Listening to firies

What scanner to buy? What's the best antenna to use? Programming? Ask here!

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Bungarra_Bob
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Listening to firies

Post by Bungarra_Bob »

I joined this forum to say a big "Thank you" to vk6hgr and others who made it possible for a Parkerville resident like me to listen to the DFES stream over the internet yesterday and make informed decisions on whether to stay or go. Thankfully for my family, our home was one of the lucky ones.

In preparing for the next 'event', my only worry this time was that with mobile phones communications poor or out, I couldn't follow your feeds once I left my wired home internet connection or if the phone lines had gone down.

Would a radio such as http://www.dicksmith.com.au/radios-scan ... dsau-d1986 allow me to listen in without internet access? I'm fairly cluey with IT but I've never used a scanner before. Are the transmissions encrypted or anything? There are several sticky posts on this forum that suggest I could, but a work-mate who's a vollie swears that without an 'official' or 'stolen' radio, listening in to the RF isn't possible any more. Is he right?

Thanks again. You guys are champions!
Nafenn
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by Nafenn »

Bungarra_Bob wrote:I joined this forum to say a big "Thank you" to vk6hgr and others who made it possible for a Parkerville resident like me to listen to the DFES stream over the internet yesterday and make informed decisions on whether to stay or go. Thankfully for my family, our home was one of the lucky ones.

In preparing for the next 'event', my only worry this time was that with mobile phones communications poor or out, I couldn't follow your feeds once I left my wired home internet connection or if the phone lines had gone down.

Would a radio such as http://www.dicksmith.com.au/radios-scan ... dsau-d1986 allow me to listen in without internet access? I'm fairly cluey with IT but I've never used a scanner before. Are the transmissions encrypted or anything? There are several sticky posts on this forum that suggest I could, but a work-mate who's a vollie swears that without an 'official' or 'stolen' radio, listening in to the RF isn't possible any more. Is he right?

Thanks again. You guys are champions!
Hey bob,

First of all - welcome to WARSUG.

It's good to hear that the stream was of use to the residents affected by the fires. If you click here you will find a list of all the frequencies that are used by DFES. Channel 207 or 205 High band will most likely be the best for your area.

The scanner that you linked to above should be enough to pick it up, and at this stage the DFES radio network is not encrypted, however i have heard whispers that they are researching it.
Nathan Fenn
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Anything I say is my opinion, and has nothing to do with/does not reflect the views of anyone I was/am/will be involved with/employed by/volunteer for/associated with. There, I think that should cover it!
yorky
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by yorky »

What Nathan said is spot on, certainly not encrypted anyone with a scanner can listen (otherwise vk6hgr wouldn't be able to provide the feed!) which of course was a terrific resource for those people in the area needing to know what was going on.

Print out the frequency sheet in the sticky so if needed in the future, you can listen into what the local command center channel is if you are close enough to receive it when they say what channel they will use.
"VKI, NJ050 will you be attending the job?"
"Negative VKI, my desk is bolted to the floor".
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Zebedee
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by Zebedee »

Also, echoing Nathan - welcome to WARSUG and thank you for your kind words.

We're very happy that you found the audio helpful. While the official lines of communication from DFES etc are always the authoritative pieces of information, social media, forum sites and the radio streams are a good source of supplementary details. That's what I think anyway ;)

One of the good things about that scanner you're looking at is that it works off normal AA sized batteries. So if you keep a couple of sets of fully-charged AA batteries in your emergency kit, you'll always have access to a working radio.

Also the antenna is removable and has a standard BNC connector on it. So you can do things like putting an antenna outside, run the cable inside and connect it to the radio for better reception when indoors.

The user's manual for that radio can also be found here if you want to read up on it:
http://www.uniden.com.au/RESOURCES_MAIN ... XLT_OM.pdf

Good luck with your first foray into scanning! :)
Doug Bell (Zebedee) VK6DB
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flynny
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Scanners and Receivers: Uniden 92XLT
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by flynny »

Hi everyone,

I'd like to echo what 'Bungarra_Bob' said. Thank you for providing the stream and this great community of information! The stream was very helpful in providing information on the day!

I am a Parkerville resident on the east-side of Kilburn road. I have now been through two significant bush fires that have been in the vicinity my property... I have been lucky enough to get through both without damage.

I work in the I.T sector, but am very much an ignorant 'newbie' when it comes to radio...

A few years ago, I purchased a Uniden 92XLT for my 'fire preparation kit'. Of course, I stupidly left it until the day of the fire to learn how to use it!
I was only able to successfully listen to to the helitacs (with help from WARSUG) - which were flying over my house.

I am guessing that the antenna on my scanner was not good enough to be able to pick up "Parkerville control" (Fireground frequencies?).

Can anyone point me in the right direction on a better antenna to buy for my scanner? I've only managed to confuse myself, with research so far. I think I'd be better off with one that attaches to the scanner itself, for portability.

Cheers. Matthew
Zebedee
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by Zebedee »

flynny wrote:Can anyone point me in the right direction on a better antenna to buy for my scanner? I've only managed to confuse myself, with research so far. I think I'd be better off with one that attaches to the scanner itself, for portability.

Cheers. Matthew
The antenna on your scanner uses a BNC connector so the first consideration is to get something that has that same connector. Last thing you want to be doing is fiddling around with various adapters :)

You could go a few different ways with that scanner, with varying levels of portability. You could replace the supplied one with something a bit better - maybe a telescoping antenna of some kind, something a bit like this. That's one I found doing a quick eBay search using the query "BNC scanner antenna" if you want to take a look for yourself.

Another one that pops up on that same search is something like this which you could perhaps put on some glass in the house when you want better reception.

Last of all, you can go all out and get a magnetic base antenna to go on the roof of your house or the guttering, etc. I have one at home that's indoors (magbase'd to the top of my fridge in the kitchen would you believe) which is for amateur radio but does the job fairly acceptably. If you want to throw big bucks, you could put a discone antenna like this one on the roof of your house - but that may be overkill :)

You could keep a couple of different portable antennas and maybe even the glass-suction-mount one in your emergency kit, they wouldn't take up much room.
Doug Bell (Zebedee) VK6DB
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It is very dark.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
yorky
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by yorky »

Just a quick side note, I got some of those suction-cup-on-a-wire ones and the performance was very poor, and this was outside in the car (granted inside the car is a bit of a signal blocker but still, stuck inside a house would be just as bad).

I've found that stock antenna's and aftermarket ones for portable scanning only there is very little difference, the big change happens on handheld 2 way radios and transmitting which isn't something you are doing anyway. There were comms problems on the fire ground at Parkerville from what I heard, and it isn't exactly a great distance between mobile fire appliances and the incident control area so if the trucks with proper radios and antenna's can't listen/transmit properly it doesn't give our little portable scanners a lot of hope in those conditions (hills etc) as you found out.
"VKI, NJ050 will you be attending the job?"
"Negative VKI, my desk is bolted to the floor".
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Zebedee
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by Zebedee »

yorky wrote:There were comms problems on the fire ground at Parkerville from what I heard, and it isn't exactly a great distance between mobile fire appliances and the incident control area so if the trucks with proper radios and antenna's can't listen/transmit properly it doesn't give our little portable scanners a lot of hope in those conditions (hills etc) as you found out.
True - and it could also been just some unfortunate geography. The transmitting station could have been hidden behind a hill so flynny couldn't receive anything.
Doug Bell (Zebedee) VK6DB
WARSUG Forum Administrator.

It is very dark.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
matth2004
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Re: Streaming FESA scanner audio

Post by matth2004 »

It was very rough terrain out there. A lot of hills and unfortunately not in the spots you wanted them (either in the fire ground or in the direction the fire was moving). I'm with comms support and we setup a couple of repeaters which proved useful to the incident. There are two high band command channels in the area that we used and one has a mid band linking.
Matt
VK6MAH
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