When you can't listen to law enforcement, what do you listen to?

[eri1999]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to scanners and it turns out that all local law enforcement frequencies in my area (San Bernardino County, CA) are not available for listening.

When law enforcement isn't available, what you you enjoy monitoring?

 

[trentbob]

Nothing makes up the difference of the loss of situational awareness of police dispatch. In Pennsylvania New Jersey it is spreading like wildfire oh, speaking of wildfires, I monitor the New Jersey state forest fire fighters. We have quite a bit of forest fire activity going on right now. I also live near the Delaware River and monitor Port operations. Fair amount of shipping up and down stream.

MilAir, it's becoming more popular on the East Coast combined with aircraft tracking. I live on the Delaware River separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey just north of Philadelphia and I'm monitor all of the TV news desks and their communication with the news Choppers. Also the aviation frequencies for news Chopper coordination is a lot of fun to listen to as the chopper pilots banter back and forth out of earshot of the news desk.

I live near the Northeast Corridor rail services and even though our Amtrak police just went encrypted, there are a lot of railfans.

Of course you have fire and EMS if they are not encrypted.

 

[ratboy]

I listen to a lot of Med stuff. I work and live in an area with a ton of hospitals and nursing homes, along with the ususal overdoses and shootings keeps the scanners busy. All the PDs are able to be monitored in the Toledo area.

 

[trentbob]

Lucky you ratboy that you still have PD. We have lost everything now except dispatch is still in the clear in Philly.

Speaking of medical stuff original poster we also have quite a bit of Medevac helicopter activity with large major University Hospitals in Philly. In my local area we have three Medevac frequencies.

 

[marlin39a]

All police are in the clear here, but I rarely listen. I enjoy the railroad frequencies. BNSF mainline and Peavine are active, as well as the Grand Canyon Railway.

 

[spongella]

NOAA weather stations, local fire/EMS/road departments.

 

[jwt873]

I live in a bedroom community and can hear local fire and ambulance calls. But other than that, all the major police and EMS services are encrypted now. I can live without the action. I scan the GMRS/FRS/CB channels, the amateur repeater channels, and of course, local commercial land mobile radio. Usually it's on in the background while I'm doing things. I also scan the local airport frequencies. I'll sometimes have the ADS-B, Fllightradar24 site running on the computer so I can track the location of the aircraft I'm listening to.

Fortunately I'm easily amused. I enjoy listening to the most unexciting things. Sometimes, after a snow storm I'll listen to the snow plows reporting their progress. They were rebuilding a nearby highway a while back and I followed the flagmen stopping and starting cars as well as the progress of the gravel and asphalt trucks delivering their loads.

 

[hill]

Our PD are in the clear, but I rarely listen to them, as more interested in the fire side. Sometimes do listen when see them at some incident.

I do listen to State Police when on the highways. I am also listen to Maryland Natural Resources Police patrolling the inland areas, plus the State's waters. Both of them have the dispatch talkgroups in the clear, but the tacs are encrypted and that fine with me.

Been getting into mil aircraft monitoring lately.

Also living near the bay and major waterway have some radio monitoring the VHF marine band, plus the CG LMR. Sometimes the LMR is encrypted, but many times in the clear.

 

[Listen365]

On the Scanner Guys and Scanner School YouTube sites they have several shows and podcasts that cover many of the suggestions (which are great) and how to search for them.

 

[RaleighGuy]

You have a lot of federal and military in the county, you can also try the air bands, businesses and attractions like racing, as noted earlier EMS and fire, Victorville federal prison (no freqs in database, would love to find those and get it updated, search 406-420 MHz). There is also a statewide system you might find traffic on. While most of us love listening to the law enforcement activity, there is still a lot of other options.

 

[KB4MSZ]

I enjoy listening to the FM noise floor. I hope they don't encrypt it.

 

[WB9YBM]

When law enforcement isn't available, what you you enjoy monitoring?

I'd usually say stuff like taxicabs, baby room monitors and the like but since that's all gone either to VDT or encrypted, about the only things left to hear are GMRS/MURS/FRS, aeronautical, and maritime stuff...

 

[WB9YBM]

Even though several commercial segments have been abandoned (a lot of services moved up the bands as technology improved to make them more readily available), I'll occasionally still scan the old bands (like 40-50 MHz & etc.) just to see if/when these frequencies are recycled by other users...

 

[bb911]

...I'm new to scanners and it turns out that all local law enforcement frequencies in my area (San Bernardino County, CA) are not available for listening. ...

There are some law enforcement activities that can be heard in San Bernardino Co (but may not be local to you). I'm sure you are aware of the CHP. Also, you might want to enter the UHF Federal Law Enforcement Interoperability freqs in your scanner. Although the activity is quite rare and in the clear, it can interesting (helicopter involved) and can last for several days when you hear activity. I've only heard activity on 2 channels and I can't recall which 2 at this time, because as I said activity is rare. I doubt if you are interested in USFS law enforcement because it is rather dead and very routine, but it is *occasionally* in the clear - 171.78750 ( Region 5 Law Enforcement Net). You may not be able to receive in your area due to topography.

 

[natedawg1604]

Don't forget about DMR/NXDN systems, in my area this is all commercial. Think tow trucks, hospitals, security companies, hotels, zoos, private ambulance companies, schools/universities, airlines, etc etc.

 

[gmclam]

I consider "listening" to be an active activity. It's not like "TV" where you sit back and let it entertain you. (lol). I don't see it as programming a bunch of channels and sit back and listen (although that can be OK too). The activity is to scan the bands for stuff to monitor. It can be scanning for specific types of signals or it can be trying to listen to stuff far away (DX monitoring).

Everyone's interests vary and there is a ton to monitor. Don't forget there's analog, digital and data to monitor. For some it can be interesting to monitor a system (using programs like UniTrunker or less known). For example, you're scanning the bands and you come across a strong digital signal. What is it (data, P25, ?)? Figuring it out can be part of the fun.

If you just want to hear, then perhaps there a web link you can hear from rather than using a receiver.

 

[slayer816]

Although I am entertained and sometimes assisted (road closures and etc) by monitoring Law Enforcement channels; if they all went E tomorrow it wouldn't change much. I am more into how radio systems work and learning new technology than I am "needing" certain channels. Monitoring aircraft (voice and data) is 50% of my time on this hobby and that's still analog AM. If I was closer to major rail or ship traffic I would monitor that. Often times I turn all my radios over to finding new stuff to listen to and log. There is more out there to pick up than I can keep up with. And I live in a small small town.

 

[merlin]

There is not much radio activity where I am, first responder stuff is just fire mutual aid chatter. Railroad has a bit, all the ham is extremely quiet. I seek out the specialized stuff like ISS chatter, aviation, some satellite. GOES and such. Bad enough in a radio dead zone and 400 yards from a major repeater/cell site swamped with noise.(nothing vhf or uhf) Trying to gear up 60 Mhz and down for the rising 25 solar cycle and SWLing but slow progress.
I tinker with the hardware, anything radio, roll your own etc.
My micro work bench:

 

[DS506]

Primary, our small local FD. A half dozen small town Police, maybe 20 Fire/EMS.
Deeper dive into Shortwave and Ham: Where I used to only monitor one of our local 2m repeaters, I now scan 20 local repeaters. I have also caught conversations on 80m, 40m, and 0.7m.

Used to be a Priority channel was to interrupt some other active channel you were not as interested in. Now it is to interrupt scanning hundreds of objects looking for something.

 

[n5ims]

While I started listening to PD, I quickly got bored. There were brief periods of excitement but most of the time it was just unit xxxx at this address with a <description of the vehicle>. Yawn!!! I then started using the scanning function of my scanner to find other things to listen to. I quickly discovered something totally unexpected, a local golf course! The talk between the staff was loads of fun. They'd talk about stuff that most of the MTV "reality" shows only wish they'd scripted. Apparently none of them understood that folks besides the two that were the main part of the conversation could hear them.