When I was a child I was happiest with the simple toys. You know the fishing lure and other similarly inexpensive items back when my mom still thought she had a boy. The kid in me was happy with things that cost between 1 and 5 dollars. With the adult me things have changed dramatically. I have done the computer game thing, The DVD thing, the big TV thing. All basically expensive toys. Recently I have decided on what my next adult toy will be. My new toy is going to be a police scanner to be specific the top of the line Uniden BC 785D scanner. This is probably much more complicated than I need however I have a simple policy on things of this nature. If you are going to splurge on something then splurge on the best. I have the Sony DVD player, the Sony TV, and so on. The police scanner should run me right around four hundred dollars. Some of the transgendered people reading this will probably think of this as a boy's toy. It's not. This is more of a geeks thing. I have been and probably always will be a geekette. It pays the bills and keeps me mentally entertained and challenged. While I have had blond hair in the past it never really fit me. The woman in me is nosy and a busy body who wants to know what's going on in the neighborhood and around town. So the easiest way to do this is to eavesdrop. Instead of listening at peoples doors and windows I instead listen to the air waves in the community.
With a scanner you can hear about car accidents and other injuries to people. I take a moment when I hear that someone has been injured, killed, or in danger, and offer a prayer for them. You are entertained by listening to reports of people who did dumb things and thus ended up afoul of the law. You find out about the domestic violence which you generally only hear about when it ends up with someone dead. You know when something has the potential to affect your life before it ends up on the nightly news. All this is available at little or no cost with a radio scanner. In addition to the police and other public safety officials you can listen to businesses, schools, airplanes, ships, trains and even the little personal radios which many people carry now a days. One of the things you can't listen to is cordless and cell phones. It's illegal to do so. Even so never assume that when you talk on a cordless phone that what you say is in the least bit private. It's fairly easy to pick them up if you know what to do and spend a few minutes looking. The newer digital cell phones are fairly secure but I would still use a bit of caution when talking on them.
My current scanner is a 50 channel Bearcat 855XLT 800mhz base unit. Here's is it's frequency list. With the new scanner I have coming I will be able to listen to much more as it allows 1000 channels. Scanner channels are broken down into banks which can be turned on or off. My current scanner has 5 of these with 10 channels each. Bank 1 and 2 is my primary banks. It contains Marine radio channels, police, and other miscellaneous stuff. Bank 3 is the local ham radio repeaters. It's fun listening to hams talking. Right now they have been discussion their arranging a ham fest here in Clarksville, TN. Finally we have banks 4 and 5. On this radio they contains my aviation frequencies. I have always wanted to be a pilot and fly planes but so far that hasn't happened yet. Listening airplanes and air traffic control gives me a small measure of satisfaction. If anyone has a spare ultra lite laying about and wouldn't mind giving it to me for free let me know
Channel Frequency Use
1 156.650 Marine Channel 13
2 156.800 Marine Channel 16
3 156.600 Marine Channel 12
4 156.700 Marine Channel 14
5 157.100 Marine Channel 22a
6 453.337 Montgomery County
7 460.350 Montgomery County
8 461.350 Montgomery County Rescue Squad
9 460.450 Henry County Sheriff Dept./APSU PD
10 460.125 Henry County Sheriff Dept.
11 460.250 Dover, TN Public Safety
12 155.895 Bi-County Waste
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14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21 147.000 Clarksville amateur Repeater 1
22 147.390 Clarksville amateur Repeater 2
23 147.990 Clarksville amateur Repeater 3
24 444.325 Clarksville amateur Repeater 4
25 444.950 Clarksville amateur Repeater 5
26
27
28
29
30
31 122.800 Clarksville Outlaw field CTAF & UNICOM
32 134.575 Outlaw Field WX ASOS
33 132.575 Outlaw Field WX AWOS-3
34 121.500 Aviation Emergency (Guard Frequency)
35 118.100 Fort Campbell Approach/Departure Control
36 121.800 Fort Campbell Ground Control
37 126.200 Fort Campbell Control Tower
38 134.500 Fort Campbell Approach Control
39 138.800 Fort Campbell Helicopter Operations
40 141.050 Fort Campbell ATIS
41 142.900 Fort Campbell Pilot to Dispatcher
42 139.300 Fort Campbell Flight following Center
43 34.150 Army Helicopters
44 34.650 Army Helicopters
45 34.750 Army Helicopters
46 41.500 Army Helicopters
47 123.025 Helicopters Air to Air
48 123.450 Air to Air (unofficial)
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