How can my friend use a Mobile Trunking Scanner to avoid a speeding ticket while traveling across the US?

April 23, 2009 10:47 AM

How can my friend use a Mobile Trunking Scanner to avoid a speeding ticket while traveling across the US?

I have a friend that is planning a roadtrip across the US:

-Los Angeles to Las Vegas
-Las Vegas to Sedona, AZ
-Sedona, AZ to Albuquerque, NM
-Albuquerque, NM to Dallas, TX
-Dallas, TX to New Orleans, LA
-New Orleans, LA to Orlando, FL
-Orlando, FL to Miami, FL

He has bought the Uniden BCD996T Mobile Trunking Scanner in hope of using it to try and avoid a speeding ticket.

We are both complete newbs to CB, scanners, frequencies, etc.

After a some research I found out he should be listening in on 2 bands: police radio frequency bands and truckers frequencies (citizens band) CB radio. That way he can listen in on the truckers talking about speed traps and the police talking about whats going on in the area.

Will he need to use a frequency database to find the different codes (possibly provided at www.scannermaster.com)?

How do you program it to work in this manner?

Any suggestions in general for using it efficiently?

posted by schindyguy to sports, hobbies, & recreation (31 comments total)

or is this site better

http://www.radioreference.com/
posted by schindyguy at 10:48 AM on April 23

Your friend should also be aware of any state laws restricting the use of such devices, here's a reference.
posted by Floydd at 10:56 AM on April 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeah, I really don't think using a scanner will be terribly useful, especially if one isn't familiar with the area. Cops are going to be talking about all sorts of stuff and it's way more trouble than it's worth to program the scanner for all the jurisdictions one will be going through.

I think your "friend" should use some common sense and drive the speed limit.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:57 AM on April 23

My understanding is that many police radios are now encrypted, so you can't listen in even with a trunked scanner. I'm pretty sure CB radio isn't trunked, and the frequencies are pretty much set in the US, so you should be able to handle that fine. You might get some tips, but I kind of doubt it'll be that effectual.
posted by devilsbrigade at 10:58 AM on April 23

Thanks for the suggestions, I will tell him. And dont think I am playing the game where I say its my friend and its really me which is what dunkadunc is alluding to. He is going on the roadtrip, not me
posted by schindyguy at 10:59 AM on April 23

And if its illegal to use the scanners in that way, I am not going to tell him to do it.

So what devilsbrigade says is the best advice so far which would be to find the set frequencies for truckers. How would I find them?
posted by schindyguy at 11:02 AM on April 23

All right, so my first answer wasn't "helpful". My friend was a cop - the scanner is not going to do you any good as far as listening in to cops. You're not going to hear them say something like "Okay Bob, I'm heading over to mile marker 257 where we run that speed trap from 7-9 PM." A lot of cops now use cell phones and digital radio dispatching. These types of transmissions are not going to be something you can glean useful information from.

Look, I used to like driving fast too. It's very fun to fly down the road at 110mph, or to race someone at 4 AM. My favorite was actually to stay right on this guy's right-rear corner in the right lane (him in the left) for four hours and matching his speed exactly. He tried everything from 30mph to 120mph over that time period. Oh delicious, delicious fun.

But I did not pretend that this was not stupid, and would have been completely unsurprised to be pulled over and ticketed. The stupid is un-measurable. Truly.

Do not speed and you will avoid speeding tickets. You will also bump your chances of surviving on the road significantly by not playing games while you drive. It's not worth it.
posted by odinsdream at 11:05 AM on April 23 [2 favorites has favorites]

@odinsdream, I will pass that along to him but he will take it with a grain of salt...

unfortunately he has a thirst for speed accumulating many ferraris and exotic racing cars

once again I cant control if he speeds or not, he was just looking for my technical advice on figuring out how to use the scanner that he bought most efficiently
posted by schindyguy at 11:09 AM on April 23

CB frequencies. Scanners that I've seen have a CB mode that already has the channel frequencies set and will pick up channels in use.
posted by devilsbrigade at 11:09 AM on April 23

@odinsdream what was your "first answer" that "wasnt helpful"
Did you post it here?
posted by schindyguy at 11:11 AM on April 23

Your firend is probably better off with a database of speed traps loaded into an appropriate car GPS.
posted by exogenous at 11:12 AM on April 23 [2 favorites has favorites]

suggestion: consider one of the "speedtrap" apps for iphone/blackberry/im sure theres one for th symbian OS too

may be N/A but still...worth considering
posted by knockoutking at 11:14 AM on April 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

schindyguy: It was a more succinct snark to just obey the speed limit.
posted by odinsdream at 11:15 AM on April 23

A CB will be much more valuable than a scanner (which will be mostly worthless). Ask trucks that you see going the other way if they've passed any speed traps. Lots of truckers won't help you out, though, unless they know you're in a rig.

I used to have a handheld CB in my VW GTI when I was in college. Favorite moment after asking a trucker how his backside looked, "Little Volkswagen, put the hammer down."
posted by hwyengr at 11:19 AM on April 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

Here's some tips from Alex Roy, who made it from NYC to the Pacific in 31 hours, 4 minutes.
posted by Mach5 at 11:21 AM on April 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

unfortunately he has a thirst for speed accumulating many ferraris and exotic racing cars

If he can afford expensive cars and wants to use them to drive significantly faster than the speed limit, then he can probably afford to pay for the tickets.

One tip I do have for detecting cops doing radar is to look for brake lights in the distance. By the time people see the cop it's usually too late, but they slow down anyway, so if you spot that happening you have a chance of slowing down in time.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:38 AM on April 23

[few comments removed - question is specific. Is not "do you like my friend?"]
posted by jessamyn at 11:47 AM on April 23

Regarding the digital, modern scanners like the 996 will decode unencrypted APCO 25. The 996 will hold 6000 channels, which is more than enough if you can find the right frequencies to cover. (Like others have said, the pain is in locating the frequencies for where you are actually going to be).

I've found that having a scanner running if you've got the right frequencies in will at least give you a heads up that there are troopers within a 15 mile radius.
posted by acro at 11:56 AM on April 23

Why a scanner and not something like a Valentine 1?
posted by unixrat at 12:06 PM on April 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

Nthing that lurking on CB channel 19 is a good bet, as long as you can stand the reverb effects that everyone seems to be using these days.

Another consideration is that for many of your highway miles, it will be state troopers or highway patrolmen that will be manning the speed traps (and not necessarily the local county or city police). Many of those are not talking on trunked systems (at least, not around here). I saw some information the other day on GPS support for locality-based scanning. That sounds cool as can be, but I still think that the best protection is to just not drive like a lunatic.

I drive a lot of road trips these days, and keeping up with "the prevailing flow of traffic" seems to do just fine for avoiding attention.
posted by jquinby at 12:18 PM on April 23

A Radar/laser detector plus laser jammer might be more useful.
posted by wongcorgi at 12:35 PM on April 23

A scanner really won't help you avoid tickets. It really won't. Most of the time, the guys sitting by the side of the road, running radar, are not chatting on the radio. So there's nothing that's going to give them away with enough advance warning for you to slow down.

If you want to try and avoid tickets, get a real radar detector. They're legal in every state besides Virginia now (I think) and at least it might stand a chance of working. The Valentine One typically gets called out as the best, although it's pricey. And if you do get pulled over with a radar detector, it's a lot easier to explain than getting pulled over with a scanner tuned to the police band.

(And just as an additional wrinkle, a lot of police departments have APCO-25 digital radios now, rather than FM ones, so even with a trunk-tracking scanner you're not guaranteed to pick up any traffic. APCO-25 scanners start at ~$500 and go up from there, and it's still possible for departments to encrypt their systems if they don't want anybody listening in.)

Of course, the easiest thing to do is just not drive like a douchebag, and either keep yourself to no more than 5MPH over or at least don't be the fastest thing visible. It's not particularly hard to not get speeding tickets; all the people I know who have gotten more than a handful in their lifetime are, to be perfectly blunt about it, pretty shitty and/or aggressive drivers.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:58 PM on April 23

Disregard the part about APCO-25; I see that model does it. I had a different (older) model in mind. As others have noted, encryption is still an issue, although it's currently uncommon except by tactical units, at least in my experience.

Nthing comments that a CB is more useful than a police scanner anyway, if a radar detector is out.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:01 PM on April 23

another vote for the cb radio. tell your friend to not be bashful about asking for, and giving reports. in order to be successful in avoiding tickets, your friend will need to listen pretty much all the time, which can get tedious after a while.
posted by lester at 2:05 PM on April 23

some people are really off topic with this, its funny to see how serious people are about it...

but is that model not a cb radio?

i will tell him to get the valentine 1 and/or return that uniden unit if its not a cb radio. from what i gather from your guy's comments the uniden unit he has is pretty much worthless...is that true?
posted by schindyguy at 3:15 PM on April 23

@exogenous, are you talking about a database from:

http://www.phantomalert.com/FAQs/Download.html

could that info be loaded into the scanner's GPS system?
posted by schindyguy at 3:20 PM on April 23

but is that model not a cb radio?

It can receive CB but a straight-up scanner won't help if he wants to talk to people. Frankly speaking, if your friend just wants to listen to police (or even trunked police) at nearing $600 he bought a whole lot more scanner than he'll be able to chew.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:26 PM on April 23

@knockoutking,

i dont think the uniden works on symbian os so i dont know where you are going with this. but i did check into it and there are symbian os apps for speed traps so i could do it if his scanner uses that OS, I just dont think it does.
posted by schindyguy at 3:28 PM on April 23

That's not his point. The scanner has its own firmware, not an OS.
Symbian OS is used on smartphones- he's suggesting that one could get a speed trap app for a GPS-enabled smartphone.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:35 PM on April 23

@dunkadunc ok thanks
posted by schindyguy at 3:46 PM on April 23

@exogenous, are you talking about a database from:

http://www.phantomalert.com/FAQs/Download.html

could that info be loaded into the scanner's GPS system?

Yeah, that sort of thing. I've never used one myself.
posted by exogenous at 5:23 AM on April 24