Howard County

[cutter58]

Hey, I am just returning to the hobby after a few years away. I just recently purchased a BC296D. I am just getting the hang of this trunking stuff.
How many folks on this forum live and listen in Howard County?
Also, where do I look to monitor the police helicopters that frequent the night skys over Columbia? thanks for any help.

Michael

 

[TinEar]

Depends what those helos are doing. If they are police, they'll be working one of the PD talkgroups and/or one of the surveillance talkgroups. If the helo is responding for medical situations, they'll work the assigned fire talkgroup for the incident. The medevac helos can also be heard simulcasting on the VHF alternate freq of 154.22.

Welcome back to scanning. Yes, it sure is different listening to trunked radio.

Alan

 

[mlevin]

Police choppers usualy come up on their respective jurisdiction's system/talkgroup. If you're listening to the Howard Co. trunk then you should hear them.

They also use the regular VHF aircraft freqs to communicate with air traffic control. You can find the aviation freqs for the area here. http://radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&aid=1113

In addition, all choppers in the Baltimore area, whether they be police, media, or otherwise, use 123.025 to chat back and forth and to let each other know their route of travels in oder to avoid mid-air collisions.

Hope that helps.

PS: There are lots of us in the area that routinely monitor Howard Co.

 

[baybum]

Welcome

I'm in Ellicott city. Right now I own a Pro-96 as my primary radio.
Been into scanning since before they had lights that blinked in sequence across the front of the radio. So I'm not that old.

Most of my scanning experience is with PG county and Howard County.
I'll be glad to help any way I can if you need something.


Mike

 

[cutter58]

Thanks for the replies so far. What else is worth listening to in Howard Co. in addition to police & fire?

 

[TinEar]

Michael, you've got a ton of choices from your location even if you're just using the radio whip anenna. You stand a chance of hearing everything from northern Virginia up to the southern border counties of Pennsylvania - if you're in a decent listening location. You can attack the database at this site with gusto and load tons of interesting things - unless, of course, you want only those things immediately around you. You've got not only police/fire from all the surrounding counties but also military from Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground, air traffic from BWI and Military Air just for starters.

You didn't mention if you're using the Butel ARC250 software for programming but I'd highly recommend it if you're not. It will make programming that scanner so much easier. They can be found here:
http://www.butel.nl/
If you do have it, I'd be glad to send you a file you can download with many hundreds of freqs/systems. (Howard is among them.)

[Edit] Sent it at 17:50 Michael.

 

[cutter58]

I am indeed using ARC250. So, I would greatly appreciate you sending me the file you mentioned. I am going to need a little more than the whip to pick up BWI. I can hear the planes, but do not pick up any of the controllers from where I am.

cutter58@yahoo.com

 

[TinEar]

Okay, will do Michael. I'm not at the computer holding my ARC250 files right now but will be early this evening and will send it off to you. From your location, one change I'd suggest you make to my file would be to add Montgomery County which I don't scan but is close by to you and often works with Howard. Since only one trunked system can be added per bank, pick whichever system you don't want or can't hear and delete it. I've got both D.C.'s police trunk and fire trunk in there which you may or may not be able to hear. Same for the Aberdeen Proving Ground trunk. Obviously, you'll make lots of changes to suit your own preferences but this will give you a leg up, especially on the hundreds of conventional freqs that can be heard from this general area. It'll save you a ton of typing since I use the full 16 character width of the Alpha display for descriptions. Let me know when you get it just to make sure it didn't get lost in email limbo.

Alan

 

[ka3jjz]

Hi Mike from another one....now that TinEar's going to get you some files, the next questions are likely to be about antennas and coax. Now being in the great Republic of Columbia and some of the various restrictions on antennas, ect that some areas have, what is your situation? Can you put up an antenna outside, or have an attic (going to be hot as blazes up there today...) where you can put it?

73s Mike

[Edit] There's a good antennas forum here at RR, so I don't want to go too far overboard here, but here's a good page over at Strong Signals that will help get you started. Be sure to carefully read the linked page about coax as well - very very important particularly as you get into the 800 range...

Strong Signals Antennas page

M.

 

[cutter58]

Thanks Mike,
I will take a look at that page. As you know here in Columbia. Outside attennas are an absolute no-no. I have an attic that currently has two television attennas mounted by the previous owner. The house is wired in almost every room of the house to those attennas.

Mm

 

[TinEar]

Michael, did you receive the file I sent you?

 

[cutter58]

I sure did. Thanks. I've just started loading some of the banks. This is going to be very helpful. I appreciate it. Have you used the utility to translate info on this website to ARC 250 files? Is it easy to use? Worth using?

Mm

 

[TinEar]

I've never used it in its entirety. I pull freqs from the database directly into ARC250 but that's it. The reasons I do the descriptions myself are (1) I'm a very fast typist, and (2) I almost never use the descriptions provided in the database because they are either too long for the 16 character Uniden limit or not descriptive enough and too short. So, I always wind up typing in a description exactly the way I want it.