Scanner over Cell Phone

[compwhiz808]

I was messing around with some telephony stuff and set it up so you can listen to the the Dubuque, Iowa scanner from any cell phone or regular phone by calling 360-526-6477. I figure its a good way to use up those free nights and weekends.

-Adam

 

[K5RYA]

seems like a cool concept...too bad it isn't working and goes to voicemail.

 

[compwhiz808]

seems like a cool concept...too bad it isn't working and goes to voicemail.

It seems to be working fine here. You may have caught it when I was working on increasing the capacity. It now supports up to 50 simultaneous calls.

 

[K5RYA]

What are you using for the telephony end?

This might be something that I can setup for some of our VFD members once our 400MHz patch goes away.

My bad, I just noticed that I had mis-dialed a number. Seems to be working now.

Monotone voice!! "Please wait while you are connected to the scanner"

Yep, radio traffic is coming through now.

 

[BaLa]

That is pretty neat..

 

[shaft]

Ahh Asterisks with a conf bridge setup to stream the ol scanner eh? Pretty clever!

 

[K5RYA]

Can this be done with a phone line or is he doing this with a PBX interface?

 

[compwhiz808]

Ahh Asterisks with a conf bridge setup to stream the ol scanner eh? Pretty clever!

Yep... I've had it running for almost 4 years now, but I finally found a free DID that supports multiple channels and a low bandwidth codec.

Can this be done with a phone line or is he doing this with a PBX interface?

You could do it with a regular phone line and an Asterisk box, but the problem is that you would have to have one line for each person listening. 10 people would = 10 lines. Using this method you can have 1 number with 92 channels theoretically supporting 92 simultaneous calls (but that is limited to less by your connection speed).

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Pretty cool.

Just don't try blocking your number....

"Your anonymous call has been rejected" in a very polite mechanical voice.

LOL

 

[compwhiz808]

Pretty cool.

Just don't try blocking your number....

"Your anonymous call has been rejected" in a very polite mechanical voice.

LOL

I figured someone would try that. I was just trying to figure out who was sitting on the line for 3-4 hours at a time. They kept calling from a blocked number. I like messing with that computer voice.

 

[compwhiz808]

For those of you that tried using over the past couple days, I've upgraded the system a bit and everything should now be working...

 

[CommJunkie]

...the wonders of technology...

I'm connected now just to see what it sounds like

 

[bezking]

Very Cool! Something I am looking forward to trying... What service did you use for the DID?

 

[compwhiz808]

I used ipkall for the did. They supposedly support up to 94 channels. The only drawback is the bandwidth (which is why the server went offline before). There is no way of limiting the incoming calls. I had been making posts telling people about the system and had over 40 people dialed in at once. The server was handling it just fine, but around 40k per call my DSL connection was maxed out and dropping everything off. I have since moved everything to a bigger connection and it seems to be handling things fairly well. I just have to install a better antenna or move the receiver now. All of the equipment in the server room seems to be causing a bit of static during transmissions.

-Adam
KD0BML

Dubuque Police Scanner Online!

 

[OldDeadOne]

Nice....now I can listen to scanner traffic while on my lunch break,just added your number for that reason

 

[joekansas]

Parsons Kansas here. I worked thru East Dubuque on the railroad in 1996. This is an ingenious system you have set up here.......

Well, I got an incoming call while my phone was listening, so I clicked over and talked. Forgot that I had this on the other line and hung up after that call ended. 5 seconds later, the phone rings with "unavailable" on the caller ID. There was your computer calling me back to remind me that I was still connected........!

 

[compwhiz808]

Parsons Kansas here. I worked thru East Dubuque on the railroad in 1996. This is an ingenious system you have set up here.......

Well, I got an incoming call while my phone was listening, so I clicked over and talked. Forgot that I had this on the other line and hung up after that call ended. 5 seconds later, the phone rings with "unavailable" on the caller ID. There was your computer calling me back to remind me that I was still connected........!

Yeah, that would happen. The computer doesn't hang up when you switch over for call waiting. It'll sit there until your cell company times out the call (usually around 2 hours). If you forget, it'll call you back.

 

[K5RYA]

Yeah, that would happen. The computer doesn't hang up when you switch over for call waiting. It'll sit there until your cell company times out the call (usually around 2 hours). If you forget, it'll call you back.

If we are talking about a land line, it doesn't exactly "call you back" right? It is just since he flashed over and never disconnected the original call when he hung up the second call since the original call was still connected it just rang again. I don't think the computer initiated the call back.

 

[compwhiz808]

If we are talking about a land line, it doesn't exactly "call you back" right? It is just since he flashed over and never disconnected the original call when he hung up the second call since the original call was still connected it just rang again. I don't think the computer initiated the call back.

Yeah, it works the way on cell phones too. The computer isn't calling back it's the cell carrier.