Police scanner question

[GRA]

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this or not but..We have a scanner in the house that has picked up our local cops and the sheriffs dept. till they switched to, someone told me a higher frequency. Does anyone know if a scanner is available for the higher frequency and how do I know what numbers to look for when I buy one? Like having a scanner during times of bad weather as the cops usually call in if they see something bad out there.

[PurpleFloyd]

Our FD had quite a bit of training for the new radios. Now that we have them I guess they work pretty good but the cost is pretty high IMHO and while the concept is probably great for urban areas but for rural areas it seemed to be overkill.

[Whoaru99]

I can see why you might think that way. A lot of other peoples hobbies don't make any sense to me either.

[Finns]

Scanners are for people that have nothing to do but sit around and listen to everbody elses business.

I spent 34 years on the fire department. I like to hear how the boys and gal are doing. I still support them and my city. It is my business.

[boatfixer]

Our FD had quite a bit of training for the new radios. Now that we have them I guess they work pretty good but the cost is pretty high IMHO and while the concept is probably great for urban areas but for rural areas it seemed to be overkill.

I can definitely see your point. They're a bit complex and costly. The price has dropped considerably since we got ours in late 09.

I'm not sure how rural your area is, but keep mutual aid and major emergencies in mind. It's very nice to have communication with multiple agencies at any time. Again, I see your point though.

We had a great opportunity to load the system and give it a good test earlier this summer when a nasty storm rolled through. Law enforcement, fire depts, emts all able to communicate as a 75 x 25 mile 70 mph storm crossed through multiple jurisdictions.

[GRA]

When I talked to one of the guys on our local FD he pretty much said the same thing. The old radios seemed to be working just fine and county switched to a higher frequency.

[Eric Wettschreck]

I'll bet the county actually switched to a lower frequency.

These switches arn't by choice. It's an FCC requirement stemming from the 9/11 commissions findings. And, it's expensive.

[boatfixer]

Correct.

Even at work we have make a switch to narrow band.

[hanronson]

I use the Scanner Radio app on my Android cell phone.

[PurpleFloyd]

I'll bet the county actually switched to a lower frequency.

These switches arn't by choice. It's an FCC requirement stemming from the 9/11 commissions findings. And, it's expensive.

Yeah. It was actually in the works before 9/11 but I think that made it easier to expedite the process. If I remember right from the meetings I went to when I was still a Mayor,it was something like 180,000 dollars to outfit the county with radios.

And they are complicated. There are several channels, sub, channels and what not that you have to learn to know how to communicate. not maybe so hard for the bigger departments that have lots of calls, but for the little Mayberry's like I live in we don't get the time with them.

During our last training session I told the instructor it was going to be hard to concentrate on driving the trucks when we were texting the guy in the truck ahead of us to know what channel to lock in with one hand, holding the radio in the other, and steering with our knees.

He did chuckle and I think he got the point.

[boatfixer]

180000 sounds cheap.

[Eric Wettschreck]

180000 sounds WAY cheap.

If I remember correctly it was right around 80 grand or so just to outfit our local Fire Dept. That's a lot of coin for a town with a population under 200. Toss in the other county depts, sheriff, ambulance, couple towns public works, etc and the bill gets rather large.

[boatfixer]

There are grants available.

[PurpleFloyd]

180000 sounds WAY cheap.

If I remember correctly it was right around 80 grand or so just to outfit our local Fire Dept. That's a lot of coin for a town with a population under 200. Toss in the other county depts, sheriff, ambulance, couple towns public works, etc and the bill gets rather large.

yeah, I may be off a decimal place on the cost. It was a while ago and I wanted to be conservative with the number so i wasn't tagged for stretching the truth. The town I live in is pretty close to yours. I think the radios were in the 2500-3000 dollar range each.

Our county seat applied for a grant to get radios for every dept in the county which kept our cost down, but then again that money has to come from somewhere.

[Eric Wettschreck]

We did the same thing, kinda.

The Mutual Aid group all got together and applied for the Assistance to Firefighters grant through Homeland Security. I'm not sure if it was 80/20 or 90/10. When we, as a group, received the grant we divied it up to each dept.

Quite honestly, I don't know what we would have done if we had not got the grant money. No way a town of this size can afford such a cost, but like you said, that money came from somewhere.

[GRA]

I did finally stumble across this for the radios in our area.

•AKA "Chippewa Dispatch" THE ONLY AGENCY NOT ON 800mhz in this area! Lame

•http://www.co.chippewa.mn.us/sheriff.htm

•Chippewa County Sheriff 155.640 Mhz 600 units

•Montevideo Police Dept. 155.640 Mhz 700 units

•Clara City Police Dept. 155.640 Mhz 70 units

•Chippewa County Emergency voice Pagers 154.265Mhz

•AKA "Madison"

•http://www.lqpco.com/corrections.php

•Lac Qui Parle County Sheriff 800 mhz / ARMER 300 units

•Madison Police Dept (contract w/county) 800 mhz / ARMER

•Dawson Police Dept 800 mhz / ARMER 500 units

•Lac Qui Parle Emergency voice Pagers 154.160Mhz / 800 mhz / ARMER