Fire nearby - Best freeware Police/Fire Scanner (which do YOU use?)

SUMMARY for IOS:

  1. Desktop shortcut to
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  2. 5-0 Radio Police Scanner By Smartest Apps LLC
  3. Scanner Radio Deluxe By GordonEdwards.net LLC
  4. Police Scanner+ Free By Rego Apps

SUMMARY FOR ANDROID:

  1. Desktop shortcut to
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  2. Scanner Radio Deluxe By GordonEdwards.net LLC

DETAILS:

Here's a preliminary answer to the question of which free police/fire scanner works best on iOS and Android.

In the past, the main recommendation was "5-0 Scanner" but a recent (accidental) test of (a copycat) version on Android showed the copycat to be unusable due to ads, lack of background, lack of working with the screen off, etc.

However, a test of version 39.0 of 5-0 Scanner on iOS worked fine.

- It played the frequency I wanted (CalFire SCU)

- It worked in the background

- It worked with the screen blanked

- And the ads were acceptably unobtrusive

So, I'll still *list* 5-0 Scanner, even though it doesn't seem to be on Android, although "similarly" named (but horrid) apps exist with "5-0 Scanner" in their name!

*iOS* 5-0 Radio Police Scanner By Smartest Apps LLC
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*Android:* Do not use any Android app named "5-0 Scanner" as they are horrid copycats.

- Police Scanner 5-0 by Logicord LLC (horrid)

My favorite "app" for KISS operation, is "Scanner Radio", which uses "volunteers" to host the stations and whose ads are not obtrusive:

*iOS:* Scanner Radio Deluxe By GordonEdwards.net LLC
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*Android:* Scanner Radio by GordonEdwards.net LLC

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Honorable mention goes to "Police Scanner +" which meets the original 4 requirements plus adds two features:

- It records the output

- It can start and stop on a timer

*iOS:* Police Scanner+ Free By Rego Apps
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Lastly, simply putting a *desktop shortcut* of the broadcastify URL is probably the *simplest* solution, which works on *all platforms*:

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So to test it out, I created a pin on my desktop to that link above:

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On Android, you can pin a link to the desktop using this procedure: a. Open up the URL in Firefox b. Bookmark the URL c. Open the Bookmarks editor d. Long press on the bookmark d. Select the save to desktop option (

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Once I pinned that link to the desktop, I selected that "Santa Cruz County Fire and CalFire" desktop link. (

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Once at that suggested web page, I hit the "play" button on: "Santa Cruz County Fire and CalFire"

That started the scanner working.

In summary, the iOS 5-0 Scanner app is fine. I was fooled by the fact that, on Android, someone "copied" the name and made a horrid app that is useless, but there were great apps on both Android and iOS (as listed above).

Thanks! I hope everyone benefits from the value added by all.

Reply to
Horace Algier
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Note that Broadcastify archives recordings. You can download these recordings for later playback. That became very useful when trying to piece together what happened when two local fire departments couldn't find a fire location[1]. However, you do need to pay for a premium account: I don't need to download scanner sessions very often, so I just pay when I need a download.

[1] To be uncharacteristically fair, just about everyone involved screwed up in some manner. Summed together, the result was a mess. The RP (reporting part) was in such a state of panic they she was screaming into her iphone 4 at the 911 dispatcher, rendering her speech unintelligible. She wouldn't stop to listen to the dispatchers instructions. The dispatcher didn't tell her to not yell into the mic, but told her to slow down, which did nothing useful. Meanwhile, the street was on the border between two jurisdictions, both of whom arrived in force, creating a huge traffic jam. There was also a street/road with the same name nearby. The dispatcher guessed which street, and guessed wrong. Plenty of other scrweups, all nicely recorded by Broadcastify.
--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks Jeff for that hint that Broadcastify also *records* transmissions.

I would love to re-listen to that communication yesterday where clearly a leader chastised a crew for allowing other crews to go back to San Jose without telling the leader.

To answer the original question, it seems that Broadcastify is really the way to go. a. It is usable as a simple browser desktop link b. The free apps seem to use it anyway c. It archives for you (which I didn't know)

Given that a scanner for emergencies needs to be KISS, I love the link in my emergency folder to your suggested site.

BTW, today I called the Cal Fire folks and they told me it's about 2K acres, with about 100 trucks and 50 teams, a score each of choppers, dozers, and tankers, and about 1,000 fire personnel.

Is that big or small in terms for this area? (I missed the huge pre-earthquake fires so I've only seen little ones in the interim.)

Nice to know there are recordings on Broadcastify.

I think broadcastify directly, or an app that uses broadcastify, is the canonical way to go for a KISS emergency fire scanner in the desktop emergency folder.

I haven't tried to make a link on iOS from the browser, but that should be easily doable for the iOS users.

Reply to
Horace Algier

Broadcastify MIGHT work, but there's a problem. Many of the scanners reflected by Broadcastify over multiple channels. There's no guarantee that any particular scanner will be listening to a frequency of interest. That causes big problems when there are two or more channels with active incidents. At the time when I made the recording that I mentioned, there was a local only scanner for SLV (San Lorenzo Valley) area fire. It's now gone.

You might try doing your own recording: The difference between these recorders, and the common music recorders, is that scanner recorders stop recording when there's no audio. All the dead air gaps disappear. Most also have a real time marker system, so you know when something was heard.

For fire, you might want to also try: which has recordings of fire dispatches. The recordings are for dispatches and callouts, and are not intended for archiving the entire incident. Using the RSS feeds are the best way to follow the dispatches.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Good point in that any one "feed" on broadcastify can be made up of multiple channels, not all of which are recorded (nor are both sides necessarily recorded).

I've always wanted a recorder on the mobile device which skips over dead space.

As you can tell from my desktop screenshots, I use "Easy Voice Recorder" freeware, but it doesn't skip over dead space AFAIK.

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Looking for a free sound recorder on the mobile device which starts and stops when the sound level is high enough, I find this:

Auto Recorder by Giuseppe Romano

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The settings have a few options, such as the file type and size, and the pro version adds other options such as whether to start automatically or wait for your command, or even whether to start from a text message.

It doesn't have a setting to change its default storage location, but I can easily enough use a freeware file redirector to automagically move it from the local storage to the flash drive. If folks know of a better freeware audio recorder that will stop and start based on volume for either iOS or Android, that would be useful.

Interesting, they seem to have 30-second and 90-second and 30-minute snippets recorded at various qualities. Seems like they could do with a single recording, at a single quality, but I guess that they want to do it right.

Reply to
Horace Algier

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