10 Codes and Police Scanners

[TheDonna]

Okay so a member just made a post about learning 10-codes and added a link to his counties live police scanner feed.

Do any Florida officers know if we use 10-codes still?

Also, listening to the scanner...I can't understand what some of the officers/dispatchers are saying. They either say it too fast or its muffled or it sounds like only the last half of their sentence is coming through.

Does it just take time to pick up what their saying or am I just too mentally slow to catch some of it? O.o

[retdetsgt]

Might be the quality of your scanner???

You get used to it. When I first started, the radio was non stop busy and I struggled to keep up with what was going on. After a while, I could hold a conversation with someone and still pick up everything being said. It's a bit of an art.

I think it's the same with aircraft radios. I'm not a pilot, but a good friend of mine has his own plane and we used to go places together. I never did get the hang of what the hell they were talking about on it.

[Creeker]

Is this your scanner or the live feed over the internet?

It could also be the quality of your feed combined with digital radio systems?

Think about watching digital tv and how the signal sometimes drops out. Maybe the audio is dropping out.

When I started, my patrol radio speaker was mounted up above the steering column inside of the dashboard, so the volume had to be turned up. After a few months of that, those speakers would blow. Add to that the fact that many of our dispatchers spoke some bastidised southern Gullah, and I was stopping at nearly every payphone to get an interpretation from HQ.

[greg72982]

Also, listening to the scanner...I can't understand what some of the officers/dispatchers are saying. They either say it too fast or its muffled or it sounds like only the last half of their sentence is coming through.

Neither can we some of the time.

The ones at the one county I work in have the tendency to get on and say "*Insert town* unit(s):" and proceed to rattle everything off. Usually it's when I'm on the phone or something or have my attention diverted. It doesn't add much time to wait for me to acknowledge that I'm ready because if I'm not they just have to repeat it all again anyway.

[TheDonna]

Okay well that definitely makes me feel better! I'm going to assume that the first few months of listening to it during field training are going to be a tad confusing.

[mcsap]

It may take a bit to acquire " radio ears".

[MikeG]

Might be the quality of your scanner???

You get used to it. When I first started, the radio was non stop busy and I struggled to keep up with what was going on. After a while, I could hold a conversation with someone and still pick up everything being said. It's a bit of an art.

I think it's the same with aircraft radios. I'm not a pilot, but a good friend of mine has his own plane and we used to go places together. I never did get the hang of what the hell they were talking about on it.

Yes, it's very similiar. listening for you call sign, and monitoring other traffic. Being quick on the radio is very important. Also knowing where you are at all times and being able to correctly order the information that the tower/dispatch is wanting/needing.

The fun part is putting officers from two different jurisdictions in the same room. Here they share the same digital subsystem but they all have their own programming. One agencys hot tone is another agencies Officer Down tone. The look on the officers face when he hears his "OD tone" on the other agencies radio....

[Somebody]

Fortunately I have developed my "radio ears" though a few of my dispatchers are stone-deaf and miss things all the time. It is really like learning any language, I think. You just pick it up and it becomes second nature.

[Rlong1985]

Scanning is a more advanced form of the lost art of spinning and grinning on a receiver. The more sensitive you can adjust the frequenc allows you to pick up weaker transmissions. If you want good “ears” you need to be able to pick up all the transmitters and repeaters in the conversation. I learned a long time ago that scanner reception has a lot to do with the ability of the operator to receive radio frequency energy. If you have major obstacles (mountains, large buildings, atmospherics, ect) in the transmission path it will interfere with your reception. There is little you can do about these obstacles other than provide a more sensitive antenna for the receiver (aka scanner).

If your interested in scanning, or RF theory I can provide more information.