The NWCD (Northwest Central Dispatch) analog trunked system dispatches Streamwood FD. Stations are 31, 32 and 33. You will also get Hoffman Estates on the FD dispatch TG. Generally NWCD will state things like "Streamwood Engine 33" so it's not necessary to memorize rig numbers.
There's a good bit of mutual aid between Streamwood and Hoffman Estates, but that's easy to track as they're on the same TG. Also check the database for the fireground channels, if no one from out of town is responding then they'll use the trunked ones. If outside departments are responding, they'll usually be on 153.830 RED fireground.
Schaumburg is to the east, they have their own trunked system that NWCD now also runs. Check the database for those TGs. Note, I've never really figured out their fireground usage, but most of what is important will be on the dispatch TG. They also do a lot of MA to and from Streamwood.
To the south is Bartlett, and the fire department there is dispatched by DuComm on 154.310. There are multiple departments on this freq, and it's simplex. Lots of MA. To the west is Elgin, and honestly there isn't much MA activity with Elgin. Some, but really pretty infrequent.
The big mutual aid fire frequency is IFERN and it's 154.265. If anything major (fire-ems wise) is going on in the suburbs, you will hear about it. Now, since you'll be near DuPage county, you can punch in 470.3625 and get the repeated version of IFERN - recommended.
EMS is all fire-department based around here.
You might want to listen to CFD - the 2 fire freqs are "Main" 154.130 and "Englewood" 153.890. Main is downtown and north while Englewood is everything south of downtown. Main EMS (Fire and EMS respond on different frequencies) is 460.600 and Englewood EMS is 460.625.
As far as PD goes, I've not really found much of anything interesting on the Lake EDACs system as I just pass through Lake county. Instead, if you're on the tollway you'll want to program in District 15 State Police, which are the tollway units. I'd recommend just the North talkgroup unless you want to hear about breakdowns 100 miles away... The maintenance TG is also very active and good to listen too.
Oh yeah, the NWCD Digital system doesn't really cover Streamwood/Schaumburg area so while it's a good system to listen to, you won't miss out on local events if you don't program it in.
