How to Make a Police Scanner

[Revolutionary Souljah]

does anyone know how to make a police scanner? can anyone post some links or helpful information?

[which doctor]

Can't you just buy one? I think they would be difficult to make on your own unless you know electronics.

[Zero]

http://www.police-scanner.info/

[RedAnarchist]

My grandad has a police radio, and he sometimes listens in. Is it impossible for the police to find out?

[Rollo]

I suppose if they had security to an insane degree. Since when can someone own radio waves tho?

[Janus]

Depending on where you live, the monitoring of certain channels are illegal as is the importation of certain types of scanners.

[Black Dagger]

I heard that there is a way to stream police scanners on the internet, does anyone know anything about that? If that's illegal, never mind then :P

[RebelOutcast]

Have you ever seen what's inside a decent portable radio let alone what's inside a reciever designed to recieve and decode encrypted trunked radio at around 400mhz?

There is absolutely no way to design and build a reciever to pick up modern police comms.
You could buy a software defined radio kit and design software to decode the signal but that would still set you back more than half a grand and you'd still need some hardcore technical knowledge not only of a programming language but of the protocol used to encode and trunk the radio.

So no. No you cannot.

[RebelOutcast]

Double post but whatever, on the subject of illegality, yes it most likely is illegal to monitor police radio in your area but since recievers put out no tell tale transmissions the only way they would catch you is if you went up to the cop shop and openly admitted it.

[Sadena Meti]

In the US, non-mobile police scanners are always legal. The frequencies are public use by definition, because they police are part of the public state. Now if the police choose to encrypt their comms, and you then decrypt it, that is a crime, but 99% do not do that. Also, some states have laws against mobile use of scanners, i.e. using one while on the go. And of course, you can do illegal things with what you hear (show up and interfer) but in those cases it is the action not the listening that is illegal.

Scanning isn't as easy as you might thing though, simply because of the myriad of agencies and frequencies used, and the fact that scanner manufacturers love making programing your scanner insanely complicated. But once you get the hang of it and get your hands on the right info, it can be very useful.

I keep a mobile Uniden in my car wired into the aux jack on my stereo. Great way to find out about things going on around you. And of course, it has great counter-surveilance virtues when you are at an action. I've got mine programed for the 11 counties around my house, gives me about a 50 mile radius. But if I'm going outside that area, I have to do about half an hour of research and programing.

[Comeback Kid]

There was a link to the NSW police channel over the stream on the web posted her in a thread about the Cronulla Riots if my memory serves me correctly.

[Black Dagger]

Yeah that's what i was talkin' about...

Dunno what happened to that...

[OneBrickOneVoice]

why would you want one?

[The Advent of Anarchy]

why would you want one?

Good question, my feline friend (looking at your avatar). Why would he want a police scanner?

He might want to know what the police are doing for fun, he's Spider-Man and needs to know where the baddies are, there's a police woman he would like to stalk, he wants to use an IED on something, or he wants to stop the police car in order to scream "WORKERS UNITE!" into the police speaker thing, making his voice appear on the police scanner for about 15 seconds, because by then he would've been knocked out by the policewoman he wants to stalk by her knightstick.

These are all very valid reasons, and there are always more, my cute little kitten.

[BreadBros]

Some municipalities stream their police and emergency communications over the internet for free. Just google for your city name + "police scanner" or something similar. Its mostly big cities that do it, I believe.

[RedArmyFaction]

My dad used to have a scanner. It was a general kind of scanner that picked up all radio waves so you could listen to different police forces, taxi drivers, lorry drivers, and also private conversations from mobile phones. I always liked listening in to people conversations !! I haven't seen any scanners around in shops for years so i'm thinking perhaps it's illegal now to sell one.