Top Ten Reasons Why You Need A Police Scanner

[ChrisSmolinski]

Keep up to date on current events
Hear live events as they happen
Listen to NOAA weather reports so you can be prepared
Monitor all FRS/GMRS for activity
Scan your favorite sets of ham radio repeaters
Keep up with relatives activities
Hear local police and fire departments
Marine activity and Coast guard
Hear space shuttle communications
Listen in on your favorite NASCAR teams

Full article: http://www.streetarticles.com/radio/top-ten-reasons-why-you-need-a-police-scanner

[Pigmeat]

They forgot Civil Defense Alerts when Alzilla is on the loose.

[redhat]

We do live in the digital age now, anything you buy make sure it supports Project 25 (APCO25) as most municipalities have migrated to this system.

+-RH

[skeezix]

I used to have a GRE PSR-500 for listening to our APCO-25 system. It couldn't handle the simulcast sites well. From what I've read, the Bearcat model doesn't do too well either.

Aside from that, it was a good scanner.

[Beerus Maximus]

There's actually not a WHOLE lot of P-25 up here in the Boston area. By and large most incidents can be monitored in free and clear analog.

[redhat]

Some areas have an analog monitor channel that rebroadcasts dispatch, but not all areas have this.

+-RH

[cmradio]

Keep up with relatives activities

Rednecks

Peace!

[BoomboxDX]

I dug out my old 1990's era scanner and fired it up this summer after it was in storage in the closet for maybe 15 years.  Nothing's on.

Local ham repeaters? Nothing on, except a couple guys during rush hour.  Local railroad frequencies?  Nothing on, and they used to be very active all day.

Local cops and fire?  All moved to 800 mhz, trunked, which is hard to monitor on a non-trunked radio, and I think some of it is scrambled anyway.  No marine, too far from the harbor.  I recently programmed in some of the GMRS and it's dead also.

I know the radio's working because the weather channels come in well.

[Danoman]

We do live in the digital age now, anything you buy make sure it supports Project 25 (APCO25) as most municipalities have migrated to this system.

+-RH

WARNING!  Steep learning curve ahead.  Approach with caution.

I just put together a cheap P25 SDR police scanner here last week.
Total cost= $44.95

Pick up two of these.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009U7WZCA/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B009U7WZCA&linkCode=as2&tag=rsv0f-20

Follow this guide.  http://public-xrp.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/sdrsharptrunk.htm

I used this trunking plugin with SDR# but there are others.  http://the.midnightchannel.net/sdr/SDRSharp_Plugins/zefie/?plugin=Trunker.ZefieMod

Works perfectly using a Radio Shack discone antenna.
I'm monitoring the LWIN system here in Louisiana with it.  http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4347

Additional links on the subject.
http://forums.radioreference.com/software-defined-radio/
http://forums.radioreference.com/trunking-control-channel-decoding/
http://forums.radioreference.com/digital-voice-decoding-software/