Originally Posted By: benjammin
I think even the NSA has trouble figuring out what's being said in radio traffic in NYC and LA.


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...LA is much easier, but still complex to scan.