In article ,
Paul Carter wrote:

I'm moving from Texas to Chicago in a few weeks (I'll be living in the
city, not one of the suburbs). I assumed that the Public Service (PD,
Fire, EMS, etc.) in a city of that size would have to be trunked. But,
while I was there on a pre-move visit a couple of weeks ago, I called
a local Rat Shack, and the clerk told me that only the Illinois State
Police is trunked.

Is this information accurate? If so, what type of trunk-tracking
scanner do I need to buy to pick up the S.P. (and the C.P.D. / C.F.D.,
etc., if necessary)? I know that there's more than one type of
trunking system in use today, but beyond that, I'm a clueless newbie.


The main dispatch for CPD is on 460.xxx conventional repeaters, 13
"Zones" and 7 "Citywides". There are a couple simplex UHF tac channels
as well.

CPD also has a Motorola Type II analog trunked system for detectives,
surveillance, special details etc.

CFD is dispatched on 2 VHF repeaters for Fire and 2 UHF repeaters for
EMS. They are working (slowly) on a UHF T-Band Astro system but that
will be a while yet...

There is also some specialty trunked systems around, such as an 800 MHz.
analog at O'Hare for city ops like Police and Fire.

The State Police used a pair of 10 channel EDACS analog trunked systems.
Cook County Sheriff is in the process of deploying an Astro 800 MHz.
trunked system. Suburban police are mostly on UHF T-Band for police and
VHF for fire, but there are several analog and digital 800 MHz. trunked
systems in the area.

Go to www.carmachicago.com for more info, and if you join the
CarmaChicago Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carmachicago/
you can download a complete pdf file detailing all the Chicago
operations. You can also email me direct and I will send you the files
you want.

Enjoy!

Rich Carlson, N9JIG
rich at n9jig dot com