As part of my Community Emergency Response Team thing, I am also getting equipped for emergency communication with a GMRS radio. It requires an FCC license, but I’m so utterly confused by the licensing forms that I think it’ll take me quite a while to figure it out. I guess I’ll have to stick to the unlicensed frequencies… of course, the sad thing is that I am single and have no friends nearby, so I’ll have to sit here with two radios and no one to talk to.
Anyway, while I was getting my radio, I also picked up a NOAA weather radio and a scanner. It’s the scanner that I’m currently fascinated by, searching for frequencies to listen to. Right now, I’m listening to the Arlington County Police dispatcher (453.825mhz). I live right in-between 2 fire stations, and on a usual night they run calls every hour or so. But tonight, nothing! Just when I get the scanner, there are no fires. Dang it. So, the police and National Airport’s tower (119.100mhz) are on the hot rotation. (Pilots are so polite with the tower.)
Among tonight’s police action: a boy on a skateboard reported that he was approached by a strange man in his 30s, wearing a false mustache and what appeared to be an orange wig. The man became agitated when the youngster wouldn’t give him his skateboard.
And I thought that Arlington was so mundane.
Update 10:32pm: Something interesting at last! Right outside my own house, a car smashed into a street light pole, bringing it down. I listened as the fire department and police were dispatched (and went out myself to make sure our pool was not damaged – this happened only a month ago when a car went up onto the grass and smashed through our pool wall). Now I’m waiting for the police car that was just dispatched to relieve the firemen who are at the scene. Cool… I feel connected in some odd, disconnected way. So many things are going on here that I never knew about… a drunk man pounding on cars in a lot, a car on the I-395 exit ramp without hazard lights… and all sorts of other things (ooh – the police car just arrived) described by numbers that I don’t understand.
