PREP FUNG QUESTION: How many of you have top of the line( or adequate)communication equipment included in your preps?

B

Big Bob

Senior Member
Do your research before buying a scanner. My county has gone to a digital scrambled system. I can not receive it. I do still hear surrounding counties and state police.
 
LoupGarou

LoupGarou

Ancient Fuzzball
Ok, had to find the link, but here is a very good video on the different frequencies versus how they perform in real life, including a better visual on how NVIS works on the HF bands. 23m7s of a lot of good RF visual explanation. Thank you Issac....
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL4Ebh23Xgo


And a great website to play with to see if your radio horizon (as well as any natural blockages) are going to get in the way of your planned comms paths:
Move the two "pins" around on the map and see if you can get from one place on the map to another with your signals.
 
Last edited:
LoupGarou

LoupGarou

Ancient Fuzzball
Big Bob said:
Do your research before buying a scanner. My county has gone to a digital scrambled system. I can not receive it. I do still hear surrounding counties and state police.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Check Radioreference for your area to see if the signals in your area are just analog, trunked analog, digital (and what type) or trunked digital (and what type) and if they are encrypted or not.

I do have a few scanners that will handle trunked and non-trunked digital, but most of the police that are on those systems have encryption running as well, which makes it "impossible" to receive (at least legally). So check what you may want to listen to before buying anything so you won't be spending money for nothing. If you are just trying to find "info" you best bet may be just a standard analog scanner that can listen to the VHF and UHF bands in the 50MHz to 512MHz range, like the Uniden Bearcat BC125AT. Yes, this won't touch the 700 or 800MHz police frequencies, but in those areas they are probably encrypted now anyway, so no scanner will get you those signals and allow you to hear what they are saying. BUT, that does not mean that you can't find out at least some parts of what they are doing, since, while most police departments have encrypted their signals, the EMS and Fire departments mostly have not, so they are still "monitorable", and since a LOT of the time the police are called out, Fire and EMS are also called out if it is a big enough incident or emergency. And even if those frequencies are in the 700-800MHz range, most places have a "Simulcast" frequency that is in the 460MHz or 150-156MHz area so that the older systems in neighboring counties or other groups with voice pagers can still get those signals. Yes, you won't hear everythign that the police, EMS and Fire departments are saying, but you will hear the important parts. Plus, with the scanners like the BC125AT, you can quickly scan (and search) the frequencies that most of the public owned radios can do, like FRS, GMRS, MURS, Amatuer and others, as well as all of the other frequencies that radios like the Baofengs can do that are outside of those normal channels, but still searchable by scanners like the BC125AT. The groups that brought you the mostly peaceful riots 4 years ago loved using Baofengs and FRS/GMRS radios, and these scanners will detect them from quite a good distance, ESPECIALLY if you can connect to an external antenna that is up high off the ground. Antenna height is your friend.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top