Issues with Scanners

It’s been mighty quiet around my house and office for the last three weeks or so, and talking to others, I find many have experienced a quiet not experienced in a long time.

What am I talking about? Jasper County has complied with the federal mandate for all radios to be narrow-banded, and while making the change, it also went digital with encrypted transmission. What does that mean? All of us who have scanners, and routinely listen to police, sheriff, fire, and ambulance calls are hearing nothing…or maybe a bunch of static, but that’s all.

We can still hear the school bus transmissions as well as some other non-emergency traffic, but the local emergency services are all out of range for our old scanners. I’m sure the day will come when we can again purchase a scanner and program it to pick up on those transmissions, but it may be a while.

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I’ve had a scanner in my house and at the newspaper for as long as I’ve known they were available.

Some people can’t stand to have a scanner around, talking all the time. I dated one man years ago who detested the infernal noise of that scanner going on all the time, and asked how could I stand it. And many visitors to my home or office have commented on it being a nuisance.

In reality, when you have it on 24/7, you tune out much, but somehow know when to tune in. You really have to get used to it to be able to hear and understand what’s being said.

Law enforcement, in particular, generally uses codes rather than plain talk for much of their transmissions, so it takes a little while to learn the codes.

I was only a little surprised when I visited Jimmy’s house for the first time that he, too, had a scanner. He was a volunteer firefighter in Maryland before he moved to Georgia, so he got used to listening to the radio then. When he moved to Stockbridge, he listened to emergency calls and police traffic there.

When we visit Jimmy’s brother in Maryland, we can count on hearing that infernal noise there, too.

In the newspaper business, we perk up when an attention signal sounds. When the ambulance or firefighters were paged out, it began with an attention signal—a high-pitched, hard to ignore, tone.

And, whether at home or at work, it seems when you hear a familiar name it always gets your attention, even if you were oblivious to the chatter seconds before. And, when you’re snoozing, that high-pitched tone will wake you from the deepest sleep (as long as you didn’t accidentally turn the volume on the scanner way down).

But, now it’s silence. Back to the days of chasing the firetruck to see where it’s going. I’m trying to build a system of informants who can let me know what’s going on, but in the meantime, your news tips mean more to us than ever.

So, please, if you see a wreck, a structure fire, any breaking news, call my cell phone, 706-318-7396 or the office, 706-468-6511 if it’s business hours.

And, for those of you who thought your scanner was messed up. It’s not. It’s the transmission. I apologize for not informing you sooner. I’ve written about the narrow banding on many occasions over the past year, I knew it was coming. It wasn’t until the third or fourth person said something to me that I realized that not everyone knew that the new radios would prevent our old scanners from working.