I’ll spare you my usual witty introduction. With our cities currently being ravaged by rioting and looting, your need your head examined if you don’t understand how vital a police scanner can be to any preparedness plan.
Police scanners, especially if you live in or near major urban centers, offer immediate, real-time updates from law enforcement and fire-rescue personnel as to where the trouble is, and more importantly, where it’s headed.
Almost always, you’ll have this vital information much faster than you would if you wait for it to be reported on the news or posted on social media.
This is important – downloading an app to stream scanner traffic on your smart phone, or following Facebook groups or Twitter feeds that post scanner traffic is no substitute for owning one yourself.
Also, almost all police scanners pick up all-hazards radio (weather radio) frequencies and have an alarm function for watches and warnings, which offer redundancy for the weather radio that any prepper with half a brain should already have sitting on the kitchen counter.
I strongly suggest purchasing a handheld scanner. Besides being cheaper than base or car-mounted models, their portability offers you so much more listening flexibility.
The costs run the gamut. My Uniden Bearcat BC125AT, pictured with this post, will set you back about $100. It can scan 500 frequencies in the bands for police, fire, emergency management, marine, aircraft and other frequencies. The more frequencies it can store, the better – and make sure it can “trunk” police and other frequencies (I’ll get into what that is in a future post).
During my drive to drop off my son at his newly reopened day care, the traffic reporter on the newsradio was actually reading off the locations of riots (the city is 40 miles away – I’d never drop off my children anywhere if danger was nearby). If you have to travel right now, a police scanner could give you vital advance warning if you’re heading into trouble. If you’re staying at home, a scanner can give you vital advance warning if that trouble is coming to you.