How do you listen?

[Rich83]

I was just wondering how people listen to their radios, do you just stay on one channel or group or do you like me just let my radio scan through all the groups and systems Iv ever programmed in and stop on the tasty bits, which sometimes has its downfalls where you may miss the start or end of something but I find if its quiet too long I get an itchy hold button finger and have to hit it for fear of missing out on something good.

 

[andyishere]

Well I have one on Sheriff and one on my Favorite Fire Department.

 

[GROCKSHD]

Since I'm surrounded by 7 different cities and some of the worlds largest Navy Bases I tend to just listen to the systems that are in my city or the city I may be in at the time. Virginia State Police is always on, and from time to time I'll scan through military air. Other than that just typical Police and Fire groups

 

[georgew0819]

listening habits

I've got 2 that run 24/7 providing PD and FD area feeds to RR. When on the computer or 2m I'll listen in on the PD feed as it is the busiest. If there starts to be alot of activity on the FD feed then I'll listen in on that too. If it's real quiet I will turn on the other 2 scanners I have which have MURS/FRS/GMRS and Maritime Freqs on them and listen for a while. However when I'm listening to SW I'll have the scanners silenced so I can hear faint stations.

 

[mciupa]

I was just wondering how people listen to their radios, do you just stay on one channel or group or do you like me just let my radio scan through all the groups and systems Iv ever programmed in and stop on the tasty bits, which sometimes has its downfalls where you may miss the start or end of something but I find if its quiet too long I get an itchy hold button finger and have to hit it for fear of missing out on something good.

I start out same as you, but, if I find a particular group annoying or not particularly interesting I drop it .
At the beginning of my listening I may have ten systems up, and before I pack it in, there may only be three.
Fire Services never disappoint for any action ,so I keep them available at all times.

 

[NYRHKY94]

I listen to my 10 "favorite" feeds simultaneously using Rob Dale's great ScannerLive program. 5 of the 10 feeds are my own, so I rarely miss anything in my area and never have any real breaks between action. One of the 10 feeds (my local police & fire) is set as the priority feed, so no action is ever missed on that one.

 

[mrdelia]

I always have VA Stars scanning as well as whatever area I happen to be driving through at the time. At home, STARS and my home city. I only pause when I hear something like Signal 4 or restricted air, or a pursuit obviously…

 

[Eng74]

I have BCT-15 set for Fire Tone Out for the four stations around me plus the BC and all call. Then I have Pro-163 that I have banks for Kern Fire, China Lake Fire, San Bernardino County Fire, and Kern County EMS running all the time I am home.

 

[talkpair]

I mainly monitor county sheriff's radio, along with adjacent counties.

Metro and suburb PD radio gets on my nerves after a while with all the traffic stops they make.
I rarely monitor those departments.....It's too much chatter.

My interests are weather and traffic related problems.

 

[mciupa]

I listen to my 10 "favorite" feeds simultaneously using Rob Dale's great ScannerLive program. 5 of the 10 feeds are my own, so I rarely miss anything in my area and never have any real breaks between action. One of the 10 feeds (my local police & fire) is set as the priority feed, so no action is ever missed on that one.

Three cheers for rdale

 

[CrabbyMilton]

I usually scan my favorites adding or subtracting groups to suite my listening desires. Around bed time, I'll open the banks or may even search buisness bands. When I'm watching TV I 'll park it on IFERN(MABAS) with the priority engaged to check for APB's or police mutual aid calls.

 

[ab3a]

When casually listening in the evening, I'll leave the fire dispatch channel running on my non-digital scanner. In bed late at night, especially on hot summer nights, we listen to county trunking systems for the truly weird stuff.

 

[gmclam]

I was just wondering how people listen to their radios, do you just stay on one channel or group or do you like me just let my radio scan through all the groups and systems Iv ever programmed in

Because of the way trunking works, I use one scanner for our local TRS and another scanner for conventional. Because the CHP is on low band, I also use a separate scanner for them. That's 3 scanners.

and stop on the tasty bits,

It depends on the type of "tasty bits". If something brief, I'll just stop the respective scanner on that channel. If it is an incident of sorts, that often requires that I fire up a 4th scanner.

which sometimes has its downfalls where you may miss the start or end of something but I find if its quiet too long I get an itchy hold button finger and have to hit it for fear of missing out on something good.

Yes that happens when you are listening with only a single scanner. Don't forget you can augment your listening with web feeds in addition to scanners, if you don't have enough scanners.

 

[HillWalker]

Where I am (Ireland), there's not been a great deal to listen to since the national police force, An Garda Siochana, began using TETRA digital radios last November. Over 90% of the countries police communications are now encrypted with a target of 100% by this summer.

With this in mind, I now have my UBC72XLT set up to monitor three banks: one with local fire and ambulance control, one with local airfields and parachute clubs, and one with local taxi companies and private security guards.

Thankfully there are very few trunked systems in Ireland, only Dublin bus operate on a trunked system, but it has different steps compared to to American systems, so even with trunk-tracking scanner (all of which are designed for American steps) its difficult to follow. However, the frequencies have since been figured out.

 

[Rich83]

Yes that happens when you are listening with only a single scanner. Don't forget you can augment your listening with web feeds in addition to scanners, if you don't have enough scanners.

Iv not thought about that doing that, our local police are spread over two systems so sometimes if I'm listening to one there maybe something going on, on the other system that I cant switch to straight away seeing as I only have one trunking scanner (as yet).

Where I am (Ireland), there's not been a great deal to listen to since the national police force, An Garda Siochana, began using TETRA digital radios last November. Over 90% of the countries police communications are now encrypted with a target of 100% by this summer.

I once shared your pain however luckily for me and my hobby I got the opportunity to move to the US which opened the whole thing up, it was a buzz the first time I heard the local cops over the radio rather than the local shopwatch (when they could be arsed to use it), taxis, ambulance and fire brigade. Its a shame the police went digital it would be fun listening especially with the amount of stuff that went off around me, we always had the copper chopper buzzing around our town I always wondered how many names I would recognize being ran.

 

[HillWalker]

I once shared your pain however luckily for me and my hobby I got the opportunity to move to the US which opened the whole thing up, it was a buzz the first time I heard the local cops over the radio rather than the local shopwatch (when they could be arsed to use it), taxis, ambulance and fire brigade. Its a shame the police went digital it would be fun listening especially with the amount of stuff that went off around me, we always had the copper chopper buzzing around our town I always wondered how many names I would recognize being ran.

Ah lad, there was nothing like it, just sit at home with a beverage of your choice and turn on the scanner! The amount I heard in the three years I had of monitoring them, you'd be amazed at the things they get at over the radio (even though they know it wasn't secure)! Last thing I heard before they disappeared in November was the new armed Regional Response Unit being called into town and taking half an hour driving around a massive estate before a regular unit escorted them to the scene!

A few areas haven't gone digital yet, namely Loughrea in Galway and a few places over in the West. But in most areas the only Garda comms you'll pick up will be on the Baldonnell or Shannon ATC frequency giving the choppers rough location.

Still a few interesting things happen and the taxi's and ambulance are fairly interesting, a few calls for people I know and such. I've a list of Civil Defence frequencies as well which I'm going to try out on their training exercise.

 

[SCPD]

I use my program I made and split 2 different counties PD. I do Omaha Police on left side speakers and Sarpy county on right side (using balance/PAN). When my other digital scanner comes in mail from ebay, I will dedicate it as my personal scanner for dispatching to IPN.