Scannerhound
Well-known member
Our local P.D, Sheriff and fire are about to go to a trunking system. I have several scanners including a Radio Shack pro 2053. Any info on this will be great.
Trunk tracking
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2gigch1
Well-known member
Go to http://www.radioreference.com/ and join the site. Search the areas you are interested in. This site is very complete.
Good luck -
Good luck -
RichVid
Well-known member
As long as your local agencies aren't going to a DIGITAL trunking system, your Pro-2053 should be fine...all you're going to need is the list of new freqs your agencies are switching to... Then just follow the programming instructions for your trunktracker radios. I have a 2053 that tracks a couple of different systems out here and it does just fine...
Rich
Rich
Cambot Mk. II
Well-known member
Our locals are planning to go to an *encrypted* digital system and already have new antennas up. I think we'll be totally cut off in a couple of months. We've been trying to get people proactively talking with the city but little has ben done, at least as far as I can tell. Any suggestions on what to do for spot news instead?
Tell them you'll have someone assigned to camp out in their offices 24/7 and will be calling the PIO and dispatch supervisor no less than every 15 minutes of the day....and MEAN it.
That'll make them change their minds. Trust me.
If and when they DO start to work with you, expect it to be VERY expensive. You'll likely have to buy (especially if its a Motorola system) the same radios they are using. Your management had better plan for budgeting for them now. When we had to buy trunking radios many years ago, we spent over $30k to equip our desk and several vehicles with radios. They didn't give us access to ALL of their channels, but we at least could hear the different precinct dispatchers and the traffic frequencies.
[ December 04, 2004, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: C St. SW ]
Natural Born Stringer
Well-known member
I did some checking for you - your profile says Wichita Falls, TX, so that's what I checked out.
Wichita Falls is planning to go online with a new digital ProVoice radio system by April '05. This gives you some time, but not much time, so convince your station to act now. You will need the real deal MA/COM ProVoice radios - there isn't and likely never will be a scanner capable of monitoring ProVoice. The good news is your station can buy them and have them programmed to receive-only mode so your newsdesk can continue to listen. The bad news is, if the PD wants to, they can flip a switch and lock your radio out if there's something going on that they don't want you to know about. Go online and look up MA/COM dealers in your area, they can hook you guys up with equipment that the PD can then program for you.
Threatening to call the PIO every 15 minutes may sound good, but it's not the answer. That's a good way to get a "hotline" put in place that they will record a message on whenever the mood strikes them. Piss them off, and the messages will get fewer and fewer, get it? You don't want this to happen.
Another option is to convince the PD to keep one of the old channels open so that the media can continue to monitor newsworthy events. That's the cheapest alternative, for your station anyway, but again, you run the risk of being kept in the dark whenever the mood suits.
Not sure what station you're with, but if you're a network affiliate, check in with your network affiliate in San Antonio. The PD there runs ProVoice also, so you can learn from that station's experiences, both good and bad. See what they did when the scanners went dead.
If all else fails, chances are your FD and ambo freq's will not change - you can get a great deal of info from these. I keep one scanner full time on FD dispatch and 8 out of 10 stories I sell come from that one scanner. I even hear about barricaded fugitives and drug lab busts this way. You just have to know what to listen for.
Good luck!
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