SCANNING: Hams chat a lot, but they're worth monitoring

NatCom Rewind: Ignore the casual talk and focus on public service events and emergencies

NatCom Rewind is a feature showcasing articles from past issues of the magazine that still have relevance today. This NatCom Rewind feature is updated from the July | August 2004 issue of National Communications Magazine. It was written by Chuck Gysi | N2DUP | editor and publisher.

If you are like many scanner enthusiasts, you may encounter some occasional ham radio activity on the VHF and UHF bands, but you probably don’t seek it out. The sometimes constant banter on repeaters can get long-winded at times, and unless it’s something of interest to you personally, you probably won’t stop to listen.

Are you prepared for an emergency situation? Program local ham simplex and repeater channels into your scanner, but leave them locked out if the chatter bothers you. It’s easy to unlock the channels when something big is happening. A national simplex channel of 223.500 MHz is seen programmed into this RadioShack scanner. | Photo from National Communications Magazine archives

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