with the suggestion that it's a learned ability to some extent, I believe it all comes down to your ability to multi-task which some appear to do easily whilst others will struggle a little, as theories vary it boils down to our ability to quickly shift attention from one stimuli to the next... that said it has the potential to cause headaches for some individuals in the same way a hard/taxing day at work can exhaust our mind.

To avoid sensory overload start off small and work up to a comfortable listening regime

I seem to be better when I have the scanners side to side instead of all staked on each other. Also setting volume equaliy the same.

 

[AZScanner]

I was going to boast about listening to 11 scanners at once during my newschasing days (and boy, did my ex wife hate that crap, LOL) , but then rbm posted. Great googley moogley! 43 scanners?! I think my head would explode after about 20 of them.

Even with eleven going, really all I could listen for was alert tones and people yelling into the mic. The rest of it was just noise.

-AZ