[Scan-DC] Scanner apps let Internet users track police chatter

[Alan Henney]

News-Journal (Daytona Beach, Florida)

May 31, 2010 Monday 
N-j Final Edition

Scanner apps let Internet users track police chatter

BYLINE: JULIE MURPHY, JULIE MURPHY - STAFF WRITER

SECTION: SECTION C; Pg. 1C

LENGTH: 687 words

Police junkies and radio buffs have been doing it for years, so what difference does it make if everyone else can pick up local law enforcement scanners through cell-phone programs? "We found that there were a community of users that wanted to let each other know about exciting feeds being broadcast," said David Kyle, spokesman for Juicy Development, an Orem, Utah, company that writes programs for iPhones and other smart phones.

Its newest program, Police Scanner 2, allows users to post what they hear on Twitter and Facebook, Kyle said. A small "ticker" in the application allows others to tune into the stream of scanner chatter being discussed. "I'm sure there are people out there who will say, 'It's the information age -- deal with it,' " Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said. 

But that's more than he wants to deal with. "It's too much information," Chitwood said. "We spend a million dollars on our communications systems. There is supposed to be an element of

surprise. But if you're selling drugs on the corner and can hear we're coming, or if you're in a stolen car and hear an officer call in a tag number, you're not going to sit there and wait for us to come for you."

Other agencies, like the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, aren't so concerned.

Most of what we say on the radio isn't sensitive or classified," sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said. "I'd be hard pressed to cite an example of where public safety was endangered or an investigation was seriously compromised because of the public's access to our radio channels."

Additionally, the only access currently available about Volusia and Flagler counties is fire and EMS dispatch and the calls broadcast by the Regional Communications Center -- the dispatch agency for the Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, Ponce Inlet and Port Orange police departments.

Port Orange resident Hank Springer has been listening to scanners since the '50s when he lived in New York. He became "hooked" while listening to the Coast Guard and heard the rescue of passengers and crewmembers of the Andrea Doria -- an infamous maritime disaster that killed 46 of 1,660 aboard the luxury liner that ultimately sank.

I could hear it when the survivors of the Andrea Doria were rescued," he said. "I could hear them speaking to their relatives. It was very moving. It was something."

Springer is not certain whether he'll bother to download one of the scanner applications to his phone.

I don't get a lot of volume out of my iPhone," he said. "I guess it's cheaper than buying a radio (if he didn't already have five), and it would be nice to keep up with what's going on down here when we travel."

An online company called Radio Reference provides the platform and redistributes scanner streams, including those available here, for Police Scanner and some 20 other similar programs, said company president Lindsay Blanton.

Most of the streams -- more than 2,300 of them from the United States and elsewhere -- come from volunteers, who download a computer program provided by Blanton's company. After the program is installed, they hook up a scanner to the computer and leave it turned on 24-seven so local broadcasts can be heard around the world.

The phone applications are just the front ends (that allow users access) to our feeds," Blanton said.

The programs, which are either free or available for a couple of bucks, hook up users to "police, fire and EMS activities around the world," SWAT operations, narcotics and other tactical operations. Dedicated federal government and military communications are not redistributed through Radio Reference.

You just get the day-to-day operations," Blanton said. "We have a team of individuals who revue the feeds for content. You won't get something like a stand-off as live audio feed."

Despite admitting that as a child he owned a gadget called an "eavesdropper" -- which ran on a 9-volt battery and hooked into a clock radio to pick up police chatter -- Chitwood sees these programs as a nuisance to law enforcement that are unlikely to go away.

Somebody will always try to build a better mousetrap to circumvent what we do," he said.