Staying in El Segundo

[LIScanner101]

I'm traveling to LAX in two weeks and will stay overnight in El Segundo on 1/27. The next morning I'm flying to SFO and staying in San Bruno in the Bay Area for a couple days, then flying back home on Thursday.

I have my scanner packed with all the good stuff for the Bay Area (and I know the freqs work fine from past listening experience), but since I don't travel to LA often I'm hoping I could ask some of the participants on this forum for some help.

I do NOT have a digital scanner so that may severely limit my listening options in the LA area (unlike the Bay Area where there is still a ton of digital).

As far as antennas go I plan on bringing a wire OCFD with me and either taping it to the hotel window or hanging it from a curtain rod.

Can anyone recommend what agencies I should program in my scanner if I'm staying in El Segundo?

Thanks much in advance

 

[Markb]

Do you have a preference on what you want to listen to? LA Sheriff, LAFD, LACoFD are all analog. LAPD is digital. ElSegundo is dispatched By South Bay Regional Communications Authorty and they are still analog, according to the DB. The vast majority of users out here are still analog.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

 

[LIScanner101]

Do you have a preference on what you want to listen to? LA Sheriff, LAFD, LACoFD are all analog. LAPD is digital. ElSegundo is dispatched By South Bay Regional Communications Authorty and they are still analog, according to the DB. The vast majority of users out here are still analog.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

I want it ALL LOL!!

Seriously, I would love to listen to all of the above but it’s too bad LAPD is all digital. Are there any town/village/city police departments in the area that are still analog? I went on to Google Maps and made a list of towns within a reasonable radius of El Segundo (in no particular order):

El Segundo (of course)
Beverly Hills
Santa Monica
Hawthorne
Manhattan Beach
Lawndale
Inglewood
Lennox
Westmont
West Athens
Torrance
Culver City
West Hollywood
Los Angelos
Gardena
Compton
Huntington Park
Long Beach
Hermosa Beach
Rancho Palos Verdas
Glendale

Do you think these areas are out of reach of a wire OCFD in an El Segundo hotel room?

 

[pepsima1]

El Segundo (of course) - analog
Beverly Hills - digital
Santa Monica - Encrypted
Hawthorne - analog
Manhattan Beach -analog
Lawndale -analog
Inglewood -analog
Lennox -analog
Westmont - ?
West Athens - ?
Torrance - analog
Culver City - digital
West Hollywood -digital
Los Angelos - LAPD -Digital - Fire - analog
Gardena - analog
Compton - analog
Huntington Park - analog
Long Beach - analog
Hermosa Beach - analog
Rancho Palos Verdas - encrypted
Glendale - digital

 

[LIScanner101]

El Segundo (of course) - analog
Beverly Hills - digital
Santa Monica - Encrypted
Hawthorne - analog
Manhattan Beach -analog
Lawndale -analog
Inglewood -analog
Lennox -analog
Westmont - ?
West Athens - ?
Torrance - analog
Culver City - digital
West Hollywood -digital
Los Angelos - LAPD -Digital - Fire - analog
Gardena - analog
Compton - analog
Huntington Park - analog
Long Beach - analog
Hermosa Beach - analog
Rancho Palos Verdas - encrypted
Glendale - digital

Wow, thanks! How did you find this out so quickly?

 

[pepsima1]

Because I was born in the Southern California area and have been scanning for 35 years.

Good Luck. My suggestion is to upgrade and buy a new digital scanner so you will have every option that you will need in the future. Its always good to have a backup analog scanner since you can never go wrong with an extra unit for the airband or low band VHF for stuff that is ancient still.

It will be hard to come to El Segundo and not be-able to listen to LAPD. Its all digital and in the clear and you won't be dis-appointed ever with this jungle of a city.

 

[LIScanner101]

Because I was born in the Southern California area and have been scanning for 35 years.

Well, now THAT'S a good reason !

Good Luck. My suggestion is to upgrade and buy a new digital scanner so you will have every option that you will need in the future. Its always good to have a backup analog scanner since you can never go wrong with an extra unit for the airband or low band VHF for stuff that is ancient still.

I do agree with you, but I doubt I can pull that off by the 27th. I'm going to have to be happy with my BCT15X for now.

It will be hard to come to El Segundo and not be-able to listen to LAPD. Its all digital and in the clear and you won't be dis-appointed ever with this jungle of a city.

I have listened to it on various feeds and it IS an awesome system, still, it won't happen before the 27th....

Thanks much for your help. You've helped me narrow-down what I need to look for on the DB. I made a quick list and now I will just download that stuff into my scanner using FreeSCAN.

 

[popnokick]

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Reading with interest because I also frequent the same area.... And am an OCFD antenna advocate. I'll be interested how the portable/wire version does for you.

 

[LIScanner101]

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Reading with interest because I also frequent the same area.... And am an OCFD antenna advocate. I'll be interested how the portable/wire version does for you.

You can absolutely 1000% count on a report. I will also take a few pics of the antenna and how I am using it (either taped to the window or hung).

PS - I am using 10 gauge insulated wires. Yes, it's pretty thick but I want to get the maximum bandwidth I can.

 

[LIScanner101]

Hmmmm........strange....

I've never run across this before...

I downloaded a nice boatload of LA area frequencies but for the life of me I couldn't find the County Sheriff on RR via the downloadable method. I wound up just entering everything manually.

What is the LA County Sheriff frequencies listed under when using FreeSCAN and the RR db?

 

[jrholm]

El Segundo (of course) - analog
Beverly Hills - digital
Santa Monica - Encrypted
Hawthorne - analog
Manhattan Beach -analog
Lawndale -analog
Inglewood -analog
Lennox -analog
Westmont - ?
West Athens - ?
Torrance - analog
Culver City - digital
West Hollywood -digital
Los Angelos - LAPD -Digital - Fire - analog
Gardena - analog
Compton - analog
Huntington Park - analog
Long Beach - analog
Hermosa Beach - analog
Rancho Palos Verdas - encrypted
Glendale - digital

A couple corrections. West Hollywood is covered by LASD and LACOFD, both analog. Rancho Palos Verde is LASD Lomita station (analog) Palos Verdes Estates is encrypted.

 

[Radio_Lady]

Westmont - ?
West Athens - ?

Westmont and West Athens are unincorporated areas served by LASD South Los Angeles Station (analog), formerly called Lennox station. Both are roughly between Vermont Av and Western Av, and from Manchester Bl south to El Segundo Bl. Oddly-shaped Westmont is north of Imperial Hwy and Athens is south of Imperial. Essentially bordered by LAPD Southeast Div (digital) to the east, north, and northwest, and mostly Inglewood and Gardena (both analog) to the south and west.

 

[Code20Photog]

What do they call the Lennox station now?

 

[scottyhetzel]

What do they call the Lennox station now?

I think its Century station....off the cuff.

 

[Radio_Lady]

I think its Century station....off the cuff.

Century station was created about 20 years ago by merging Firestone and Lynwood stations, and is quite a way east of the Westmont and Athens communities.

Lennox became South Los Angeles station around 2010, IIRC. I don't know what they call it over the radio, since I seldom monitor LASD.

"Athens" is a very old name for a long swath of territory that originally stretched from Watts to Inglewood, and has been divided up into smaller communities such as West Athens, Athens Park, and Athens. Most of it has remained unincorporated, but a few small tracts are now parts of Compton, L.A. City, and maybe Gardena.and even Inglewood.

 

[Radio_Lady]

What do they call the Lennox station now?

They call it "South Los Angeles Station" officially, and "South L.A." at least some of the time on the air.

Tuning in this afternoon to Dispatch 12, they've kept Lennox's "3" prefix, and units are now ID'd as, for example "South LA 33" instead of the former "Lennox 33." Plenty of multicasting/patching of multiple stations' frequencies and calls, of course.

 

[LIScanner101]

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Reading with interest because I also frequent the same area.... And am an OCFD antenna advocate. I'll be interested how the portable/wire version does for you.

Well, I promised you a report so here it is

I wound up using 12 gauge wire instead of 10 gauge - it was simply a matter of connectability between the matching transformer and the small terminal block I used.

I was hoping for a taller window but you don't always get to chose, so I wound up taping the antenna as shown:

There is a 25' length of quad-shield RG-6 cable connected to the matching transformer to my scanner (connected to it via an F to BNC adapter):

Also, due to the length I had to curl the bottom of the longer dipole section as shown here:

I’m only staying in El Segundo one night and heading to the Bay Area tomorrow.

So far, it seems to be pretty good! I am copying LOTS of local VHF high and UHF, as can be seen in this series of pics:

Low band, unfortunately, is poor – I only copied ONE CHP transmission. HOWEVER – even with my other portable antennas including my MON-52 I have not had much luck in the LA area. I seem to pick up MUCH more low band in the Bay Area, so tomorrow there will be another test of this antenna.

 

[popnokick]

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What did the Feds set your bail at after housekeeping reported the "terror spy equipment" in your room?

 

[Duster]

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What did the Feds set your bail at after housekeeping reported the "terror spy equipment" in your room?

LOL +1

That was my first thought as well when I saw this... "What did the housekeeping staff say when they saw this?"

 

[LIScanner101]

Guys,

LOL!!! :lol:

I had no issues whatsoever. I didn't have any guys in sunglasses wearing black suits tailing me, and I made it to the Bay Area and back to NY with nary a peep from LE.

Speaking of the Bay Area, I have no pics of my setup in San Bruno but it was basically identical to my LA config. As you can see I tried my darndest to keep the coax at as close to a right angle to the dipole as possible. MUCH better reception here - copying VHF hi fire and UHF PD all the way down to Santa Clara County. CHP also came in a lot better too. ONLY thing this doesn't do as well as my MON-52 is 800MHz. With that classic I can pick up San Francisco's TRS clear as a bell but I get very few bars with the wire OCFD.

Despite its poor 800MHz performance I still think the wire OCFD is a winner for me. It will be my main travel antenna going forward.