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Just about any radio scanner can be used to monitor Family Radio
Service frequencies. And, its completely legal to monitor these
frequencies even in the US. Program the following frequencies into
your scanner:
| 462.5625 |
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| 462.5875 |
| 462.6125 |
| 462.6375 |
| 462.6625 |
| 462.6875 |
| 462.7125 |
| 467.5625 |
| 467.5875 |
| 467.6125 |
| 467.6375 |
| 467.6625 |
| 467.6875 |
| 467.7125 |
You will get reasonably good reception on this band with the whip antenna that is built into most scanners. Try to listen from as high a place as possible - such as the top floor of a building - and place the radio as close as possible to a window. You may have to listen for several hours to hear any activity, depending where you live. FRS has a range of 1 to 2 miles. I have found the most active times to be weekend days and evenings.
In order to hear and record FRS conversations without having to sit around listening, you may wish to use a voice-activated recorder. These are available for a nominal cost at places such as Radio Shack. Another option is to use a voice-activated program for your PC. I use a freeware program called Scanrec, which you can find on any internet search engine. Either way, you should use a patch cord (available at Radio Shack for a few dollars) to connect your scanner to the tape recorder or PC so that it will not record sounds from the room.
You may also wish to download some type of audio editing program if you go the PC route. That way you can edit the files you record to keep just the interesting stuff. I use a freeware program called Audacity. Finally, if desired, you can even convert the resulting WAV files to MP3 format for more compact storage, or so you can listen to them on a portable MP3 player.
Feel free to contact me if you have any trouble getting this set up.
And, if you record anything interesting, please
E-mail me!
