Why do you monitor?

[kvg911]

How often and why do you listen to Scanners/ Radios?

Public Safety affiliations, or simply just a wacker or maybe even a news buff?

How often do you listen to the airwaves in your area and how many hours (or minutes) a day do you spend monitoring?

 

[xpawel15x]

Just a wacker I guess...lol j/k

Mainly I listen to scanners because 1. I'm nosy 2. I like to know what is going on and have the edge over uninformed people who don't care what happens in their neighborhood. 3. I was always interested in Police and Fire for as long as I can remember. 4. It's a great hobby, learned a lot. Got to know my area extremely well. 5. I like electronics especially scanners, just pulling signals from the air is amazing.

Now, I'm still in high school but hopefully I'll continue my interest and work in the field of law enforcement but even if things change I don't think I'll be able to quit scanning.

To me it's just a hobby, like fishing or bike riding. Just somethin' to do.

 

[SCPD]

What's the title of the book your writing?

 

[Highpockets]

What's the title of the book your writing?

Why do you monitor. (My guess) :roll:

 

[stvnd53]

16-20 hrs.daily."Y"...Have you seen what 225 channels of TV has to Offer?Whacker??? One of the BIGGEST!!!!!! "If God made anything better than scanning....He's keepping it all to Himself"

 

[Highpockets]

16-20 hrs.daily."Y"...Have you seen what 225 channels of TV has to Offer?Whacker??? One of the BIGGEST!!!!!! "If God made anything better than scanning....He's keepping it all to Himself"

Your Location...

75% - 25% you can't live like that, move on down!

 

[SCPD]

I sleep with my scanner......if you know what I mean!

 

[Highpockets]

I sleep with my scanner......if you know what I mean!

:twisted: :twisted:

 

[policefreak]

I listen when I'm not at work or school. So an hour or two in the morning, an hour or two at night, and when I come home. Listen a lot when I'm driving around the area (NJ, PA, DE). I hardly watch much TV these days and never have. Used to listen to music all the time. Now I do this more than I listen to music. I always loved watching fire engines and police cars come down the street (I live near 2 busy roads) and if I heard sirens I would always run to the window to see if it was an ambulance, a police car or something else. Got my first scanner a Pro-99 about 2 years ago and this started off as a hobby. I was so into it that last year I got a BCD396T (I needed it too because of digital Burlington County and other things.) and now I'm seriously considering making a career of public safety dispatch for my county. Now I know where to avoid traffic and I know where all the dangerous corners are too. So you could say its helped me be a safer driver too!!

 

[Alarmguy]

Most people listen cause they are nosy LOL. I spend a good part of the evening listening, but I'm definitely not a 24 hour gotta-have-my-radio whacker. I grew curious at 12 years old, of where the fire trucks were going when the horns and sirens in my town blew. Also my uncle was the chief of police in the next town over. Got my first radio in 1985 10 channels! thats all I needed back then! Became an EMT in 1992 on my local VAC. Retired from EMS due to political BS, but still kept listening. Now I just updated to a Uniden 996T digital since stuff is going digital in NNJ, so now I am listening a lot more than I usually do cause its a new toy.

 

[SCPD]

Does anyone talk to their scanner like I do?

 

[xpawel15x]

Does anyone talk to their scanner like I do?

I think I did once...a cop couldn't get the street adress right... he finally got it when I told him

 

[EMD91123]

I am 42 Years Old and I have been litening to Police/Fire since the days of plugging in crystals into a scanner. Listened till 19 when I landed the job as Police Dispatcher for Paterson where I worked 17 years before transferring to the Fire Dept the last 3 years of my tenure. It's nice to know you have heads up on happenings more than the average Joe. I branched out into Aviation where most of my listening is these days. When storms came when I lived in Jersey it was always on the Utilities(PSEG,JCPL) and Satate Police. My scanner is my Girlfreind that I cheat on my wife with and my American Express Card(DONT LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT). I now reside in Tampa FL where I monitor Marine and HF Traffic and listen to the Shuttle Activities.

 

[kvg911]

Well since I started this thread I guess I should also give my reasons LOL..

I'm 17 years old and am a Volunteer Firefighter in my town, I am also a Police Explorer with post 902, and I am a volunteer with Ridgewood Emergency Services.

I work on a News Desk in Ft. Lee for BNN, we have about 14 radios here going 24/7 reporting incidents to fire buffs and news companies..

Also a member of Metro Fire Radio ~ 891.

My mothers been dispatching for a 9-1-1 center in Northwest Bergen County for over 13 years now and pretty much got me into the hobby after plugging in every other weekend at the 9-1-1 center since I was 8 years old.

I listen as much as possible between school and the girlfriend, and I love it.. I think it's going to be a long lasting hobby as long as everything dosen't go encrypted one day.

 

[jleverin]

Well, I caught the listening bug when I was about 11 yo, I had a great aunt who bought herself a scanner radio( the kind where you had to have crystals for each entity you wanted to monitor) and she gave me her old portable scanner for Xmas. Man, that thing was FUN to listen to, I probably annoyed the heck out of my folks because I sometimes kept it on all night. Somewhere down the line I quit listening and started focusing in my teen years on just music radio. I have been an EMS professional for awhile, I'm now a nurse who is a disaster response volunteer and a Skywarn spotter. About a year ago I decided to try scanners again after so many years away from it, I needed a new hobby, so I drifted back to radios, went down to RS and bought me a cheap little handheld. Amazingly, I found I really STILL enjoyed listening to it, am trying to save up the money for a digital radio but am for the time being having enough fun with the analog scanner and I had a member here sell me a pro97 scanner cheap so I am learning about trunking in the meantime. Will probably get my ham ticket in the future because it just opens up more avenues in the hobby. I just enjoy the heck out of knowing what is going on in my community, as a local response volunteer it doesn't hurt to know if there's something major brewing. I have no intention of racing out to "help" unless I' m called on, but frankly too many people are so oblivious about their surroundings.

 

[SCPD]

I sleep with my scanner......if you know what I mean!

But seriously, I guess since I was 15. I used to try to listen to NJSP before trunking scanners came out. I had a Radio Shack handheld with a blue keypad that's all I remember.

 

[TheManBornWithin]

I would say I have been into scanning for about 5 to 7 years, but only within the past year have I really gotten into it. I have a scanner in my room that almost runs 24/7. I like knowing whats going on in the town, and being an EMT, it helps to know what kind of calls we are going to get toned out for. It's also helpful so while enroute to a call, we can hear the officers giving updates to other officers.

 

[jmp883]

KVG911 wrote:

Why do you monitor?

Can't answer that one, only to say because I enjoy it. I got my first scanner as a gift in 1982 when I was 18 years old and I've been hooked ever since. It was probably scanning that got me interested in emergency service work. I just 'retired' from my volunteer FD after 20 years of service and I've been a dispatcher since 1992. They'll have to pry me away from the console when it's time for me to finally stop dispatching!

I just enjoy listening. My listening post currently consists of 6 base scanners and 4 hand-held scanners. They're all identically programmed, though each one usually monitors something different. Add in my 3 ham radio transceivers and it's a fun place to spend a lot of time in! When I'm mobile I have a scanner and a ham transceiver mounted in my truck. I'm only out of the monitoring loop when I'm on my Goldwing. The only thing I want to 'monitor' on the Wing is the Little Feat tunes coming out of the stereo as I'm cruising down the road !

 

[ers1121]

Like most of the people here I just like to keep informed about the happenings in my area. If there is a working fire nearby I'll grab my camers and run. I do page out on BNN from time to time but since they monitor 24/7 someone usually beats me to it. Since I have 2 scanners at work & 4 at home I guess you could consider me a wack too!!

 

[KC0QNB]

Because I am also a ham operator, but then I was listening to a public safety receivers when you had to tune them with a knob, when I was a kid I used to hang out at the local power plant which served as a dispatch location as well, there was a old big Motorola CompaStation in the corner of the "office", that was set to one channel and only one channel 39.900mHz, not even the NSP had scanners then, they used Plectron receivers (proudly made in Nebraska for many years) to monitor the local/county frequencies, and then they would respond if needed.

Land line telephones were the main means of interoperability in those days. The fire departments used 39.98 to talk to each other, and the hospital/ambulances used 39.82, of course there were multi channel radios in certain places/vehicles, but back in those days they were big bucks, relatively speaking.
Synthesized multi channel scanning radios killed the Plectron company.

Now I will answer the question I listen because like others here have already stated it gives me a leg up on the folks that don't monitor, I also like to keep up on whats happening in the area I am in at the time.
I must digress I am also a bit snoopy.