Monitoring NW Cook / Chicago

[greggk]

Hi all. I live in Palatine. Since I bougjht my 436, I am using it for all the emergency traffc, such as Fire, Police, etc.

I want to use my RS Pro 106 for just the "fun" stuff, but having little luck picking up anything.

I keep deleting systems that are dead. Right now I am scanning "Amtrak/Metra" on one site; United Airlines Ops on another site, and Cook County EMS on a third.

I get nothing from the United site; One Amtrak message; and on the EMS, using the RR frequencies, I am picking up one school bus channel and another Pot Hole crew. Thats it.

Also, my signal strength bars are basically nonexistent.

Can anyone recommend some fun/ non emergency sites to monitor in this area? It seems Chicago sites may be hard to pull in, but I would appreciate any help and/or suggestions.

Thanks. Greg

 

[FFPM571]

Cook county EMS? the 155 mhz? Unless you are listening to 340 or 400 the rest is not used for anything EMS related Rarely 280 is used for hospital to hospital but that is pretty much dead. CPD is easy to hear from anywhere in the northwest burbs

 

[greggk]

Thanks. I picked up 2 channels for Ambulance to Hospital reports, 463.0000 and 463.05000.

I discovered that the Chicago CTA is a thriving source of chatter.

Thanks again. If anyone knows something good..let me know please.

Greg

 

[Awesomeman92]

Not sure if you've got them in there already, but 160.890, 161.520, 161.475, 160.920, 160.485, and 161.295 all are active rail frequencies in the NW suburbs. 161.040, 161.100, and 160.770 are also active, but a bit further away and harder to pull in. You also may want to just search around the ham bands, a lot of routine traffic is a bit dry to anyone on the outside of the conversation, but nets are fun to listen to. IDOT isn't very active now that winter is (hopefully) finally over, but they can be entertaining as well.

 

[greggk]

Thanks Awesome. I just checked my rail frequencies and have them in there. I listened to IDOT most of the winter; they are very entertaining. CTA is great fun also...finding people passed out on the floor of a bus for example. Other than that I just have in the Chicago and Midway towers, pretty boring.

There is a wealth of services at each airport that would be great to scan, such as United ops, American Ops, etc etc, but I cannot pull them in. I am taking the frequencies and systems right off of RR, but when they scan I get no signal bars and never hear a thing.

Am I expecting to much from Palatine to hear that?

Thanks again.

Greg

 

[Awesomeman92]

I've never had luck from Hoffman Estates with anything other than the O'Hare trunked systems, and even those are marginal. I think we're just too far away to pull in the United, American, etc. systems.


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[greggk]

You know I was just listening to some steady traffic on an alleged O'Hare ops channel; the more I listen, the more it sounds like Arlington Heights Race Track? So much for that hope being destroyed.

The frequency is 464.6000.