Update! Live Police Audio (Marion County)

[tbhausen]

Hi, everybody...

I've mentioned this a few times here in the past, but I want to post a reminder, as I've made an important enhancement to what I'm providing the community here and I want everyone who uses my audio feed to take advantage of it.

First, a couple of very important reminders:

1. This audio is provided for information and entertainment only! Using law enforcement communications for any other purpose (such as going to the scene of an incident or to evade law enforcement) is unlawful. The courts (and law enforcement agencies) have little tolerance for those who misuse law enforcement communications. Please don't jeopardize our ability to remain informed. More and more agencies are encrypting their radio transmissions--don't hasten that here in central Indiana.

2. It is unlawful to receive police communications in a moving vehicle (or even as a pedestrian) unless you hold a valid FCC amateur radio license. This includes all types of players, including smartphones. If you are caught doing so, your equipment will be confiscated and you will be cited. Again, please know and obey the law. Amateur radio is a great hobby; it's lots of fun and the license is easy to obtain after some basic study and a simple test. Experience has proven that some LEO's aren't fully aware of the law regarding this issue, and many people are often not well-informed about their legal right to listen in (see http://www.wthr.com/story/14671565/police-scanner-apps-illegal-in-indiana for an example). If you hold an FCC license, it's a good idea to carry a copy of it and the applicable Indiana code in your vehicle at all times. Here's the Indiana code: http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/scanlaws/laws/scanner/in.html and here's a great source of info about scanner laws in all 50 states: http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/scanlaws/index.html.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let's get to the good stuff! This is what I'm talking about:

Marion County Police Dispatch Live Scanner Audio Feed

I am the "feed provider" for the above-linked live audio feed. I maintain the hardware and software necessary to broadcast Marion County Police Dispatch (Indy Metro, Speedway, Lawrence, and Beech Grove) live audio to compatible internet-based players. These include iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc. There are also a number of mobile-OS based players, such as Scanner Radio (Android) and WunderRadio (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry) which can be used to listen in. If you're listening on a mobile device rather than via the direct link above, just use the app to "drill down" to USA > Indiana > Marion County > Marion County Police Dispatch and you will have found me

The channels I'm broadcasting are chosen in strict accordance with policies established by RadioReference.com, the provider of the "backend system" of servers which makes this all possible for the thousands of feed providers who, like myself, choose to put their local agencies (where their equipment can monitor each system) online. These policies are strict--channels such as investigations, tactical, etc. may not be broadcast (in summary, only dispatch and special events channels are permitted). Again, this is to protect our ability to continue to be able to listen. I take these restrictions very seriously and make every effort to abide by them without exception.

Now, the "enhancement":

If you've listened in the past, you've never been able to tell exactly which agency might have been transmitting at any particular time--now you can! Big thanks goes to Bob Aune (proscan.org), the developer of RadioFeed (the utility I use to "send" audio to the RadioReference servers), as he just yesterday added the ability to stream these "text tags", along with the audio, for my particular scanner model (Uniden HomePatrol-1) and I've set them up to ID the agencies as they transmit. This is something I've looked forward to for a long time, and I'm very glad to be able to do it! You must be using a compatible player to read these tags--iTunes and WinAmp, for example. WunderRadio is the only Andriod app I'm aware of that displays them (it's $4 to $7, depending upon platform, but worth every penny).

EDIT: Scanner Radio (Android) was updated yesterday to support display of tags, as well.

Enjoy! And all you INGO'er LEO's, be careful out there!

 

[tbhausen]

Another important point for those who enjoy monitoring live scanner audio over the internet... The live feeds which have been accessed through RadioReference.com will be transitioning to a new web site:

www.broadcastify.com

Both the new and old systems will run in parallel for awhile, but the transition should be complete by year's end. This won't change how any specialized/mobile apps work--only how the feeds are directly accessed via a web browser.

 

[GREEN607]

Very cool, my friend!

 

[tbhausen]

Couple of quick updates here:

1. We've moved! Although it was only a short distance (one suite further south in our building), even small moves (or moving the radio a couple of feet) can make a big difference in reception. In this case, we're copying much more, and higher quality, audio than ever before. If you haven't listened in a while, or given up due to long periods of silence, have a listen now. The feed's never sounded better.

2. Good news for Android users! Scanner Radio by Gordon Edwards was updated yesterday to include display of text tags. This is something I've been hoping for for a couple of years now. It's great to see what agencies are transmitting. This is much easier than the semi-private webcam I used to have aimed at the scanner's display for this purpose. Enable display of tags by ticking the box next to "Settings > Player Settings > Parse metadata".

 

[Hammerhead]

Looks like Police Scanner Plus does the tags too. Awesome.


ETA: Police Scanner+ is an app on my iPad. I don't know if it's available for Android.

 

[Jaredjosh]

I love to listen to this while watching the INDY911 map. So thank you very much.

http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS0301/70416062/Interactive-Indy-911-Calls-V2-0

 

[Indy60]

I never knew this was available, just tuned in Hamilton County. Thanks!

 

[No2rdame]

Thank you for providing this! Seriously, I got my wife and my neighbors hooked on listening to the scanners, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when the most interesting calls come in.

Somewhat off topic, but the best call I heard yet was the report of a UFO in Hamilton County. The dispatcher and responding LEO both sounded thrilled about that call. No UFO was found, no skinned cows found, no anal probes found. Turned out to be a fruitless call.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Thank you for providing this! Seriously, I got my wife and my neighbors hooked on listening to the scanners, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when the most interesting calls come in.

Somewhat off topic, but the best call I heard yet was the report of a UFO in Hamilton County. The dispatcher and responding LEO both sounded thrilled about that call. No UFO was found, no skinned cows found, no anal probes found. Turned out to be a fruitless call.

Of course, before getting too excited about little green men, we should recall that there are only two qualifications for something to be a UFO, specifically that it is airborne and the observer does not know what it is.

 

[No2rdame]

Of course, before getting too excited about little green men, we should recall that there are only two qualifications for something to be a UFO, specifically that it is airborne and the observer does not know what it is.

Good point, but it was a Saturday night in Noblesville. I suspect the observer may have had one too many Natty Lights earlier in the evening.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I used to dispatch for a small county down south. We had a 'crazy cat lady' who used to call with all sorts of odd tales. They tended to be things like people stealing her front door and replacing it with an exact replica, people stealing her cat's tail (yes, just the tail), etc.

Once she called in a UFO. The other dispatcher got the call and stepped outside. She came back and told her "Ma'am, we call that the moon." In fairness, it was a harvest moon.... I laughed at her for actually going outside to check, but she made the point that it cost her nothing to check but she'd go down in the history books as the dispatcher who blew off the first confirmed alien contact if she didn't check and crazy cat lady was right...

 

[bsoberg]

wow thank you that was cool

 

[jbell_64]

Too bad lawerence county isn't on here =(

 

[tbhausen]

If you're there, put up a feed... Volunteers make the system go!

 

[KW730]

I have listened to this off and on for months now and never knew you were the one providing the feed. Thank you very much!

 

[tbhausen]

You're quite welcome

 

[tbhausen]

Indianapolis / Marion County Live Audio Feed Update

Hey, guys...

Quick update, as good things have been happening here! I am the feed provider for what was formerly known as the "Marion County Police Dispatch" feed. It's been renamed to "Indy Metro, Speedway, Lawrence, and Beech Grove Police Dispatch" to more accurately reflect its content (and to differentiate it from a formerly identical new feed, which is now a subset of my feed).

I've confirmed that the two recent (2.04 and 2.04.01) firmware updates released by Uniden for the HomePatrol-1 had severely reduced the performance of the radio while monitoring the system used by these agencies. I didn't catch onto this quickly, because I installed the first update and moved the radio at nearly the same time and had attributed the loss in performance to the move. Thanks to this forum, I now know better and have reverted to firmware 2.03.01 and all is well again.

I've installed and tuned a Laird Y8063 antenna. These changes have led to a massive improvement to the amount and quality of traffic being copied on the feed. It's literally almost nonstop comms now--the best performance I've ever achieved while monitoring this system.

Also, thanks to Bob Aune (RadioFeed, proscan.org) adding alpha tag support for the HomePatrol-1, I've resumed streaming tags for compatible players. This is wonderful for a busy system like this one--IMPD in particular's numerous districts can be differentiated by listeners in real-time now. A heads-up for you Android users--Scanner Radio by Gordon Edwards now supports these alpha tags!

To summarize, if you haven't tuned in for awhile or found the feed didn't meet your expectations, please give it another listen--I think you'll be impressed with what you hear and see!

Broadcastify - Indy Metro, Speedway, Lawrence, and Beech Grove Police Dispatch

 

[kiddchaos]

Very cool.

 

[INDSIM]

Thanks for the link!

 

[cbhausen]

You don't have to listen for very long to understand why we carry, do you?