Scanner or Ham or both? (military use/disaster/fema)

[madmunki]

Hey guys,
I need help, so I came to the experts (you).

I am a platoon sergeant for a Military Search and Rescue (SAR) Platoon. My mission is to respond to SAR missions and provide several SAR teams. A SAR team is a group of 3-5 searchers in the field. Several of them will relay to me, I relay to our Technical Operations Center (TOC). My teams could be on one freq, or on different. If they are different, I have to carry a ICOM radio for each frequency, sometimes as many as five! (my four teams, and one for my TOC). We are using ICOM radios on a military freq (no FCC licenses needed). During the mission, we are sometimes connected to other agencies, such as CERT, FEMA, Civil Air Patrol, local police, etc. I would like to scan their communications to get a heads up current events. I would never communicate with them directly, just want to listen in.

My thoughts was to get a scanner and use the issued ICOMs (again up to 5). Using the scanner I would scan their freqs and use the ICOM to relay out to my squads and the TOC. (6 radios!!) My "blue sky" idea would to have one radio capable of scanning and trans-receiving to my units. I could press "1" to transmit on a saved freq saved to button "1", "2" to transmit on saved freq "2", etc. When pressing "1" my radio is locked to that freq. Then I would hit "scan" to go back to scanning. Freqs saved in slots (1,2,3,4, etc) would have priority over CAP, local law, etc. Other agencies (law) will usually have digital trunked, compress, freq bands.

Any ideas on how to go to one radio?

 

[madmunki]

The "near me" gps features on some scanners sound great for monitoring other traffic.

 

[ecps92]

Go with the Scanner.

You can't use a modified [CAP/MARS Mod] anymore for CAP, MARS, FEMA etc. The Scanner gives you the best of all bands for monitoring, and you can even put in your ISR Freq's

Hey guys,
I need help, so I came to the experts (you).

I am a platoon sergeant for a Military Search and Rescue (SAR) Platoon. My mission is to respond to SAR missions and provide several SAR teams. A SAR team is a group of 3-5 searchers in the field. Several of them will relay to me, I relay to our Technical Operations Center (TOC). My teams could be on one freq, or on different. If they are different, I have to carry a ICOM radio for each frequency, sometimes as many as five! (my four teams, and one for my TOC). We are using ICOM radios on a military freq (no FCC licenses needed). During the mission, we are sometimes connected to other agencies, such as CERT, FEMA, Civil Air Patrol, local police, etc. I would like to scan their communications to get a heads up current events. I would never communicate with them directly, just want to listen in.

My thoughts was to get a scanner and use the issued ICOMs (again up to 5). Using the scanner I would scan their freqs and use the ICOM to relay out to my squads and the TOC. (6 radios!!) My "blue sky" idea would to have one radio capable of scanning and trans-receiving to my units. I could press "1" to transmit on a saved freq saved to button "1", "2" to transmit on saved freq "2", etc. When pressing "1" my radio is locked to that freq. Then I would hit "scan" to go back to scanning. Freqs saved in slots (1,2,3,4, etc) would have priority over CAP, local law, etc. Other agencies (law) will usually have digital trunked, compress, freq bands.

Any ideas on how to go to one radio?

 

[K9WG]

ecps92
You are not totally correct. You can still used modified Amateur for MARS.

That being said, in response to the OP, there are very few (if any) modifiable Amateur radios that will tune to ISR frequencies.