Digital Police Scanner

Digital Police Scanner

In the United States, Homeland Security is encouraging state and local government agencies to transition to communications systems that are AP25 compliant and a lot of people are buying a digital police scanner to be able to monitor the communications. That is easier said than done. The AP25 communications devices can, and many do, come with lots and lots of options. This can get really complicated due to the number of issues the regulations are trying to address. Things like the ability to communication with older, (known as legacy) non digital units.

There are so many options that many departments are opting to buy bare-bones types of systems in order to save money. The budgets are tight and even with government incentives and grant money, many municipalities still don’t have enough in their budgets to get what they really want and need. Some of these are buying ‘stop gap’ types of systems so they will still be in compliance but in the long run, that may prove to be a costly short sighted decision.

Digital Police Scanner

For those of us wanting to listen in on these types of communications,a digital police scanner is required. You can check to see if the local police and fire and any other type of communications systems you want to monitor are digital. Just know that even  if they are not digital now, there’s a really good chance that they will be in the future. That means that really good deal you got on an analog police scanner may not end up being such a good deal when they transition to digital communications. At that point, that analog scanner you have, will be useless. You may be able to recoup some of your money by selling the unit online but that’s not much of a consolation.

So at some point you will need a digital police scanner to monitor just about any type of public service communications at all.

The good news is that these units are available now. The bad news is that the digital police scanners are not that easy to set up. If you buy one and expect to just put batteries in it and be able to start listening, you will certainly be disappointed. The set up on these digital units can be really time consuming and tedious. I’m am not saying that to discourage you, quite the contrary, I think you should have a digital scanner but just be prepared to take some time getting it programmed properly for your area and for the systems you want to monitor.

The next thing you should be prepared for is ‘sticker shock’. Digital police scanners are a lot more money than analog units. These are tools and not toys and it costs money for these units to be able to decode the various types of encryption methods outlined in the AP25 regulations. Even people experienced in radio communications sometimes spend several hours in order to get the units working for their area.

There are lots of online forums where people have posted, or shared the settings they have found that work best for their areas. If you live in a fairly large city, this information can save you hours and hours of frustration.

Another thing you should know is that you will have to read the operations manual, not once, but several times. There are some things that just will not ‘click’ the first few times you read it. Once you start making some progress, then you will end up with a lot more ‘ah ha’ moments.

In the end, the time and patience you take setting the unit up will be worth it. Properly set up, these units should work exactly the way you want them to.

About the only other issue, is that the antenna that comes with most of the units are considered ‘broad band’ antennas. The problem is that this type of antenna does not work exceptionally well on any band. They are designed to be basically mediocre on all bands. If you are like most people, you will find that there is one frequency band (usually the 800MHz band) where most of the communications you are interested in is taking place. The key is to replace the broad band antenna with an antenna specifically tuned to the band you are most interested in monitoring. Performance on your digital police scanner will be greatly improved.

It can be a lot of fun owning a digital police scanner. Also, keep in mind you may want an aircraft scanner in addition to your digital police scanner. Just be sure you make the best decision regarding analog or digital police scanner.