There is a scanner app for decent phones too, android, blackberry, winmo all have them. It works out well for me as after I moved were in an area where the police/fire/ems are digital trunked so mu $150 analog trunked scanner doesn't help much here. But the calls get routed back to the city which is analog trunked so the scanner app lets me listen to the digital for now.

The scanner app is nice but relies upon Internet connectivity. I wouldn't rely upon it in a large scale emergency.

"How messed up is NYC Emergency radio traffic? Let's see.

First of all, the radio systems used by FDNY and NYPD are 100% incompatible.
Secondly they use obsolete and absurd 10-codes. Not the same 10 codes for cops and fire - no of course not! There's separate 10-codes that overlap sometimes but not often.
Oh, and Transit uses "12" codes!
There are two separate police agencies at Penn station - NYPD Transit Division and Amtrak, they are on separate radio systems and Amtrak and NYPD don't share codes. Then there's the 800 Mhz trunked city system, used sometimes by some emergency responders in some situations. Oh, did I mention that EMS - part of the fire department- runs separate radio systems too? (with 1.2 Million calls a year, I guess they need it).

It goes on and on and on..."

Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the attack on the WTC. They haven't learned much, have they? Ego superceding usefulness.

Sue

NYC _IS_ working on a new system - I know a guy who worked for DoITT and still works in comms for "undisclosed" agency (for his privacy) - They have had systems put in that totally failed, and there was some real fun with one of the radio companies (Hint, he has carried the new radios they are testing). I know he personally got his hands on some of the radios they are testing - on his OWN personal dime

They are looking at various brands of radios that go from 50Mhz to the 900Mhz band, all in one radio, that hand conventional, trunking, P25, plain voice, etc

Lots oh fun

I mean, FDNY tried what, 2-3 times to upgrade JUST their own radio system, and it didn't work

FDNY has a real "interesting" way their radios work/worked - the idea was that dispatch was on 4 frequencies (SI and the Bronx shared), and that the "fireground" frequency was common, but the radios were low power, and had very limited range. The idea being that it was rare to be fighting two fires close to one another, and geographic seperation would keep 2 fires from conflicting, but when you rolled up on a fire, you WOULD be on the right frequency. The PROBLEM comes when you get into a highrise fire, and the radio power is low enough that you can't talk out (which is why certain buildings like the WTC have/had a repeater that could be turned on), and also when you get 600-700 firefigters all on one fire, the radio turns to chaos. The OTHER fun was when they tried to go digital - a certain radio company that will remain nameless sold them on "it's always clear, no static" - what they never mention is that with plain old unencrypted analog, when you are borderline, you can still make out say 50% of the transmission, and get some clue/know that there was a tranmission, where with digital, it's 100%, or NOTHING