I am an old ham radio buff who has been using scanners and commercial
radios for over forty years. My first two meter ham radio was a huge
GE Prog Line that put out 75 watts. It was a converted police radio
that was continuing life in my truck. I had coverage over several
states using the right repeaters as I roamed MD, VA, DE, WV, PA.
For years even before becoming a ham I had various police radios and
scanners. These improved from expensive crystal controlled radios like
my Prog line to full digitally synthesized tuning radios.
Then more recently even the whole radio became fully digital capable
of listening to digital APCO 25 encoded signals. There are now a whole
bunch of digital formats and a few of these can not be decoded by any
reasonably priced (under $1000 radio).
I have had for years digital scanning radios that cost several
thousand dollars total. I have lost interest as the switch to digital
trunked microwave over the last four years has made using a mobile
scanner much more difficult. I now have two hand held digital scanners
riding around in the trunk of one of my cars unused for the most part.
I use those when I assume a storm spotter role during severe weather.
I downloaded Wunder Radio and other apps that allowed monitoring
online scanners but found that they were wasting my iPhone’s
usefulness. I grabbed Emergency Radio when it came out simply because
it made things interesting and easy to find just those online scanners
in the USA.
I saw a review of the iPhone app ‘Police Radio’ today and decided to
do a search of the app store for other new scanner radio apps to see
if any were really good. Boy I was blown away with one application in
particular and I found a second one that was neat.
The second application is called ‘Scanner 911′ by Tap 4 Taxi($0.99)
Special introductory offer!
http://tinyurl.com/yfbvxm8
You can listen to live police, fire, and EMS with scanner 911 and
record on your iPhone the action as it happens for later playback.
The best iPhone application for acting as a radio scanner that I
really could get excited about was teeny Scanner App ($2.99). This app
simulates having four radios at four different volume levels used by a
pro to monitor communications.
teeny Scanner lets users scan through their choice of Police, Fire,
EMS and other feeds from around the country. Streaming audio scanner
feeds can be exciting, but when there is a lapse in the action things
get boring quickly. Unlike similar products teeny Scanner scans
through up to 4 feeds at a time. The app will stop on a feed when
there is a transmission present, sort of like, well, a real scanner…
You don’t have to miss any of the action, be it next door or across
the country!
teeny Scanner
FEATURES:
– Over 1000 stations currently available and the list is growing!
– Scan up to 4 stations at once over WiFi or 3G
– There are four banks each holding up to four different streams each
so you can jump around
– Scan indicators shows which station is being scanned or playing
– Independent control of volume and squelch for each station
– Hold/scan button to lock in fast paced action
– Last Contact date & time tracked for each station - neat!
– Your iPhone will not go into sleep mode while this app is running
– Turn your screen off and keep scanning for better battery life
It does not work on 2G.
IMHO there is still some work to be done but this is the best scanner
radio app for the iPhone. It also has a scrollable sub window with the
10, 11, and other codes like the other police scanner apps.
If the developer adds a recorder to this app that you can instantly
turn on the teeny scanner will be a real killer iPhone application in
the palm of your hand.
What I have now is four Cobb County GA scanner feeds running in
something the size of a thick credit card or security card. My small
handheld APC25 digital scanners are huge monsters compared to this.
Therefore they are stll relegated to my desk drawer, my closet, and
the trunk of my car. Maybe some day I will sell them all and buy
something new from Apple.
Teeny Scanner app tested and adopted on my iPhone 3GS – highly
recommended by ki4je Atlanta GA.
Listen up to four police scanner streams simultaneously on iPhone 3GS 
Linear Mode
