Monitoring CHP

[OpSec]

That's funny. It had an "AM/FM" button. Are they going to put stereos back in the patrol cars?

Yes, the Visteon system supports the AM/FM and from what I've heard the cars with this system will have the AM/FM radio...first time for a E-class sedan in decades. The C-shift guys will finally have something better than passing traffic to listen to.

 

[Mick]

Lots of officers bring their own CD's to play in the laptop computers, and some bring their own DVD players for those late night shifts and/or overtime details.

Yes, the Visteon system supports the AM/FM and from what I've heard the cars with this system will have the AM/FM radio...first time for a E-class sedan in decades. The C-shift guys will finally have something better than passing traffic to listen to.

 

[mkewman]

i heard that some chp cars are getting a HUD (or heads up display) on the visor. is this the visteon "single interface" thing?

 

[ray smith]

Vr 5000

If you realy want to get the cars well get a Yaesu VR 5000 and hook it up to a 6 Meter ant you will more than triple the range.

 

[PJH]

In all honesty, use the oldest scanner you can find with a decent antenna. All the recent scanners after the Uniden BC9000 seem to really suck on lowband. I have an older Radio Shack 50 channel think with the screw in antenna that hears things that my scanner with a nice outdoor antenna cannot even hear. I even live on a nice hilltop. Go figure.

 

[radio10-8]

Depending on where you live. San Jose in northern CA uses 42.5 (ruby) dispatch and 42.82 for units.
am band, on 42.5 you can hear both sides of the convesration fairly well. CHP officer told me that made a radio change and this is why, I use a CB antenna I bought at radio shack and cut it down to 42.00 mhz and that works great for mobile. While in LA area and SAC I discovered the same thing. Base channel is transmitting both sides of conversation. Also 154.905 is still in use and good to have while driving on freeway, it can alert you to a nearby unit or CHP station.

 

[akardam]

All this is pretty well documented. Most of the large metropolitan areas repeat the mobile traffic on the base, to give the mobile units a heads up that someone is keyed up, before they do. This helps in these areas because of the relatively high volume of traffic, compared to other more rural districts.

I've found with the extender frequency that especially in the Bay Area, with so many different channels in use, that often you can hear a unit quite far away. The other day I was driving up 880 going north in Oakland and I was getting a Marin unit full quieting... go figure.