I come from Northern Ohio and they have a system called MARCS. Will I be able to listen to this MARCS via a scanner? Thank you for all of the help ahead of time. If I posted this in the wrong section please let me know. Have a good one!
Yes, you can listen to Ohio MARCS. The only catch (there is always a catch, right?) is, you will need a digital trunking scanner to do so.
Most, if not all of the public safety functions are, at the very least, on 800Mhz trunked systems, with the vast majority of them already digital in nature, or to become digital in the not too distant future.
One last caviat. As I am in SOUTHERN Ohio, I am not too familiar with this, but it is my understanding that Cleveland, in particular, and several other agencies "up north" encrypt their signals --- which means, that you can not monitor them (legally) with ANY scanner on the market. You may want to do some research on this site to see if any of what you are interested in is encrypted.
I monitor OH MARCS "down here" without problem.
I do not recall that you mentioned the particular model of scanner that you have already, or whether you are "in the market" to get one.
If you are looking to get a scanner, I very much recommend going ahead and shelling out the ca$h for a digital model. They can get analog transmissions perfectly, but also have the capability of listening to DIGITAL systems such as the OH MARCS system.
If radio shack is your preference: for a handheld, I recommend the PRO-106, which is a close cousin to the GRE PSR500. THere are tiny differences in firmware approaches to updating it vs its GRE cousin, etc, but, otherwise are largly identical. The 106 also has a "base unit" brother, the RS model# escapes me at this moment.
Hope this helps...
