SCANNERS HEAR IT FIRST
	 
FREQUENCY ORGANIZATION
 
	As we turn on our radio monitoring equipment, especially those of
us who live in a major area like Montreal, there is often a flurry of
activity on the airwaves.  Included among the activities one can follow
are Fire, Police, EMS, Media, Aircraft, Ham (my own monitoring preferences
more or less follows this list.)  Many models of portable and tabletop
scanners now offer 100, 200 or even 400 channels, usually arranged into
ten banks.  With so many channels to fill and frequencies to choose from,
efficient scanner organization can be a real challenge.

	The way I have seen people program their scanners they have
everything from A to Z mixed randomly and no particular order. It might
work for some but in order to get the most out of your scanner you might
want to use the following tips. 

	 Separating the different services into different scan banks helps
you keep track of frequencies and the various services or cities in your
scanner.  This will make it easier to scan everything due to the
uniformity in the programming.  Little tricks like putting the MUC Police
in the order of their channel designation, entering MUC Police channels
one through ten in channels one through ten in your scanner (or having it
as the second digit so when a unit requests to move to channel seven, you
don't have to scan your whole group, but just move to channel seven,
seventeen, twenty-seven, etc.).  The same goes for any service that
operates on more than three different frequencies. 

	If you have been scanning for a long time, then you will probably
have your own system that makes it easy for you to know the location of
everything.  For the newer scanner user (and I've been there too) there is
the question of what to do and how to do it.  I've been getting a lot of
questions on how to go about placing the many emergency services in order. 
It helps to have some kind of organization to the programming because when
all hell breaks loose on the airwaves, it can get quite confusing to know
what to lock out and what to monitor.  I have a little trick to avoid
listening to those little calls but making sure you catch all the big
incidents called "Greatest Hits" or "Super Scan".  Simply put the media
(radio/television) frequencies and fire mutual aid/fireground frequencies
and monitor just these until there is a incident.  Listening to the media
frequencies which can be quite descriptive will often paint you the whole
picture without you actually having to go to the incident scene and
getting in the way of on-scene emergency personnel. 

	You may find these tips handy, and if so, good luck in scanning
the airwaves.  If you have other ideas, or questions I would like to hear
from you.  To reach me you can drop me a line via Vernon, VE2MBS or Jim,
VE2VE (they don't bite!)  See you next month. 
 
73 de Fred Hart, VE2LS and a Q. 
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QUICK NOTES DE VE2LSQ 
 
Ville St. Pierre Fire Department is now dispatched by the LaSalle Fire
Department on 412.5125.  The old VSP fire frequency of 156.030 is still
used to page in the off duty firemen and volunteers.
 
Verdun Fire Department - 412.9125 ....  Depending on where you live, you
might hear off island police services on the same frequency. (What a
pleasure to hear all of Verdun's units everywhere they go without fading
out.)
 
73 de Fred Hart, VE2LS and a Q. 
-...-