Morongo Basin Police and Fire

Status
Not open for further replies.

tmccormick87

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
28
Location
Yucca Valley, CA
Hello all! A noob here to the forum :)

First off I want to say that I love listening to my local feed, and I LOVE the Scanner Pro app for Android!!
Thank you! in advance to the broadcaster of my feed, and the creator of the Scanner app, Mr. Edwards!

I have a question, but am obviously too new to the forums to be able to contact the broadcaster by PM or email, and unfortunately, as I know nothing about scanners and their abilities, but just love to keep my finger on the local pulse, I am unlikely to need to make enough posts to be able to contact him directly.

I am located in (and interested in) the Morongo Basin (Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, 29 Palms and immediate outlying areas), which is part of the South Desert, Division 5, of San Bernardino County. I am definitely picking up the traffic from the Morongo Basin, as the feed name indicates, but the feed is also pulling in traffic from much farther outside the surrounding area and division, than I originally realized. It includes Apple Valley, Barstow, Needles and their surrounding areas. Needles and Lake Havasu I occasionally enjoy, as it IS part of my local division, but the others are just too far away to affect me directly. I do understand the entire county is handled through one Comm Center, but the feed also indicates individual local dispatching stations being used for the feed. Those are the ones that interest me!

My question to the broadcaster is this: Is this inclusion of the additional North and High Desert divisions by the broadcasters OWN choice, or is it forced on them, through the local dispatching stations? It seems like every time my local Fire stations are dispatched, I never end up hearing the balance of the traffic, as invariably something else happens in Apple Valley to end up overriding the transmission I was originally trying to listen to.

I am sincerely not trying to complain, but was just wondering how my area worked. I will continue listening regardless, but would love to just focus on the Morongo Basin, without those transmissions being overridden by an area further away.

Also want to add, the quality of the broadcasters transmissions is excellent, and never appears to be offline!
I want to say thank you for that as well. Listening to Scanner Pro has become a very fun and addicting part of my time!
 

markclark

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
471
Location
Nevada Range
You should contact the feed owner, who presumably lives in the area, and ask if the dispatcher works more than one channel at times. I think that is the case from listening to the feed. It's not likely the amount of radio traffic for the Morongo Valley would justify that frequency assigned to a single RTO. Maybe you can talk the feed owner into scanning CHP too.
 

mule1075

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jan 20, 2003
Messages
3,956
Location
Washington Pennsylvania
Hello all! A noob here to the forum :)

First off I want to say that I love listening to my local feed, and I LOVE the Scanner Pro app for Android!!
Thank you! in advance to the broadcaster of my feed, and the creator of the Scanner app, Mr. Edwards!

I have a question, but am obviously too new to the forums to be able to contact the broadcaster by PM or email, and unfortunately, as I know nothing about scanners and their abilities, but just love to keep my finger on the local pulse, I am unlikely to need to make enough posts to be able to contact him directly.

I am located in (and interested in) the Morongo Basin (Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, 29 Palms and immediate outlying areas), which is part of the South Desert, Division 5, of San Bernardino County. I am definitely picking up the traffic from the Morongo Basin, as the feed name indicates, but the feed is also pulling in traffic from much farther outside the surrounding area and division, than I originally realized. It includes Apple Valley, Barstow, Needles and their surrounding areas. Needles and Lake Havasu I occasionally enjoy, as it IS part of my local division, but the others are just too far away to affect me directly. I do understand the entire county is handled through one Comm Center, but the feed also indicates individual local dispatching stations being used for the feed. Those are the ones that interest me!

My question to the broadcaster is this: Is this inclusion of the additional North and High Desert divisions by the broadcasters OWN choice, or is it forced on them, through the local dispatching stations? It seems like every time my local Fire stations are dispatched, I never end up hearing the balance of the traffic, as invariably something else happens in Apple Valley to end up overriding the transmission I was originally trying to listen to.

I am sincerely not trying to complain, but was just wondering how my area worked. I will continue listening regardless, but would love to just focus on the Morongo Basin, without those transmissions being overridden by an area further away.

Also want to add, the quality of the broadcasters transmissions is excellent, and never appears to be offline!
I want to say thank you for that as well. Listening to Scanner Pro has become a very fun and addicting part of my time!
Yes it is fun glad you enjoy the hobby.Now with that being said if you have the means if you can pick up a scanner of your own.Then you are not tied to a feed and you can pick and choose what you want to monitor.Anyway again glad you enjoy listening as much as I do.

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk
 

tmccormick87

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
28
Location
Yucca Valley, CA
Thanks for the replies MarkClark and Mule1075!
I'm the only one in my household who has fun with this, so buying a real scanner is unlikely, but I do enjoy having the ability to use my smart phone while at home and also when I'm in town, although I've now read that it can be illegal in some states to use it while mobile. But since I'm not going to commit a crime, I guess I'll take the risk, lol.

I tried contacting the feed owner a few times by clicking the "contact broadcaster" link on Broadcastify, and that is what kept bringing me here, but when I tried using either email or the PM method, it indicated I had to join, so I did. However, I guess it won't let me contact him until I've reached a certain number of posts?

I know the person is in my town, but I'm pretty sure I have no way of knowing who it is. I have one friend who operates a radio, but his call sign is different, so I know this feed is not his, although I was hoping it was! It's not going to kill me to keep listening to the feed as it is, so it's not crucial to track him down for now, unless maybe he reads the threads here. It was just things I got to wondering about the longer I kept listening.

I originally started listening strictly for the fire department, but the feed definitely includes the S.B. County Sheriff's office, which is who the town of Yucca Valley contracts with, as does Twentynine Palms, and since we also have a CHP station, I think there is a possibility they might be already included in the feed too. The way I understand it, the feed is a compilation of 3 different local dispatching stations. I can live with the extra "further away" towns added to the feed, as I can understand that nobody wants to listen to dead air, in case nothing is going on locally.

I learned today that the feed is roughly about 2-3 minutes delayed in real time, as the Medic Engine came blasting up behind me while I was at a stop light and just after it passed me I heard the engine dispatched on it's call. I knew it was close to real time based on sirens I've heard from the house going down the highway, and the time stamp given when the paramedics were talking to the hospital base station en route, but wasn't sure just how close until today.:cool:
 

tmccormick87

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
28
Location
Yucca Valley, CA
Well, I'm checking back to see if there was any response from the feed broadcaster, but I guess he does not monitor this forum. I'm still unable to contact them directly, but it does seem like there have been some changes made to the feed in the past few days, but I'm not sure they are for the better.

There is definitely more periods of silence now, but a lot of the "conversation" back and forth now seems to be missing. I can hear dispatches, but not a lot of the replies, and the feed seems to be a little less clear on occasion, with a bit more hissing feedback. Oh well, I guess I'm spending a lot of energy thinking about something that is just a hobby, lol.

I gather that I must make 4 posts in order to have my posts become un-moderated, but can someone tell me how many posts I need to make to be able to contact the feed owner directly?

Thanks in advance!!
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2003
Messages
76
Location
Northern Arizona

tmccormick87

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
28
Location
Yucca Valley, CA
Yes, and thanks for the reply!

Since I made my original post, I have learned a lot with the help of a couple of experienced friends. I have gotten my own scanner, and programmed it with County 4, and a few other things, so I am no longer solely reliant on listening to the Broadcastify feeds on my cell phone. I do keep the app handy of course!

I have no problems with System 5 (Needles) being patched into 4, as they ARE part of our South Desert division, in the San Bernardino County Fire Dept., along with Havasu, Big River and Parker, etc.

What was always the most irritating to me was hearing so much of the Apple Valley and Barstow Law enforcement traffic, which actually belongs to System 1, and their traffic tends to override some of my local Morongo Basin traffic on many occasions. Once I figured out that there are two County 1 talk groups that are permanently patched into two of my local talk groups I was able to lock them out, which keeps me happy when I use my scanner. I now know why the feed owner has no reason to lock them out, as they are important if something DOES happen on them.

So I just have to deal with it, and listen to their traffic, if I'm using the cell phone app, lol.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top