KB9VBR VHF scanner antennasThe other day I was listening to the scanner and I heard a page out for the fire department. The address was about a block away from our house, so I popped outside and was surprised to see the box factory near our house was on fire. As the fire trucks got closer, a crowd from the neighborhood gathered and we watched the firefighters tackle the situation. Fortunately the damage was minimal, lightning had struck the building earlier in the evening and the roof started to smolder near where the electrical entered the building.

Scanner listening is a great pastime and a high quality VHF/UHF scanner antenna can not only increase your range, but also help pick up the weak signals that a regular scanner antenna wouldn’t be able to pick up. Many times when the fire department has an incident, they’ll switch to tactical frequencies to keep the paging channel clear. If you don’t have an external antenna like the KB9VBR J-Pole scanner antenna, you’ll miss out on a big part of the traffic.

Keep listening to the airwaves, you’ll never know what you may pick up.