ScanDiego.com

I have some of thos retail FRS/GMRS 2 way radios.

Then my dad asked me to give him one and he started to play with it and while scanning the CHs. He found some sort of Police comms on it.

Freq 462.6500 (FRS/GMRS CH 19)

One min there talking about Otay then talking about Ocotillo.

There is a quite bit of activity on it.

ATM they are talking about a crash by RJ Don. Prison, Requesting ABLE...

Im recording it so when I got some stuff Ill post it.

Im getting about 3-5 Bars when they key up.

Kinda sounds like SDPD...

Those are freelance photographers aka stringers that you are hearing.

Asking where did the 415 PC happen, where E##.

Requesting ABLE to come out, "Im on D2"

As Brandon said, it's a group of freelance news stringers.

They wander the county, mostly in the late evening/early morning hours when the TV Stations' crews are snug in bed, taping/photographing 'hot' news as it occurs.

Generally, there'll be one person acting as a 'dispatcher' who's at home, monitoring more scanners than can easily be counted, who'll alert the others driving around to events as they happen.

It's quite an interesting channel to listen to, especially if you're up late, to keep an ear out for things all over the county.

Shouldn't you be saying WE, Skip?

The reason why it sounds like SDPD is because some voices are heard both on PD TGs and 462.65.

Or someone... was keying up and not taking next to their scanner....

I was listening from about 10:00pm - 3:50am

I had my 2 way on them and the scanner scaning.

I heard of the Multi shooting around lemon grove, then 3 secs its relayed.


I loved this part.

Back in the day we didnt have this stuff and we made it just fine.

Them and their FM radios, we didnt have FM radios back then, I had to

make mine useing a crystal set.

HAHAHA, I bet most the kids at USD dont even know what a Crystal set is..

hahaha.

Or

They wouldnt let us on the tarmac.

No shit they probably thought you where terrorist.

Goodtimes...

Where I said 'they', it's 'they'. I don't 'wander', I sit here at home, haven't moved out of it in months. Literally.

Yes, if it wasn't clear, I'm one of the users of the system, though rarely heard, a backup monitor since I have a lot of scanners running (usually 4 or 5) and am up at all hours of the day or night, so I sometimes catch things that need dispatching. Rarely, though, the prime dispatcher is good.

If you hear '903', that's me.

Time flies. I remember the days when you were taking stuff to the stations yourself.

This may seem like an incredibly dumb question but do you need any sort of license to operate FRS / GMRS? It would seem to me that you don't since anyone can buy them at any number of retail outlets. Just curious. Do the stringers still use these frequencies? I heard the first calls go out about the car accident in Torrey Highlands last week and thought about grabbing my camera and going. But alas I was in bed and couldn't muster the energy to go. Then I heard a patrol unit ask his sgt if he could walk the media down... Guess it all works out lol... I am interested in doing incident photography, not trying to sell the photos just to have them for me, if any one who does it ever wants someone to cruise with PM me and let me know!

FRS, no.
GMRS, yes. Fine print or no print at all (FCC likes to hear about those retailers). The license fee (~$80 per 5 years) is something I cannot justify for the huge expense it takes to get a decent GMRS system up. Ham radio is free for a randomly assigned callsign, about $20 for a vanity call (which I have). The only fee you pay for a random callsign is to the volunteer examiners, who by law are able to recoup out-of-pocket expenses - I wouldn't pay any more than $10. The FCC doesn't get one red cent of that.

The stringers have GMRS licenses and use the GMRS frequencies, and others non-GMRS which are top secret. Sometimes they'll even talk on ham radio, but for pleasure since you can't talk non-ham related business on ham radio.