Can a scanner alert to a police radio?

[Stealth Stalker]

my second question was..."could i get a list of all the frequencys I drive in and program them in". So when I enter SC, the scanner will scan for the signal of the county im in....like a cell phone. If its has no signal.....no matter where I go, its gonna try to find one. Will a scanner do the same?

This entire question is not even worth your time or the bandwidth necessary to ponder it.

Police only transmit a signal when they are talking. And if they are talking, they're already busy doing something, and not sitting around looking for speeders. Consequently, almost every transmission you hear equals a "false alert". And to scan all the frequencies you are talking about would take over a full minute to cycle through, meaning the chances of catching anything that will be useful to you are about slim to none. Mostly none.

Scanning is a serious hobby, not something you just stick on your dash and wait for alerts from. If you are not going to commit a LOT of energy to learning the entire hobby, and how to make it work optimally for you, then don't even bother. And even then, you'll still probably never hear anything that is useful to you as a countermeasure.

Read the FAQ.

[sx4dude2013]

my second question was..."could i get a list of all the frequencys I drive in and program them in". So when I enter SC, the scanner will scan for the signal of the county im in....like a cell phone. If its has no signal.....no matter where I go, its gonna try to find one. Will a scanner do the same?

This entire question is not even worth your time or the bandwidth necessary to ponder it.

Police only transmit a signal when they are talking. And if they are talking, they're already busy doing something, and not sitting around looking for speeders. Consequently, almost every transmission you hear equals a "false alert". And to scan all the frequencies you are talking about would take over a full minute to cycle through, meaning the chances of catching anything that will be useful to you are about slim to none. Mostly none.

Scanning is a serious hobby, not something you just stick on your dash and wait for alerts from. If you are not going to commit a LOT of energy to learning the entire hobby, and how to make it work optimally for you, then don't even bother. And even then, you'll still probably never hear anything that is useful to you as a countermeasure.

Read the FAQ.

o. im not gonna get one then...

[johndoesix]

Don't forget to check the laws in your area. In my state, it's illegal to use a scanner in a vehicle unless you're a licensed ham. I believe there was also an exception for media.

The chases that don't make the news are always entertaining.

[Weeth]

my second question was..."could i get a list of all the frequencys I drive in and program them in". So when I enter SC, the scanner will scan for the signal of the county im in....like a cell phone. If its has no signal.....no matter where I go, its gonna try to find one. Will a scanner do the same?

This entire question is not even worth your time or the bandwidth necessary to ponder it.

Police only transmit a signal when they are talking. And if they are talking, they're already busy doing something, and not sitting around looking for speeders. Consequently, almost every transmission you hear equals a "false alert". And to scan all the frequencies you are talking about would take over a full minute to cycle through, meaning the chances of catching anything that will be useful to you are about slim to none. Mostly none.

Scanning is a serious hobby, not something you just stick on your dash and wait for alerts from. If you are not going to commit a LOT of energy to learning the entire hobby, and how to make it work optimally for you, then don't even bother. And even then, you'll still probably never hear anything that is useful to you as a countermeasure.

Read the FAQ.

I listen to the Dallas/Irving PD a lot and I've yet to hear anything related to radar/lidar or speed traps.

It's very entertaining to hear some of the stuff going on though.

[speeddemon]

My BCT-7 has a bear alert it sounds when it picks up a HP vehicle Trunk repeater radio signal you program it by state, it goes off every now and then so I guess they are still using them in some vehicles. Your best bet would be to look up your local & state freqs and program those into your scanner My county uses APCO-25 voice so you might need a digital scanner if your area uses that, other areas use conventional frequencies others use analog trunking. Don't expect to get much useful info though location wise. My Iphone has an app called 5-0 radio where you can choose a county and listen in on the action it even handles APCO-25 I tell you this to save you from shelling out $250-800 on a digital scanner as it only costs $3 and you can even record transmissions. I hope this helps you

[krypton2]

If you simply want to listen to the local police/fire/ems then get a simple scanner that meets your needs...you don't need one with 1000 channels, trunking, and all kinds of other stuff unless you actually will use it. I agree that when you get into the more complex stuff, it becomes a time-requiring hobby, not just something to do when you're bored.

If you're trying to detect all police across an entire trip as you trek across the continental USA, you're going to have an insanely difficult time keeping up with that. The only thing I can think of that can even get you close to that is the new HomePatrol, which is not only costly but still probably won't entirely meet those needs.

[Toolfan]

I quickly scanned threw the posts.. I haven't ever used one but when reading about them the Uniden Bear tracker enabled scanners were said to give you a signal,i think a beep , when the scanner detected activity on police frequency.Something you might look into yourself

[Sui]

If you simply want to listen to the local police/fire/ems then get a simple scanner that meets your needs...you don't need one with 1000 channels, trunking, and all kinds of other stuff unless you actually will use it. I agree that when you get into the more complex stuff, it becomes a time-requiring hobby, not just something to do when you're bored.

The problem is most PD's and EMS services are on trunked systems now, unless you live out in the middle of nowhere. Even so a lot of trucked systems from larger cities farm out frequencies to the surrounding smaller towns. And if the trunked systems one wants to listen to are digital, well, the price of the scanner just doubled. You have to ask yourself if you're going to seriously use a scanner that costs 400-500 bucks, if it's just an interest that comes and goes it's probably not worth the expense. If you're using it just for the occaisional road trip - then just buy a good CB instead - it will divulge a lot more information about speed traps anyway.

[DUI Elite]

I use it in GA all the time any analog scanner will work. You just go to radioreference.com and find the mobile extender frequencies for the state police. I am just lucky that GA still uses them, a lot of states do not use them anymore. I have a Pro-106 and Pro-107 either one works with picking up the mobile extenders. The Pro-106 you can program to chirp and flash when it detects the GSP which is pretty cool. If you really like listening to the police I would get the Pro-106 since a lot of agencies have moved to digital or have plans to do so in the future (especially in big metro areas).

And for your second question, you can go to radioreference and program in the state, local, county police frequencies for the areas you are traveling through and sort them however you like.

How many frequencies can you program in?? I'd thoroughly appreciate being able to listen to my staties and (my) suburb chatter.

[v1user]

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