The suburban areas are a mish-mash of UHF, VHF and 800, with some areas covered by centralized dispatch centers, some on standalone systems.
In the Northwest Suburbs for example, Northwest Central Dispatch handles many towns, including Buffalo Grove, Arlington Hts., Elk Grove, Mt. Prospect, Palatine, and Prospect Hts. on a digital system and Hoffman Estates and Streamwood on a spearate analog system.
North Suburban CDS handles Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Niles and Morton Grove on 2 UHF and a VHF channel.
RED Center handles fire ops for much of the north and NW suburbs.
There are hundreds of communities, too many to list here.
You can't beat Chicago however for ease of listening and variety of calls. With a spectacular UHF police dispatch system, 800 MHz police Tac system, VHF fire system and UHF EMS system they can be heard all over the area and it is structured so that you can find your target area easily. Once you figure out some of the lingo it is easy to follow incidents. It can be very entertaining as well...
Some of the suburbs seem to rival CPD at times for incidents, but in reality there is no comparisions. Some CPD districts have more incidents in a week than most suburbs have in a year or decade.
Check the CARMA sites at
http://www.carmachicago.com
and at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carmachicago/
for more info and detailed profiles of the entire area. Profiles are in PDF format and require membership in the Yahoo Group for access. If you have difficulties with this send me a PM or email and I will send you the latest profile(s) for the area you plan on visiting.
