What is the purpose of having multiple scanners?

[barnett25]

This may be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway. What is the purpose in having multiple scanners? I've noticed that alot of people have more than a dozen scanners in thier shack, but I don't know what advantage that gives them.

 

[Thunderbolt]

That's an easy one. The more scanners you have the more frequencies and systems you can listen to.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

On a regular basis, I use one scanner for four trunked large trunked system in my immediate area, a second one for all the VHF/UHF stuff, and a third for local law enforcement.

I have the luxury of having some external antennas mounted at about 45' to 50', so I can get a lot of distant signals in. Therefore, I like have multiple scanners since there are lots of signals to be captured.

I have others around that I've used in the past and do get a lot of work right now. They just look nice sitting there.

 

[Dubbin]

That's an easy one. The more scanners you have the more frequencies and systems you can listen to.

No its not that. It goes back to the old saying: He who dies with the most toys win. Plus it makes you more of a man :lol:

 

[diskmonger]

You can also have a specific antenna for each specific scanner/radio. Maybe the scanner you use for 800Mhz has a great 800Mhz antenna on it and you use it only for that purpose.

Your other radio could have a great VHF/UHF antenna and be used only for VHF/UHF listening.

Diskmonger

 

[Microwavemike]

You could use two of them, one for each ear.
I have seen news rooms with seven scanners going. After a while it all turns into noise. The only think that gets the news drones attention is the hot tones for each service.

mm

 

[mlevin]

Yeah one for Trunker/Data stuff, one for recording/live internet feed, one for 800 MHz trunking, one for VHF/ UHF, one for Lo-band, a couple shortwave rigs, one for Mil-Air/Civil, I can go on and on.

Another advantage is when there's a major incident. Often times more then one TG/Freq will be utilized. Having more than one scanner in this case is helpful so that you can get the big picture and not miss any info.

 

[thumbtrap]

Also - having 1000 channels doesn't do you a lot of good if they're organized in banks of 10. For one thing your scan times get long - it's bound to stop on something because there is traffic, it takes a long time to scan through that many channels. For the people that really need to hear, like the news guys, I think it's common to have banks of scanners set up for different towns, different agencies, etc...

When things get busy it's easier to shut off the scanner listening to county fire than it is to navigate menus.

 

[fireman_justin]

we have such a large EDACS TRS here, our department utalizes 2 scanners and our station radio... We have all local Law Enforcement talkgroups programmed into one, all of the county fire/ems/sheriff talkgroups programmed into the other scanner, and then all of the all Fire/Ems in our radio.

 

[JnglMassiv]

Something I wrote a while ago here:

The reason for multiple scanners is that if you think about it, as a hobbiest, any scanner purchase is unnecessary.

Rube: "Whats the radio for?"
Scannist: "Its to monitor local police and emergency radio traffic."
Rube: "Can't you just watch the news?"

So any scanner at all seems silly to a lot of people. Pretty soon, you realize you might be missing some action because you had on the wrong channel. So while you're listening to PD chase a suspect on the other side of town, you might miss fire responding to a building ablaze right up you street. Or Airforce One overflying your home. Or a Federal bust of your neighbors. Or the tow company towing your car. Or any of countless other possibilities. The solution is to have multiple scanners to cover all the bands of interest. Some are better suited for monitoring mil-air, others are better for 800mhz+ while others are HF and shortwave.

 

[KE5BCP]

I like to have at least a couple going during storms. One might be set to a local Skywarn net, and the other scanning the local public safety freqs.

 

[barnett25]

I can see an advantage if you have different antennas connected to each system to provide better reception on any given band. But I don't know if I really get the idea of having them all on at once so you don't miss anything. Wouldn't it all just blend together untill you can't tell what anyone is saying?

 

[BoxAlarm187]

Personally, I find that I can tune out something until I hear certain things ... a siren in the background of a police transmission, a series of tones (rather than just one) being set off on the fire channel, things of that nature.

Police officers are able to do this a lot ... they'll be able to selectively listen to radio traffic while on patrol, and be able to pick thier unit number out of all the mess coming acorss the radio.

Look at the dispatchers in rural USA, who have to monitor fire radio, police radios (sometimes for multiple towns/localities), answer the 911 and non-emergency lines, and everything else that's going on ... they do it everyday!

 

[MOTORHEAD3902]

I guess we all have opinions as to how many scanners each of us needs, but in direct response to this last question, after a while, the human ear can be trained to read data from multiple inputs simultaneously
Think of the symphonic composer, for example. To most of the world, the large orchestra sounds like ONE BIG SOUND, but the composer (and related musicians) hears each instrument's voice individually as well as in unison and can interpret and appreciate it on its' own merit as well as its' role in the larger singular sound/noise. I believe I have just succeeded in topping myself in stretches of analogy, so you are excused if what I just said doesn't make much sense. :wink:

 

[DaveH]

Without going into some of the obvious excesses, there are good
cases for multiple scanners, if you can afford it.

As things move ahead, older scanners become "less capable" and
are depreciated, but may still be perfectly good for some uses.
Conventional scanners can be used to scan frequency ranges
continuously, looking for new things, or parked on a frequency
over a long period to identify a user. Besides, maybe you like
holding on to older equipment (it might become an antique some
day!), or plan to open a scanner museum someday...

Scanners can find new life with a discriminator tap and data
slicer for trunking software such as Trunker, Treport, Ltrtrunk,
etc. No point having an expensive digital scanner tied up doing
this, although I'm sure some people do this.

Older trunked scanners could only scan one system at a time,
not multiple systems plus conventional. Again, one of these can
be parked on a system or even one talkgroup without tying up the
more capable ones.

One more compelling reason is if you need to search for things
in a limited time, such as a special event, emergency etc.,
parallel searching is the way to go, especially if you're out
of town and time is limited. If you think you've found something
but need more time, park the appropriate radio on it while the
rest of the search goes on. This is what I call a "spotting"
receiver.

Finally, there's the one-radio-for-each-room-in-the-house
thing. I'm not that far gone, but I had a really good but cheap
radio downstairs scanning 16 channels of FDs 24 hours a day.
They mostly moved to 800MHz, but now it's used for EMS and other
things, in the background.

I admit to having a number of older scanners that still work
but hardly ever get used. There's the old Bearcat 101, one of the
first synthesized scanners, circa 1977, programmed by slide
swictches on the front. It stopped working a few years back but I
may try to resurrect it. The original BC250 (not the newer 250d)
had one of the first (if not the) search/store features. I'm
sure everyboady has their own story.

Dave

 

[OntarioScannerNut]

I don't know, you go to LA or New York City or any other large metro region.

See if you can scan the whole city using one scanner.

This may be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway. What is the purpose in having multiple scanners? I've noticed that alot of people have more than a dozen scanners in thier shack, but I don't know what advantage that gives them.

 

[barnett25]

I guess that makes sense. I'm sure it will be even more clear after I actually get my scanner (damn UPS, where are you?). I'll probably be posting in a week asking if anyone has some spare scanners for sale. :lol:

 

[JoeyC]

I can see an advantage if you have different antennas connected to each system to provide better reception on any given band. But I don't know if I really get the idea of having them all on at once so you don't miss anything. Wouldn't it all just blend together untill you can't tell what anyone is saying?

The answer to the original question is obvious to me, but I guess not everyone. The responses given so far are right on.

Let me give you a (very) simple example. You have one scanner scanning 10 channels. (no this is not 1970). In that scanner you have programmed the city police, the county police and the county and city fire depts.

At precisely 12:06:03 pm the county tones out a structure fire with a dispatch.

At 12:06:10 city PD 101 announces he has spotted a vehicle wanted in an armed robbery from yesterday.

At 12:06:35 The scanner cycles though its freqs and stops on county fire Engine 22 announcing its response, followed by Engine 31, Truck 22, Truck 3, and Battalion 22.

At 12:06:37 city PD 108 advises he is with 101 and will initiate a traffic stop.

At 12:06:45 PD unit 108 shouts SHOTS FIRED COVER NOW! into the radio and the resultant backups advise in-route. County police dispatch the OFFICER IN TROUBLE CALL but the scanner is stopped on county fire listening to the units advise responding to the structure fire.

12:06:50 Engine 31 asks for a repeat of the address.

12:07:10 PD 101 asks for an ambulance to respond the SUSPECT IS DOWN.

12:07:13 the fire rebroadcast is completed, Engine 31 acknowledges and the scanning resumes.

12:07:20 PD 101 advises CODE 4, and YOU MISSED THE ENTIRE POLICE INCIDENT that lasted less than a minute.

With one scanner dedicated to fire and one to police, you would have:

1. heard the fire dispatch and response.
2 NOT MISSED the shootout with police.

Unless you are severely challenged you would have been able to differentiate the 2 conversations. Make sense?

 

[K5MAR]

Look at the dispatchers in rural USA, who have to monitor fire radio, police radios (sometimes for multiple towns/localities), answer the 911 and non-emergency lines, and everything else that's going on ... they do it everyday!

Been there, done that. When I was a dispatcher (back in the '70's), I monitored 6 various PS radio channels, plus a CB set to Ch. 9, plus 4 911 lines, 3 non-emergency police lines, 2 fire dept. lines, an unlisted line for officer call-ins, hotlines to the SO, University PD, and 3 fire stations, and a National Alert System hotline. Except for Thursday, Friday & Saturday evenings and Saturdays when there were home university football games, there was one dispatcher per shift. Oh, and we had to do typing and filing during our spare time. :lol:

I'm proud to say that being able to handle this kind of load isn't a skill that everybody can develop, but listening to a couple of scanners should be within the grasp of most scannerists. It is a skill that has to be developed, and requires work, but it's worth developing. Just as an example, late last night a small police agency went in pursuit of a carjacked vehicle. They quickly entered the county, and at various times were headed for my city, then towards the next county, so I was listening to seperate scanners on two different county freqs and one monitoring the original pursuing agency, plus a scanner covering my city police and everything else.

So, if you can afford the radios, and can develop an "ear", you'll find it's well worth it.

Mark S.

 

[LEH]

My reasons for multiple scanners is multifold.

1. I can listen to more than one system at a time (like the response above where there was a fire dispatch and a police shooting at the same time) I have my local LE on one scanner and the nearby neighboring city trunked system on another. I usually keep a third handy to lock down a specific system that is having a lot of excitement (working fire or police incident).

2. I have two cars and I always have at least two scanners in each car (I carry the third between the two).

As others have said, they dedicate a scanner to a particular frequency range. Some scanners can't recieve some bands (MIL Air is a common one). Mil air hasn't changed much, so an older scanner that has the band can be relegated to that while a newer scanner is used for the public service channels.

Folks who live in large areas (like LA or NYC) can soon find (especially in some of the older scanners) full, so more than one scanner is needed to even enter all the local frequencies.

Whether you "need" (sic) more than one scanner depends on how much of an enthusiast you are.