where do i start?

[lawton1234]

I live in Edson, AB, which is a small town policed by the RCMP. I want to listen to their radio broadcasts, and was wondering how does one go about doing this? How do I get the frequency? Will any scanner work? What do I have to do?

 

[lawton1234]

AS WELL. If I do find the frequency, or the "CTCSS". How do I go about getting my scanner to going to those frequencies?

 

[scnnr]

AS WELL. If I do find the frequency, or the "CTCSS". How do I go about getting my scanner to going to those frequencies?

What kind of scanner are you using?

 

[scnnr]

AS WELL. If I do find the frequency, or the "CTCSS". How do I go about getting my scanner to going to those frequencies?

What kind of scanner are you using? All of the RCMP frequencies can be found here.

http://radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&aid=678

Scroll down to the bottowm of the page.

 

[Jay911]

Furthermore, if you figure out which RCMP repeaters your local area uses, post it here so we can add it to the database - the ones I've put in the DB are only the ones I know from my local area or have confirmed by others.

 

[lawton1234]

thats what i want to know. what scanner do i use...will the uniden nascar 100 channel from radio shack work, or do i need a high tech one...i'm trying to get into scanning but I have no clue what to do.

 

[Jay911]

I'm not sure if the "nascar 100 channel" scanner will work. You don't need a digital, trunk-tracking scanner to monitor the RCMP in Alberta, though. They're on "conventional" (non-trunked), "analog" (non-digital) and in the 155 mhz part of the band, which pretty much every scanner made in the last 20 years will pick up just fine.

If you're talking about the BC72XLT, that scanner does NOT have CTCSS tone squelch decoding. The RCMP use each frequency at least twice in built-up areas, once with one CTCSS code, and a second time with another. This allows them to have two towns/detachments sharing one frequency but still have separate communications. If you go with the BC72, you'll find that you will most likely hear both channels (if they are both in use in your area) - just might get confusing if they're both busy.

If you can't justify spending the $ on a BC246 or BR330 or something of that price (once you start listening to stuff on the scanner, you'll probably use up 100 channels in a flash, as you get interested in more and more stuff), my suggestion would be to look at what Radio Shack/The Source has to offer. I try not to go there, but there are others on these boards who will tell you that they have some pretty decent scanners as of late (I haven't bought an RS scanner for about 8 to 10 years now).

 

[lawton1234]

http://www.uniden.com/products/productdetail.cfm?product=sc230

this is the website for the scanner, that I want to know if it will work. Will this one work?

 

[Jay911]

Yup, that one should do just fine.

 

[lawton1234]

hey jay,
going on my ride alongs, i know that the police in my area operate on the "B2" frequency. if i program this into my scanner, are the B2 frequencies the same across Alberta. so will i automatically be able to hear what is going on if i listen to that frequency. if not do i search the 155 band until I hear talk, and then post that number here?

 

[lawton1234]

and how does the tone affect all this?

 

[Jay911]

B2 should be the same province-wide. If you look at the database entry, B2 is 155.55 with a tone of 123.0. However, 155.55 with a tone of 131.8 is B7.

In my area, handled by Cochrane detachment (about 30 km west of Calgary), they use B2 as well. However, on the opposite side of Calgary, about the same distance east, Strathmore detachment uses B7. So the two detachments are using the same radio frequency, but different tone codes. When they use separate tone codes, it's so that one group doesn't hear the other, and vice versa. It still doesn't allow them to both use the channel at the same time (since radio frequencies, in terms of this type of communications, can't carry more than one conversation at a time).

You might hear tone codes referred to as CTCSS or also as PL. PL stands for "Private-Line" and is a name coined by Motorola for CTCSS - nothing more.

 

[lawton1234]

hello again. how do you find the tone. and those frequencies provided are they input frequencies, or are they out put frequencies. and. if put in the frequency lets say as "155.55," and listen will anything happen? or do i have to program all of the tones:

67.0 69.3 71.9 74.4 77.0 79.7
82.5 85.4 88.5 91.5 94.8 97.4
100.0 103.5 107.2 110.9 114.8 118.8
123.0 127.3 131.8 136.5 141.3 146.2
151.4 156.7 159.8 162.2 165.5 167.9
171.3 173.8 177.3 179.9 183.5 186.2
189.9 192.8 196.6 199.5 203.5 206.5
210.7 218.1 225.7 229.1 233.6 241.8
250.3 254.1, and set my thing to search all of these tones. while maintaining the same frequency

 

[Jay911]

The frequencies provided are output frequencies. That's what you want almost all the time when you're scanning - the output frequencies are at a much higher power and you'll hear both sides of the conversation. Listening to the input frequencies is mostly useless, except in very specific cases.

Finding out which tone is to be used is done in a number of ways. Some people obtain it through getting lists from sources close to the action, so to speak (i.e. knowing someone who has the official info from the RCMP, or whatever service you're trying to listen to). Some people use what's called 'tone search', a feature available in a few scanners where it will find out what tone is being used on a specific frequency. (I don't know if the one you're looking at has tone search or not - sorry.) But the easiest thing for you to do would be to program all the RCMP channels in as seen in the channel listings on this web site's database. That way you'll have all the channels and both sets of tones already set up - so you're bound to hear whatever the local area is using.

If you program in 155.55 by itself with no tone setting, you'll hear stuff, for sure. You'll hear the channel known as B2. You might hear the channel known as B7 - if any detachments in your area are using it. You might hear "bleedover" from other services using frequencies "near" to 155.55, if the signal is overly strong. And you might get interference from things which generate a lot of RF (radio frequency) "noise" - like computers, television sets, the computers/mechanical parts of your car, etc.

If you program in 155.55 and put in a tone setting of 123.0, you will hear ONLY transmissions that carry that tone setting. Nothing else will come through, on that channel in your scanner. If you program another channel in your scanner as 155.55 and a tone of 131.8, you will hear ONLY transmissions that have tone 131.8 on them - even if other transmissions have a tone of 123.0. Those transmissions would be heard if your scanner stops on the other channel (the first one we programmed in this paragraph).

There's no point in programming tone settings other than 123.0 and 131.8 in terms of RCMP usage - they only use those two for the detachment channels.

 

[SCPD]

Try 155.5500 CTCSS 123.0 .. this should give you what you are looking for.