Throughout seminary and several years before I became an Army Chaplain, one of my hobbies was listening to my police scanner. I rose to become a licensed Amateur Radio Operator (KG4RFL).
Then came 9-11. After the terrorists attacks on 9-11, the police frequencies I once followed moved more and more to digital signals. Slowly, I began to listen less and less as my equipment became more and more obsolete. The hobby, then would take more money and time to keep up with the quickly moving technology.
Occasionally, I still look back to the hobby I used to enjoy. I looked back just the other day and found a wonderful new tool.
When I was actively listening, my favorite guide for finding frequencies was a little book published in Upstate South Carolina by Radio Reference. Thinking about this, I searched for “Radio Reference” and found: www.radioreference.com. It appears it is a much bigger version of the same company that I used back in the day I listened regularly.
When I went to the site, I was genuinely excited to see that they are still in business. It was nice to see that there are still some people in the hobby.
Then I looked deeper.
What I found was a powerful website of everything I could ever ask for! On RadioReference.com I found live audio feeds of hundreds of Police Radios. From these feeds, I can listen to different police and emergency frequencies throughout the country.
Also, listed on the site, there are detailed databases that I can work to build my radios back into shape without much research needed. They have the data on all FCC radio frequencies needed for scanning as well as having these broken down into chunks that can help program my scanner. I was also given detailed instructions on how to program my scanners which I haven’t used in awhile.
I have to admit, I didn’t realize that I could get dragged back into the scanning hobby so fast, but radioreference.com gave me the tools to make this happen.