nursepen said:
I have recently purchased the 396-t and I am looking for suggestion on what to program in it. I current have gloucester,burlington,camden,local airports, NJSP, philly fire, police,bucks,cape may conties programed in. I currently live in the south jersey area any suggestions will be welcomed.
Sounds like you're in a particularly good reception area. I'm in Voorhees and listen (try to) Philly with poor results (I've been playing around with a homebrewed yagi for 800 mhz which I hope to put on a rotor in my attic). If I drive 3 or 4 miles away, Philly comes booming in. I'm lucky to get 1 bar listening to Cherry Hill or Camden Police sytems and they have their share of static.
Before moving to my present location, I lived in Cherry Hill and could easily listen to Philly Int'l tower on a tuneable reciever.
Back to your question, you might try monitoring some utility sites like PSE&G, NJ Transit, etc. These can be interesting, particularly after bad weather. Speaking of weather, you might want to program weather alerts for any areas that you can receive, or routinely travel to. Another possiblilty is monitoring railroads (service search) and creating a system composed of local RR's (groups).
I created a system where I monitor the local EMS/Fire dispatch where I usually start my day to see what's going on in the area. If I hear of something significant, then I will switch on that area's police dept. I plan to expand that to include Burlington and Gloucester Counties.
K C 2 P B J mentioned about not having too many systems programmed, but increasing the delay time. This assumes that you have all your systems turned on.
As I indicated above, I start listening to one system and then add a system or group to include the police. I find that I rarely (if ever) monitor more than 1 system at a time. It all depends on my whim at the moment, and where I happen to be. For example, I find myself listening to Camden City late in the afternoon & especially weekend evenings (lot's of action). When I'm in range, I will turn on Philly, and so on. For variety, I'll tune in the State Police. Sometimes, I'll just pick a chunk of spectrum and search for new stuff. So, whatever turns you on.
I would be curious to know your location (town) and what your antenna situation is.
AM
