PRO-91 Scanner and Kirkwood, MO

[JMPusateri]

FIRST... I am not an experienced scanner person, so forgive my ignorance... I turn it on and plug in the freq and hope to hear something.

I use it to listen to local Fire / Police / Ambulance happenings in Kirkwood, Crestwood, Glendale, Webster area etc.. I used to be able to scan and get local police and fire frequencies, I even learned how to program Kirkwood Police 155.250 & Fire 154.370 frequencies into my scanner (yea me). Now I am getting nothing. I look online for the scanner frequencies and program and nothing all day long. I am wondering if a change makes my scanner useless or what... I don't have anything fancy... the scanner sits on my desk in my office, no extra antenna's. I have looked at the Frequencies listed on here <http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=1573> and plugged them in my scanner... nothing... I see this SLATER, Central County Emergency 911, East Central Dispatch Center... Is myu scanner no longer an option to pick up police / fire??

Any help, suggestions, directions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kruser]

Yep, the entire county and all its municipalities moved to Slater which is a digital trunked system.
And on top of that, everyone in the entire county has gone fully encrypted so you can no longer listen to any law related activity including the county parks dispatch and most college systems which are also now on Slater.
Fire and public works is about all you can hear these days and you need a digital scanner to hear them.
They are still using P25 Phase 1 mode but will probably switch to Phase 2 before long.
If you do decided to buy a new digital scanner, make sure it is P25 Phase 2 capable.

The city police are also mostly encrypted as well.
Jefferson County also moved to Slater and they also went fully encrypted for all law traffic from day one.
St Charles County is also on Slater but are still mostly in the clear still.
Franklin County is one that did not move to Slater due to funding issues so I read. They are mostly analog still.

Not much left around here.

The state is using a statewide P25 system that is mostly in the clear but again, you would need a digital scanner and also has Phase 2 support.
The state system is also using Phase 1 right now but the sites are broadcasting Phase 2 support so they could switch to Phase 2 at any time.
The state is actually fun to monitor as you can now hear the mobiles from far away unlike the old days where you needed a low band antenna up high or on a tower.

Even railroad will be moving to digital systems before long. Licenses are in place already and I think most Class I RR's have already equipped their fleet with digital radios. Some are using them but not much around here yet. They will be using a digital mode called NXDN and only two scanners will be supporting that mode at noon today. Those are the TRX-1 and TRX-2 models made by Whistler but they are not cheap.
Speculation says that Uniden will also have a NXDN capable radio but they have not officially said anything yet.

Most everything is going to some form of digital. Before long, all that will be left are business users and amateur radio and aircraft.
Many business users have already switched to a digital mode called DMR or MotoTRBO. There are a few DMR capable scanners on the market today but again, they are not cheap.

 

[JMPusateri]

Thank you for your response... How do channels get posted to places like Broadcastify? St. Louis County Missouri Live Audio Feeds I see they have a few SLATER radio channels.

I cannot afford the new radios at this point.

 

[kruser]

Thank you for your response... How do channels get posted to places like Broadcastify? St. Louis County Missouri Live Audio Feeds I see they have a few SLATER radio channels.

I cannot afford the new radios at this point.

Most of the ones listed as carrying Slater traffic are mostly now doing Fire and EMS. Those services are in the clear.

There is one Slater feed listed as active for West County law agencies other than fire but I listened to the feed for hours not long ago and found zero traffic on any of the several days I sat on it.
There is another for the counties 2nd precinct police that is live and usually has several listeners.
I don't know how that feed is on the air unless one of the agencies dispatched by the 2nd precinct put it up or a user of the system is using his assigned radio to feed the audio from. Some agencies find it helpful by letting the public listen as that gives them more eyes and ears.
I wish more agencies would put up official live feeds here for other areas but the county owns the system so they pretty much make the rules.
I don't know what the counties take is if a municipality wants to put up a feed for the public to listen.

If you live in this county, there is no longer any transparency between the police and the public.
They were all given secure encrypted channels from day one and many agencies did make use of those secure channels as needed.
Dispatch channels were in the clear.