Looking for the best police scanner websites?
Scanning has been around for a long time & with the large number of enthusiasts in the scanning world, there is a lot of information online about police scanners.
Some of this information is extremely helpful and some of it is pretty useless.
To help navigate the online scanning scene we compiled the best police scanner websites.
In this article we will cover:Chapter 1: Best Police Scanning Forums – USA
Chapter 2: Best Police Scanner Frequency Guides – National
Chapter 3: Best Police Scanner Education, Learning & Resources
Chapter 4: Best Police Scanners Resources by Use – Air, Racing, Railroad
Chapter 5: Best Police Scanner Websites by State & Country
Chapter 6: Best Live Police Scanner Streams
Chapter 7: Best Police Scanning Books & Publications
CHAPTER 1:
Below are the largest & most active online groups & forums.
These are general scanning forums – for forums about your region see Regional & International Police Scanner Resources below.
We highly recommend searching these forums for a group about your geographic area or specific product; these can be very helpful.
This is the largest online forum for scanners with over 800,000 members.
There are hundreds of new submissions daily covering basically everything you could ever want to know about scanning.
Be sure to look at their wide range of forum groups such as Prospective Uniden Owners, & regional groups like the Alabama Radio Discussion Forum– there is a group for almost everything here.
This is a must visit site for scanning enthusiasts.
Yahoo has a general scanning group as well as several smaller focused groups. Regional & specific scanner groups may be helpful such as the BCD436HP group or the Marine Scanning Group.
Worldwide shortwave radio forum. While this forum only has around 1,500 members it’s quite active & is for the more technical user.
This Uniden owned site was created specifically for the HomePatrol-1 and HomePatrol-2 scanners & has expanded from there.
While not as large or active as Radio Reference, this is a great forum for Uniden digital scanner owners.
This 7,000 member forum is for radar detectors but they have a small ‘CB & Scanner Forum’ as well.
This forum covers all radio hobby including CB & ham. They also have a sub forum for scanning.
CHAPTER 2:
There are a lot of free frequency guides online, some of them are great, but others are horribly outdated or regionally focused.
Below is a list of the largest & most updated free national frequency sources. While these are great, visit the Regional & International Police Scanner Resources section below to find sites that cover your area or interest.
These regional websites typically have more up-to-date & hard to find frequencies listed.
This is by far the largest & most accurate free frequency guide online.
While the best resource for general frequencies such as fire & police, regional sites tend to have more off-beat or hard to find frequencies for things like local business & amusement parks.
This is a great resource for finding frequencies from all over the world including police, air, military, & is easy to navigate.
Digital Frequency Search is a free website that allows you to search for NXDN, DMR, and P25 radio licenses by county and state.
Digital Frequency Search’s Quick Import tool allows you to easily import conventional frequencies into Whistler and Uniden scanner programming software.
This is a site for air traffic only. It’s a frequency guide, index to find free online air traffic streams & has a large forum with over 150,000 members.
They have a nice visual tool to help you search for air traffic frequencies worldwide.
This interactive site allows users to filter for frequency lists by state, county & zip.
CHAPTER 3:
Yeah us! Our resource & learning center has a ton of information on scanners including educational articles, beginner’s guides, buying guides, antenna buyer’s guide, installation guides, scanning tips, 100’s of free YouTube Videos & more.
You’re already here – poke around a bit:)
This is a great resource center with articles & in-depth how-to guides. They also have a wiki page for each scanner that goes into great detail & is very helpful.
A great resource for general police scanner technical definitions.
eHow has a lot of user generated articles around scanners including programming guides & other educational content.
Police-Scanner.infoThis is a very informative site with a lot of great educational articles covering all things scanner related.
This is a true treasure trove of information on all things amateur radio related. We link to their scanning section above, but this site has a large amount of information on everything from antennas, to CB radios & more.
Amateur Radio site with some helpful scanning resources
CHAPTER 4:
Search by each airport in the U.S.
Airport information.
With over 150,000 members, Live ATC is a forum, frequency guide, stream index & more. This is a must visit site for aviation scanning enthusiasts.
Aircraft spotting website with a 1,500+ person forum, educational guides, articles & more.
Us again! Our comprehensive NASCAR Race Scanning Guide includes everything you need to know about race scanning including how to find frequencies for each team & track, as well as how to rent or buy a scanner, choose a race headset & more.
NASCAR frequencies for each driver.
Radio Reference has a wiki page for each race track where users update frequencies for that track as well as a race scanning sub forum which is fairly active.
This site list all US train frequencies & has a wide variety of train information including rail fanning & rail travel information.
A monthly print & digital publication that covers all things rail related.
A very active fail fan blog, podcast & more.
US rail frequency lists by region.
Watch live steams for trains & listen to train chatter via live scanner feeds.
CHAPTER 5:
There are thousands of personal & scanning blogs & amateur radio clubs which can be very useful & are a great source of information about scanning, frequencies, & nuances in your area.
Below is a sampling of the biggest & most active of these sites.
Please mention any site we may have overlooked in the comments & we’ll add.
Georgia
CHAPTER 6:
There are an infinite number of resources to find online public radio streaming.
Below are the largest nationwide sites.
For regional or specific niche resources, see the Regional & International Police Scanner Resources section.
CHAPTER 7:
When buying police scanner frequency guides, be sure to look at the publication or ‘updated on’ date as frequencies change.