For Real Reality, Tune In To Live Police Radio

By Stefan Smith

Today's so-called reality shows are too staged for my taste. Their contrived situations and semi-scripted actions actually render them somewhat less than real.

For unvarnished reality, try listening to a police scanner. You'll hear real cops answering real crime calls. You'll hear police officers as they head into potentially dangerous situations. You'll hear police dispatchers as they try to keep up with everything from fender benders to shootings--all in a standard night's work for many police departments.

When the first police scanners came out, my mother bought one so she could hear what was happening in her city, and especially to hear if anything bad was being reported in her own neighborhood.

I remember coming in late at night from a date to find her sitting at the kitchen table with the scanner going. Naturally, she had been worrying about where I was and listening to hear if there had been any wrecks.

When my brother became a policeman, my mother really had something to worry about--and an excuse to listen to the police radio day in and day out.

Police scanners are not just for professional worriers, though. Many people listen to them as a hobby. Newspaper, radio and TV reporters listen to them in order to get the first word of a major crime or accident so they can get to the scene quickly.

Nowadays, you don't even need a police scanner to hear police calls in many cities. There are hundreds of live police radio feeds being streamed over the Internet. There are also fire department radio feeds as well. All you do is click a link for the city of your choice and start listening.

Tonight, I listened for about an hour to the live police feed from my hometown, a medium-sized city with a normal share of crime and other human conflict. During that hour, I heard police answer calls to respond to an assault, a stolen car, an attempted home break-in, and someone who was threatening her neighbor with a knife.

A number of Web sites exist that have links to police scanners across the United States. Two good ones are policescan.us and police-scanner.info.

Policescan.us has more scanner links--fire as well as police--but it is disorganized and, to be frank, pretty junky looking. Nevertheless, it's worth a visit just for the sheer number of scanner feeds available.

Police-scanner.info is also a rather cluttered site, but its scanner list is much neater and better organized. As the list is arranged by state, it's easier to find a particular town's or city's police radio link.

One tip if you want to get the most out of listening to live police radio: Learn the 10-codes! Police use special codes over the radio. Many of the most common ones start with "10." You're undoubtedly familiar with "10-4," meaning "I copied (heard) you." But what about "10-12" or "10-19?" If you don't know the codes, or have a list of them near to hand, you won't always know what is happening.

Below are some of the most common 10-codes, but there are others. There are also other sets of codes, used by some police departments, that do not begin with "10," or any number for that matter. For example, in some cities you might hear a dispatcher tell a police officer to respond to an "ADW," that is, an assault with a deadly weapon.

• 10-7 Officer is out of service
• 10-8 Officer is in service and available for assignment
• 10-9 Repeat last transmission, please
• 10-12 Visitors or officials are present, so be discreet
• 10-15 Prisoner is in custody
• 10-19 Returning to the station
• 10-22 Disregard your last assignment
• 10-24 There's an emergency at the station; all vehicles return now
• 10-27 Driver's license check
• 10-32 Drowning
• 10-33 Alarm sounding
• 10-34 Please assist at office
• 10-43 Call a doctor
• 10-50 Subject is under the influence of narcotics
• 10-51 Subject is drunk
• 10-54 Possible dead body
• 10-56 Suicide
• 10-64 Found property
• 10-66 Suspicious person reported
• 10-67 Someone is calling for help
• 10-70 Prowler
• 10-71 Shooting
• 10-72 Knifing
• 10-79 Bomb threat
• 10-80 Explosion
• 10-91 Barking dog

Stefan Smith is a radio junkie who writes on this and related subjects for the Solid Gold Info Writers Consortium. Recently, he has written an extensive review of new software that anyone can use to capture music audio streams from Internet radio broadcasts and break them up into individual mp3 song files--a legal way to download virtually free music. Read the review at: http://www.solid-gold.info/radio2mp3.html