Scanners are used by many different people, from radio hobbyists to everyday folks who just want to keep an ear on what's happening around town. Scanners are also used by the news media as well as people who love news and want to hear all about it as it happens. Others are concerned in today's environment for personal and neighborhood safety and want to stay in tune with the fantastic job our public servants perform. Speaking of our public servants, police departments nationally use scanners to allow them to keep tabs on adjoining departments and jurisdictions in case incidents in one community, such as a car chase, may move into their own or, in the case of fire departments, they may be called for mutual aid at a fire. This is called communications interoperability and scanners can be a critically important tool for public safety in this manner. Newspapers, TV and radio stations all use scanners to gather the news and report on it. There are actually hundreds of ways scanners are used for a variety of public safety, social and even entertainment purposes.

Many amateur radio operators have scanners in their 'ham shacks' to monitor emergency situations in thier comunity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analog scanners/receivers have been around since the early 60's.

They are simple FM narowband 25 Khz and 12.5 Khz receivers.

Some are capable of sophisticated reception schemes such as  Motorola trunking, EDACS and LTR (Logic Trunked Radio).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital scanners decode APCO P-25 non-encrypted transmissions automatically (encrypted communications cannot be decrypted). A few agencies operate in encryption full time e.g. military. There are also a few non-standard digital radio systems that are not monitorable at this time such as EDACS ProVoice, M/A-COM OpenSky and European Tetra. Many agencies also used MDT’s (mobile data terminals), the computers in the patrol cars as well as cellular and NEXTEL phones for private communications. These cannot be monitored in any way.

APCO P-25 reception is becoming more common and P-25 can be either conventional or trunked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Lone Star Communications and Electronics,LLC  2010 All Rights Reserved

All references to "Lone Star Communications and Electronics" and the Lone Star Communications & Electronics logo are registered trade marks ®.

For comments or questions about the Lone Star Communications and Electronics website contact the Webmaster.