Police codes often differ from department to department, or even region to region.  Below is a link to a list of codes that our local uses.  The second link is a scanner of our local frequencies.

http://www.globegazette.com/app/multimedia/scanner/codes.pdf

http://www.globegazette.com/app/multimedia/scanner/

Most of those codes you won't hear on the radio.  The police usually just use the 10-codes during normal traffic.  There has been pressure post 9-11 to drop any codes and use plain language on the radio to avoid confusion (especially when working with other agencies), but most law enforcment agencies have been resistant.  I can't blame them, would you rather announce to scanner world you have a jumper or an 11-45?

Here in the UK everything is encrypted on the emegency service bands. Now if I remember correctly owning equipment able to decrypt the emergency bands is not illegal ....... but using said equipment to do so IS illegal.

You used to be able to listen to the police on a normal AM / FM radio.

It gave me and a friend hours of fun in the down at the local beach car park in the early hours of the morning. He had a white van the same make as the police ..... and fitted with a high powered torch on the passenger side (for his work) ...... couple that with the police frequency playing full blast and a slow cruise up and down the car park shining the torch at every car...... I'll leave the rest to your imaginations. 

I used to listen to a fire scanner all the time when I worked as a security guard. One day I heard the fire department responding to a call at a weight loss center because someone was stuck in an exercise machine.

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I imagine that day is coming here also. As long as I have your attention, Crash.. What do the railroads use to communicate? In your area, I mean.   

Steve M wrote on Oct 28^th, 2010 at 9:05pm:


Steve, the railroads used an old system called TeleRail here in Holland which worked well but was complicated to use. At that time we had plenty more, smaller, control rooms which all had their own frequency. Train driver had to switch frequencies many times, at the right time, before they arrived at their destination.

For the past 5-10 years a new system has been introduced called GSM-R. Basically it's a GSM network developed for use in trains. Which means it also works in tunnels. Train drivers now don't have to switch frequencies any more since we merged a lot of control rooms to 5 or 6 big ones. The train driver now only has to punch in the number of the train and the system automatically connects to the right controller.

Carlo
Chief Engineer Strukton Systems