Introduction to Scanning by Bob Parnass, AJ9S [NOTE: This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part in bulletin boards, networks, or publications which charge for service without permission of the author. Free distribution is encouraged.] This introduction is intended for people new to the scan- ning hobby. It tells where you can buy your first scanner, what features it should have, how to get frequency informa- tion, and mentions a few scanner clubs worth joining. Why Scanning? Every day and night, scanner hobbyists are entertained by what they overhear on their radios. Police cars, fire engines, ambulances, armored cars, trains, taxis, air- planes, and buses are all equipped with radios and you can listen to them. You can monitor the local sheriff and fire departments to hear about events "as they happen," before the news reporters hear about them. Hostage dramas, bank robberies, car crashes, chemical spills, tornado sightings are all fair game. In a single afternoon, you can hear a high speed police chase, Drug Enforcement agents on a sting operation, and undercover FBI agents as they stakeout a suspect. How about listening to a presidential candidate discuss strategy with his advisor from a 415 MHz radiophone in Air Force 1, or a team of G-men protect him while transmitting in the 167 MHz range? Listen to your neighbors deal drugs over their cordless telephone, or as their conversations are picked up and transmitted over the airwaves by their sensitive baby moni- tor intercom. Yes, it's legal to listen, and it's all there in the 46 and 49 MHz ranges. Stay ahead of road conditions by listening to highway road crews, snow plows, and traffic helicopter pilots. Take your scanner to sporting events and listen to race car drivers, football coaches, etc., in the 151, 154, and 468 MHz ranges. Listen to airline pilots as they talk with air traffic con- trollers and their companies between 108 and 137 Mhz. Monitor the everyday hustle and bustle of businesses, from cable TV repair crews tracking down pirate descrambler boxes, to security guards at your nuclear power plant or mall security guards chasing a shoplifter. You can even listen to the order taker's wireless micro- phone at the local McDonald's restaurant on 154.6 and 35.02 MHz! Is Scanning Legal? In the United States, scanning from your home or at work is perfectly legal in most situations. The Electronic Commun- ications Privacy Act of 1986 made it illegal to listen to mobile phones, and a few other types of communication, but many scanners cover these frequencies, and it's clear that Americans still listen to whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes despite the ECPA. Speaking of privacy, federal law also requires you to keep what you hear to yourself and not use the information you hear on your scanner for personal gain. Be aware that California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont have laws pertaining to scanning while in your car. Indiana restricts some portable scanners. You can find out about these restrictions in a 39 page paperback, ANARC Guide to U. S. Monitoring Laws, compiled by Frank Terranella, avail- able for $7.50 from ANARC Publications, P.O. Box 462, Northfield, MN 55057. What Scanner Should I Buy? Radio Shack, Uniden (Bearcat and Regency brands), and Cobra offer a wide choice of scanners. Personally, I don't recommend AOR brand scanners. Scanners are available in two varieties: crystal controlled and programmable. The crystal controlled models are cheaper, but require the user purchase and install a $5 crystal for each frequency of interest. Programmable (syn- thesized) units don't require crystals and usually have a keypad that permits you to store frequencies into channels. Programmables are now so cheap it doesn't make sense to buy a crystal unit as your main scanner unless you get it for under $45 or so. You can get a battery operated hand held scanner, a bigger "base" scanner which is powered from an AC outlet, or a mobile scanner which connects to your auto's electrical system. Make sure your first scanner: 1. has a "search" feature, which allows it to search all the frequencies between two frequency limits of your choosing. The lowest cost programmables can't search. 2. covers the 800 MHz band unless you live in a very rural area where this band is not used. Usage of the 800 MHz band is growing by leaps and bounds. If you're not sure whether you'll like scanning, don't want to spend much money, a 16 channel radio will do. In gen- eral, the more channels and banks, the better. Deluxe scanners can be controlled by a personal computer, although this feature isn't important to most scanner own- ers. Currently, the more popular scanners include the Uniden/Bearcat 760XLT (a/k/a 950XLT) and Radio Shack PRO- 2004 and PRO-2005 base/mobiles, and the Uniden/Bearcat 200XLT (a/k/a 205XLT) and Radio Shack PRO-34 portables. All scanners come with a built in antenna, permitting reception up to about 20 miles or so. Outdoor antennas can extend reliable reception to 100 miles or more. Where Can I Buy A Scanner? Almost every community has at least one Radio Shack store, and you can find scanners there. Discount chain stores like Service Merchandise sell scanners, but carry just a few models. Department stores, like Sears and Montgomery Wards, sometimes offer scanners, although at high prices. The best deals on new scanners are from reputable mail order firms like Grove Enterprises (Brasstown, NC), Scanner World (Albany, NY), or National Tower Company (Shawnee Mis- sion, KS). Many ham radio dealers, like Amateur Electron- ics Supply (Milwaukee, WI), also sell scanners. See the shortwave "welcome" article for the addresses of other scanner suppliers. Used scanners may be found at hamfests, flea markets, or listed in the classified advertisement section of your newspaper. Where Can I Obtain Frequency Information? To avoid chaos, the FCC licenses two-way radio users and assigns them specific frequencies. Groups of frequencies are allocated to specific types of users, so you won't usu- ally find fire departments using the same frequencies as taxi drivers, for example. Scanner enthusiasts can obtain frequency information from several sources, including books, government microfiche records, or other listeners. Books: The most convenient source of fire, police, and local government frequencies is the Police Call Radio Guide, published each year in 9 regional volumes by Hollins Radio Data, and sold at Radio Shack and larger book stores for about $7. I also recommend Richard Prelinger's 1985 book, Monitor America, published by SMB Publishing, and available from Grove Enterprises for about $15. Although somewhat out of date, this single edition contains 582 pages of police, fire, local government, news media, sports, national park, and commercial broadcast frequencies for all 50 states. It contains detailed communications system profiles and pre- cinct maps for major metropolitan areas. Police and fire radio codes and unit identifiers unique to local agencies are listed for several cities. This differs from Police Call, which gives a more sterile, but uniform treatment of licensees, listing even the smallest of towns. Uniden has published several regional directories using the "Betty Bearcat" name, although there are much better direc- tories available from Scanner Master (Newton Highlands, MA) for some regions. The most readily available source of sensitive US govern- ment frequencies is still Tom Kneitel's 168 page Top Secret Registry of US Government Radio Frequencies. Published by CRB Research, the 6th edition is available from Grove Enterpises for about $19. Kneitel's book contains fre- quency listings for NASA, military, FBI, Secret Service, DEA, IRS, Border Patrol, arsenals, ammunition plants, mis- sile sites, and others in the 25 to 470 MHz range. Magazines: Although national in circulation, local fre- quency information is sometimes available in Grove's Moni- toring Times and Kneitel's sensationalistic Popular Commun- ications. The best frequency lists are often found in club publications, discussed later. Government Records: Every year, the US Government sells FCC license information, in the form of microfiche, floppy disk, and magnetic tape, to the public through the US Department of Commerce National Technical Information Ser- vice (NTIS). The high cost of buying government records limits their appeal to hardcore enthusiasts. You can write for a catalog of FCC Master Frequency Database items to the NTIS, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161. Do Your Own Frequency Detective Work When you try listening to a frequency for the first time, you'll want to know who you're hearing. Although FCC rules require radio users to identify their operations with their assigned call letters, most ignore the regulation. This often makes it difficult to know who is transmitting. There is a challenge in deriving new spectrum usage infor- mation on your own. Sometimes it requires several days of listening, taping, and compiling fragments of information. Other times, the frequency information is there for the taking - without hassle. You can approach from two directions: 1. Listen first: Monitor a frequency or frequencies, and try to determine who's transmitting and what purpose the channel serves. Once you identify the user, log the information. 2. Compile first: Take advantage of opportunities, such as examining the frequency label on a guard's radio, or reading the FCC license hanging on the "radio room" wall, to compile frequency lists, then monitor the listed frequencies to confirm that they are really in use. Readers are urged to abide by the rules of good taste and local laws in the quest for frequency information. Don't trespass, wait for an invitation. Most listeners use a combination of both approaches. You can examine the FCC license on premise. I have found the actual FCC radio license, complete with frequency assignments, hanging on the walls of places like the mall security office or company guard shack. You can examine the labels on radio equipment. Frequency information is engraved on labels on the back of many walkie-talkies, or inside the battery compartment, like in the Motorola HT220 model. Most pagers have labels on the bottom or inside. Like passwords taped onto terminals, it's not uncommon to find Dymo tape labels embossed with frequencies or call letters glued to the front of base stations. You can make your own opportunities for eyeing the equip- ment or take advantage of "open house" events. If informa- tion is displayed publicly, then a reasonable person could assume it's not government secret. Hobbyists are urged to exercise a modicum of restraint and good judgement, how- ever. How Can I Use Equipment to Uncover New Frequencies? If you don't know the exact frequency, but have a general idea of the range (e.g. 150 - 152 MHz), use your scanner's "search" mode. Most programmable scanners afford the abil- ity to search between two frequency limits set by the user. Three models, the ICOM R7000, Bearcat 250, and Regency K500, have the ability to automatically store active fre- quencies found during an unattended search operation. To find the frequency of a hotel communications system, one fellow installed his Bearcat 250 in his car and parked in the hotel lot, leaving the scanner in the "search and store" mode. He left the antenna disconnected so the scanner would only respond to a transmitter in the immedi- ate vicinity. Aside from a scanner and antenna, the most useful piece of equipment for sleuthing is a voice actuated (VOX) cassette tape recorder. You don't need a high fidelity model or anything fancy, a Radio Shack CTR-75 or CTR-82 will do. It's best to use a shielded cable to feed the scanner audio into the recorder rather than relying on the recorder's internal microphone. VOX recorders allow one to compress a whole day's worth of monitoring onto a single tape. I often leave a recorder "armed" and connected to a scanner at home while I am at the office or doing something else. When call letters are mumbled, I can play and replay the tape until I hear and understand them. Test equipment can aid in the quest for new frequency information. I've used a spectrum analyzer connected to an outside antenna, and a frequency counter for close-in work. Are There Any Scanner Clubs? One of the best parts of the hobby is sharing it with other radio buffs. Trading information with other hobbyists about frequencies, communication systems, and receiving equipment is more valuable than any pile of magazines. The world's largest scanner club is the Radio Communica- tions Monitoring Association (RCMA). Founded in 1975, the RCMA is the "first national and international organization of monitor radio listeners." There are several regional chapters which hold regular meetings. Club dues are $18.50 per year, which includes a monthly newsletter of about 95 pages. Although the focus is on VHF and UHF ranges, there is coverage of HF utility stations below 30 MHz. Inquiries about RCMA membership should be sent to RCMA Gen- eral Manager, P.O. Box 542, Silverado, CA 92676, USA. A smaller club is the All Ohio Scanner Club. Its bimonthly publication, The American Scannergram, is about 60 pages long. Although concentrating on Ohio, there is frequency information from other states, and plenty of good product reviews and scanning tips. Annual dues are $15 and more information is available from All Ohio Scanner Club, 50 Villa Road, Springfield, OH 45503.