my own broadcastify feed for maine police legal?

[themainescanner]

Just a regular nerdy citizen who wants to provide a feed of my local maine police department to broadcastify because its not currently there and I'd like to listen sometimes when I'm not home. I couldn't find any laws against doing it, just wondering.........

Hardware:
I have a uniden bearcat I found for $8 and and old antenna. I plan on using a raspberry pi (darkice) attached to the bearcat to send the audio to broadcastify. Other options I've looked at for streaming are Zello (but they want money) and OpenMHZ.

 

[ME343]

It's legal. Nothing against It. you just cant broadcast police tac channels. Dispatch channels are absolutely fine

 

[GlobalNorth]

Good luck! Some of the more interesting agencies aren't always the big ones.

 

[Reconrider]

Just a regular nerdy citizen who wants to provide a feed of my local maine police department to broadcastify because its not currently there and I'd like to listen sometimes when I'm not home. I couldn't find any laws against doing it, just wondering.........

Hardware:
I have a uniden bearcat I found for $8 and and old antenna. I plan on using a raspberry pi (darkice) attached to the bearcat to send the audio to broadcastify. Other options I've looked at for streaming are Zello (but they want money) and OpenMHZ.

View attachment 99332

You can stream through zello for free. Not sure how to do it on Rpi, but with windows all you do is get the scanner to a program, feed it to vb cable(or something like it) and run the audio to zello and use VOX to key up automatically

 

[mmc-dsm]

^^^^This.....
And Broadcastify = delay, Zello = no delay

 

[mmc-dsm]

And also that's why Zello is better. You can control who has access; Broadcastify is public.

 

[iMONITOR]

If your feed is private for your own use only you can stream what ever you want.

 

[Reconrider]

^^^^This.....
And Broadcastify = delay, Zello = no delay

Friends feed has almost a 3 minute delay from the time it's received on the scanner to public broadcastify. Zello is about 1 second.
He's also had times where zello took 10 minutes to send the audio clip because the app crashed and was trying to restart.

You can have issues any way around BUT zello is much better simply because it's private and you can control anyone who wants to listen to it.

 

[prcguy]

Why can't you broadcast police tac channels? If they are in the clear they are no different than a police dispatch channel. Or a bus dispatch channel. Or a GMRS REACT channel, or an amateur radio repeater, etc.

It's legal. Nothing against It. you just cant broadcast police tac channels. Dispatch channels are absolutely fine

 

[phillydjdan]

RR rules say you can't broadcast them, end of story.

 

[iMONITOR]

RR rules say you can't broadcast them, end of story.

RR rules don't apply to a personal private feed of your own, not using Broadcastify.

 

[phillydjdan]

...wants to provide a feed of my local maine police department to broadcastify because its not currently there and I'd like to listen sometimes when I'm not home.

Would you look at that. His original post states his intent. Therefore, because of his ORIGINAL POST, he would be bound to follow RR rules and not broadcast tactical channels. End of discussion.

 

[prcguy]

I didn't catch the first post, thanks for pointing that out. So if he wishes to stream tac channels he will have to reconsider where he will stream to and there are other choices. No big deal and its nice to have choices.

Would you look at that. His original post states his intent. Therefore, because of his ORIGINAL POST, he would be bound to follow RR rules and not broadcast tactical channels. End of discussion.

 

[themainescanner]

I will look into zello, although I don't want to administer the broadcast or control it, I just want to setup the raspberry pi and the scanner and let it go for 10 years with minimal or no touching. So maybe broacastify will be better. The dispatch channel is good enough, that is the only channel with any traffic anyway. The delay isnt a big deal to me, just wanting to contribute to the community.

PS. Im thinking of using another raspberry pi as a flight tracker ADS-B receiver to help contribute to tracking planes too.

 

[motorman105]

You can stream through zello for free. Not sure how to do it on Rpi, but with windows all you do is get the scanner to a program, feed it to vb cable(or something like it) and run the audio to zello and use VOX to key up automatically

I’m a big Maine fan, I’d love to listen to this feed when you do it

 

[Thorndike113]

When you broadcast using Zello, on a windows computer (not familiar with raspberry pi's) you can do it using VB audio Cable. Its a program you put in your computer that takes the audio from one program, routes internally into another program. I use unitrunker to pick up the state police system. The audio is routed through VB audio Cable into Zello. Zello is set on VOX and the audio comes through nice and clear. The feed I have is closed private and I only turn it on when I go places so that I dont have to take my radios with me. You can have it on zello open for everyone to listen to or you can keep it private only to the people you want to hear it.