Posted: 1/12/2009 5:44:27 PM EDT
 WOULD A POLICE SCANNER BE ANY HELP IN A NATIONAL EMERGENCY,BEEN THINKING ABOUT BUYING ONE .THANKS
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Go for it but the departments with more money have switched to digital trunking which I think makes it scrambled or somthing. It makes it harder to listen in on all the fun. There are trunking tracking scanners, but if they go encrypted, you will only here gibberish. |
| Most larger departments are going digital but it is hardly ever encrypted. Digital does not = Encrypted. There are plenty of scanners out there that will allow you to monitor trunked digital as well as analog. Look to spend between 300-600 for one though. If all you need is analog trunking, they can be had for around 150. |
| APCO P25 is the digital standard, and companies like Uniden, GRE and others have scanners that pick it up. |
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Most larger departments are going digital but it is hardly ever encrypted. Digital does not = Encrypted. There are plenty of scanners out there that will allow you to monitor trunked digital as well as analog. Look to spend between 300-600 for one though. If all you need is analog trunking, they can be had for around 150. This, digital trunking allows the to get more channels with fewer FCC licenses, We use it here at work. |
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MAKE SURE YOU GET A RADIO COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR LOCALE, SOME RADIO SYSTEMS ARE NOW ENCODING ALL SIGNALS WITH CAPS LOCK I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT IF YOU CAN'T WORK A CAPS LOCK YOU MIGHT HAVE TROUBLE PROGRAMMING A SCANNER. ETA- More seriously, they're kinda useful. Kinda. Making them "emergency" useful takes some planning and programming though, and even more experience just using the thing. You need to be able to tune the right stuff in, and decipher it once you have. |
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Most larger departments are going digital but it is hardly ever encrypted. Digital does not = Encrypted. There are plenty of scanners out there that will allow you to monitor trunked digital as well as analog. Look to spend between 300-600 for one though. If all you need is analog trunking, they can be had for around 150. This, digital trunking allows the to get more channels talkgroups with fewer FCC licenses, We use it here at work. You can have many talkgroups on say 20 different channels or frequencies in a trunked system. To the OP, you can also check out radioreference.com to get an idea what kind of systems are in your area. |
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WOULD A POLICE SCANNER BE ANY HELP IN A NATIONAL EMERGENCY,BEEN THINKING ABOUT BUYING ONE .THANKSWouldn't hurt. Many places still use regular old VHF/UHF repeaters, my county still does. You can get one cheap if that is the case. Many states also have statewide mutual aid channels that would be utilized in emergency situations. There are VHF and 800 Mhz mutual aid channels in my area. |
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Most larger departments are going digital but it is hardly ever encrypted. Digital does not = Encrypted. There are plenty of scanners out there that will allow you to monitor trunked digital as well as analog. Look to spend between 300-600 for one though. If all you need is analog trunking, they can be had for around 150. This, digital trunking allows the to get more channels talkgroups with fewer FCC licenses, We use it here at work. You can have many talkgroups on say 20 different channels or frequencies in a trunked system. To the OP, you can also check out radioreference.com to get an idea what kind of systems are in your area. Thanks for the correction. I always think channels, when in fact they are programmed talk groups with sub-groups. I always have problems with my radio service vendor when trying to describe problems. 
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