The scanner hobbyist loves monitoring the state's law enforcement; the fire department's responses to structure fires; natural and manmade disasters; cultural events and many more useful purposes. Because a good portion of the radio spectrum is used from low band to 800/900mhz, from analog to digital; the ideal scanner of choice would be a digital scanner that would cover most every corner of the Empire State.
Rural areas in Upstate tend to use VHF with some agencies such as the city agencies, such as
Niagara Frontier Transit Authority System in Buffalo using a trunking radio system. Public safety agencies in
Oswego County using a complex system that can't be monitored by certain scanners.
In Mid-State, for example
Rome in
Oneida County uses an EDACS analog trunking system, however the county itself uses a combination of Low, VHF & UHF frequency bands that can be heard by any
low end scanner.
On Staten Island in
Suffolk County, fire and EMS agencies use a combination of low band, VHF & UHF and
law enforcement uses a combination of trunked analog and digital radio systems.
The
New York State Police primarily use the VHF radio band over most of the state and the UHF band on the State Thruway. State Troopers assigned to New York City use an analog system called the "
New York METRO-21 Trunked Radio System", this system requires a trunk tracking scanner.
FDNY, NYPD and EMS have begun migrating from an conventional analog VHF system to a more complex
digital system.
The
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey System uses an analog trunking system, requiring a
trunk tracking scanner.
Repeating from the first paragraph, the
best all around scanner would be a digital one as it will be able to receive all radio traffic in the state with the exception of encrypted systems that no scanner can monitor and a few other systems that'll be noted in the county breakdown section of this web site.
For more info on Public Safety frequencies in New York City, click on the links below.
www.n2nov.net
Radio Reference - New York
Scanning Central & Upstate New York
