New to scanners and need help!

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cicoffv

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Joined
Mar 17, 2010
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3
Location
Point Pleasant
Hello everyone,

Growing up, I remember listening to the scanner at my grandfather's house and thinking how cool it was. Fast forward 20 years, and...

I found a scanner on the cheap on craigslist in Jackson, Ohio (RadioShack Pro2050, $25). I go to get it, and hear a couple of transmissions, so I think "Good to go", so I buy it and bring it home.

Now that it's home, I can only get transmissions from the County bus garage. No fire, no EMT, no police.

I got the codes from this page:

Mason County, West Virginia (WV) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

But still nothing. I'm getting pretty good range for the antenna I have (20+ miles), so I think I should be able to hear something.

What am I doing wrong?

Links appreciated, I am not afraid to read, but the search feature returns too much stuff to wade through with my vague search terms.

Thank you in advance for your help.
 

OldDeadOne

Silent Key
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
1,293
Location
Fayetteville,WV
Have you added those frequencies to your scanner? I have a Pro 2040 and in order for me to get frequencies from it I had to manually add the frequencies to get it to work. I hope you got the manual that came with it as that would help you out(maybe do a google for a Pro 2050 manual).
 

cicoffv

Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
3
Location
Point Pleasant
Have you added those frequencies to your scanner? I have a Pro 2040 and in order for me to get frequencies from it I had to manually add the frequencies to get it to work. I hope you got the manual that came with it as that would help you out(maybe do a google for a Pro 2050 manual).

I added the frequencies listed on the website, but still get nothing but the bus garage. It is scanning the frequencies I added, but not picking up any transmissions.
 

fredva

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Mar 19, 2007
Messages
2,225
Location
Virginia/West Virginia
If you are in or close to Point Pleasant, you should at least be able to hear transmissions on 453.05 and 460.475. Those are the main public safety frequencies for that area. So 1) double-check to make sure you have those frequencies programmed into the scanner 2) make sure the channels holding these frequencies aren't locked out and 3) make sure the channel bank with these frequencies isn't turned off.

See pages 21 and 22 in the manual for info on turning banks on/off and channel lock-outs.
 

wv8mat

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
0
Location
Letart, WV
I live in Mason, Work 911 for Mason County and you should be able to hear all the following on your scanner living in Point Pleasant.

Point Pleasant Fire, Fire EMS South, Fire EMS Bend and North ( Same Freq Different DPL) Law West and North ( Same Freq Different DPL) Mason City Fire, Mason County Schools. The 2 TAC channels are hardly every used and the Valley Fire EMS tower is a hard one to get unless you have a good antenna outside. Put in Gallia EMS and Gallipolis PD, Meigs EMS, Meigs Sheriff and Pomeroy PD. You will be able to get all those too.
 

fredva

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Mar 19, 2007
Messages
2,225
Location
Virginia/West Virginia
Make sure the frequencies you entered are the ones in the left-most column on the database page. There is an option to show what are called input frequencies, but it's important that you use the frequencies in the far left column when programming your scanner.
 
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