Kyle Texas area.. moved back..

[el_pablo]

Having just moved back to my hometown, i was wondering what type of scanner would be best to use for personal use, nothing fancy. .. police,fire,ems, anything after that is just extra!.. I am about 30 miles south of austin and maybe 5 miles north of San Marcos.Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks In Advance,,

 

[hiegtx]

Having just moved back to my hometown, i was wondering what type of scanner would be best to use for personal use, nothing fancy. .. police,fire,ems, anything after that is just extra!.. I am about 30 miles south of austin and maybe 5 miles north of San Marcos.Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks In Advance,,

Looking at the database information for your county (Hays), it appears your options may be limited. There are some Vhf frequencies shown, but these are patched into the LCRA system.

Hays County does have some talkgroups on this trunked system, Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) P25 Trunking System, Various, Texas - Scanner Frequencies

However many of these are noted as a patch to a different LCRA system, and not always active. Notes on the page state that Hays County law enforcement, fire, and EMS moved over to the Open Sky system, Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) OpenSky Trunking System, Various, Texas - Scanner Frequencies
Unfortunately, there are no scanners that can monitor Open Sky systems.

For monitoring the patched talkgroups that link back to either the conventional channels, or the P25 system .Any scanner capable of monitoring P25 Phase I will work for that, but there is no way to also monitor the Open Sky system.

See this Wiki page: APCO Project 25 - The RadioReference Wiki
About halfway down the page, look for the heading "Scanner Support FDMA and TDMA. P25 Phase I is FDMA. Most newer systems in my area (DFW metro) are being set up as TDMA, which is P25 Phase II. While you do not have Phase II in your area of interest, you may want to look at a scanner capable of that for future use.

 

[NC5267]

All of Hays county Public safety is on the 900mhz LCRA Open Sky system which no scanner can monitor. Been a few months since I was up that way but some of channels are sometimes active on the LCRA P25 system I have heard Hays Fire and Sheriff as well as San Marcos PD and FD but these are not full-time as far as I know. The Fire VHF channels are still up for tone-outs. So any P25 capable scanner would work for the area.