Helpful Information About How To Get Started With Your Police Scanner

Frequency lists for scanners are easily obtained via the internet. Various desktop models have a 12 Volt power supply; therefore, a cigarette lighter adapter can be used for listening to it while on the road.

Community Service Via A Scanner

Police scanners are useful in helping law enforcement officers to track down perpetrators. For example:

A police scanner listener can hear police conversations about a robbery that went down, and if a member from the community spot the criminal’s car, they can report it to the authorities.

Someone listening to their scanner can pick up criminal activities being discussed on the scanner and subsequently report it to their local police station.

Family members of people working in emergency medical services, fire protection, or law enforcement that are in possession of a scanner are able to listen to what is going down.

Scanner users sometimes incur negative publicity if they use information that they overheard over the scanner, for private personal gain. If you have a police scanner, ensure that you are obeying the scanner laws when tuning in.

You can join a local crime watch or neighborhood watch team and utilize the information you overhear for safety and awareness purposes.

Listening To Your Scanner Via The Internet

If you have given thought to getting into the hobby of radio scanning and possess a sound card in your computer, you can try listening to various live broadcasts from fire, police aviation, and rail. There is a great selection of analog and digital scanners available on the market, as seen on this page. Reception over the internet might be erratic if the network is congested; however, this is a cost-effective method of giving radio scanning a try.

Scanner Tips

• Once you’ve purchased a scanner, make sure you read the manual thoroughly to familiarize yourself with all its features and capabilities. Don’t hesitate to ask questions on one of the various scanner newsgroups on the web. You can access rec.radio.scanner or alt.radio.scanner through your web browser and try these tips:
• Start collecting frequencies. You can begin by implementing index cards or create a small database program on your PC. You can learn to do searches in a specific band. Search a 1-MHz section at a time and then record any interesting frequencies you locate.
• Consider the implementation of emergency backup power to run your radio if you have a desktop model. This way, you can continue scanning and listen to fire and police conversations during bad weather or power outages. All you typically require is a 12 Volt battery.
• A useful tip is to store frequencies that are similar to each other within the same bank. Therefore, if you want to listen to aviation, police, or fire, you can scan lockout the other channels you’re not interested in attending to at the moment and only browse the applicable frequency bank.
• You can take the scanner with when going on a trip and listen to your motel or hotel room.
• You can take the scanner to sports events where radios are utilized.
• You can listen to the local amateur radio operators on frequencies 144 to 148MHz. Volunteer ham radio operators can often be heard during weather warnings.