One of the really neat things about having a ham radio is that many of these radios also will do wide band scanning. What is that? As I understand it, it will scan a wide array of different bands of frequencies. I own a Yeasue FT-857d… Nice radio - does all bands and I think all modes. Or at least enough to keep my busy for a long long time. But it also does wide band scanning. I use that to scan the police, ambulance, rescue chopper and air traffic control towers. This week begins EAA in Oshkosh, WI. What is EAA and were is Oshkosh? EAA is the Experimental Aircraft Association. And they have their annual fly-in each summer. 10,000 planes. One airport. 500,000 visitors. We’ll go and see the F-22 Raptors do an air show. And see tons of planes. And get too much sun and have too much fun. For a couple of hours. But both BEFORE and AFTER the fun will continue. Because I will be scanning the air control towers. And THAT will be fun!

If you have a wide band scanning capable radio, I strongly encourage you to go down to Radio Shack and get their scanner frequency book. And it is a book. I think it’s in the hudreds of pages for one region of the country. And it has more frequencies than you could ever imagine! I would buy one just to see what’s out there. Then get updates from the internet. But, without seeing the contents of the book you probably won’t understand everything that you can scan.

Then go to Google and just do some searches. Try things like “scanner frequencies”, etc.. (without the qoutes). Be prepared to bookmark some good sites and spend maybe a 1/2 day digging through stuff.

I was kind of suprised just how good reception I got from using my mobile ham antenna. I get police and airport frequency reception from a three county area in Wisconsin. Pretty nice!

OK - if you can enjoy this part of the hobby - think of local events that might be in your area and tune in for some fun!

Jon Kreski, AB9NN
www.HamRadioResources.com