New to the Scanning World

[smurfhsc06]

I have lived in the Arlington, VA area for about 3 years now and the girlfriend has just graduated from Fire School here in Arlington. Basically, I am looking to purchase a scanner that I can use in my apartment (ground floor of a 3 story complex) to listen to dispatch and things of that nature. Any and all advise/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Looking forward to all the possibilities of the scanning world!

 

[Navycop]

System Name: Arlington County (Motorola)
Location: Arlington, VA
County: Arlington
System Type: Motorola Type II Smartnet
System Voice: Analog

It appears that most of Arlington is analog. So any 800 mhz non digital scanner will work. I prefer a handheld. I like to take mine in the car and while outside doing yard work.

 

[smurfhsc06]

Thanks for the info. I was reading on the site and it says they use P25. Is that some thing that the PRO-2096 would pick up? As you can tell I am a scanner virgin except for listening at NASCAR races. My understanding is that the above referenced scanner would pick up both the Analog and P25 systems, is that correct and would that be appropriate for a ground floor apartment in a 4 story building? Thanks a lot for the information!

~Jason

 

[dtscho]

Arlington's analog system is still on the air, but it's kind of the "back-up" system now. Their primary system is a P25 digital system. Definitely look into a 9600 bps digital scanner if you're going to be doing any serious monitoring of Arlington.

The analog system simulcasts the police dispatch talkgroup, as well as the fire dispatch talkgroup, and a couple of fireground talkgroups.

Dave

 

[gcgrotz]

Any digital capable scanner would also pick up analog systems. Unless they are LTR, which is no problem for you where you are, so don't worry about it. It was mostly used for business systems anyway.

Welcome to the hobby, and to RR. Your best advice is to read read read. There is a lot of good info here, both in old posts and on the WIKI pages there is a lot of good stuff.