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How to Listen to Police Scanners Online Free (2026)
You can be listening to live police and fire dispatch for your county in about thirty seconds: open Broadcastify, browse to your state and county, press play. That’s the whole tutorial — the rest of this page is what the tutorial sites don’t tell you: what feeds cover, what they miss, why they go quiet, and when you’ve outgrown them.
Key takeaways Browser: Broadcastify — free live feeds by county. Phone: Scanner Radio (Android), 5-0 Radio (iOS). Search your county, not your town. Limits: volunteer patchwork coverage, only the channels the operator relays, 15–60 s latency (sometimes intentional delays), and encryption silences a feed for everyone. Outgrown feeds? A $30 RTL-SDR + free GopherTrunk or a dedicated scanner hears everything, instantly, with no middleman.
The three ways to listen right now
- Broadcastify — the largest directory of volunteer-run feeds. Free listening in any browser; a paid tier removes ads and unlocks archives of past audio.
- Scanner Radio (Android) / 5-0 Radio (iOS) — phone apps streaming the same feed network, with “top feeds now” lists that spike when something big is happening somewhere.
- Agency-run streams — some departments and airports publish their own audio; worth one search for your city.
Tips: dispatch is organized by county, so start there; feeds labeled “digital” or “trunked” are already decoded for you — the operator’s scanner did that work.
What a feed actually is (and why it matters)
Every feed is one volunteer, one receiver, one internet connection, relaying the talkgroups they chose. That explains all four classic complaints:
- “No feed for my county.” No volunteer stepped up. The airwaves are active; nobody’s relaying them.
- “The feed doesn’t carry fire/EMS/my town.” The operator relays a selection, not the whole system.
- “It’s behind what I’m seeing outside.” Streaming adds 15–60 seconds, some agencies mandate longer intentional delays, and feeds can be paused during sensitive incidents.
- “It went silent for good.” Usually encryption — once dispatch encrypts, no feed, app, scanner, or SDR can carry it, ever.
None of this is a knock on Broadcastify — it’s a volunteer commons doing exactly what it promises. It’s just not the same thing as hearing the radio yourself.
First listen: making sense of what you hear
The traffic is terse but learnable in one evening:
- The shape of a dispatch: unit number → location → call type → sometimes a caution note. Responders answer with acknowledgments and arrival (“on scene”), then a disposition.
- Dispositions worth knowing: “code 4” (under control, no more units), “GOA/UTL” (gone on arrival / unable to locate), “unfounded” (nothing there), “10-8” (back in service). These closings are usually the answer you were listening for.
- Ten-codes vary by agency — a 10-50 is a crash in one county and something else two counties over — and many agencies have moved to plain language. When in doubt, the context carries you; RadioReference’s wiki lists local code sheets.
- Quiet is normal. Dispatch channels idle for long stretches; a silent feed usually means a quiet hour, not a broken stream.
- Two etiquette rules that keep the hobby healthy: never self-dispatch to a scene you heard about, and treat names, plates, and medical details you hear as things you didn’t.
When you’ve outgrown feeds
If you keep reaching for a feed — checking sirens and police activity, following storms, listening to aircraft — direct reception removes every limitation at once: zero delay, every channel, no dependence on a volunteer.
- Cheapest: a ~$30 RTL-SDR dongle + free, open-source GopherTrunk decodes digital P25, DMR, and NXDN trunked systems, follows all talkgroups simultaneously, streams to your own browser, and records every call with timestamps — your private, searchable archive (see what happened last night). Start here: what you need and the budget breakdown.
- Simplest: a ZIP-code-programmable scanner — no computer involved.
- Give back: with your own receiver you can become your county’s missing Broadcastify feed.
Listening is legal in the US with narrow state exceptions, and everything on this page respects the same hard boundary: encrypted channels stay closed to everyone. Check what’s decodable in your area on RadioReference before spending a dime.
The fix for next time: a scanner that never sleeps, for about $250
Every lookup method on this page depends on someone else — a feed volunteer, an app's coverage map, an agency webmaster. This kit removes the middleman: a silent little box on a shelf that decodes your county's digital dispatch directly off the air, streams it to any browser in the house, and records every call with timestamps. Next time the sirens go past, the answer is already on your phone — and free, open-source GopherTrunk is the software, so the parts below are the entire cost.
Why two receivers: one dongle stays locked to your police trunked system while the second covers fire/EMS or a neighboring system at the same time — the two channels a "what's going on?" moment actually needs. That's a trick a $500 handheld scanner can't do, and GopherTrunk drives both dongles from one Orange Pi.
Orange Pi 5
around $90
The RK3588 host that runs it all 24/7 — silent, low-power, and strong enough for both dongles with headroom to spare. GopherTrunk ships a native ARM64 Linux build for it.
Orange Pi 5 on Amazon →RTL-SDR Blog V4 kit
around $55
The dongle and the telescopic dipole antenna kit with coax and mounts in one box — this one holds your police system's control channel.
V4 + antenna kit on Amazon →RTL-SDR Blog V4 (second dongle)
around $35
Covers fire/EMS, a second trunked system, airband, or NOAA weather — simultaneously, not by giving up the first channel.
RTL-SDR V4 on Amazon →The complete parts list
| Part | Why it's in the kit | Approx $ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange Pi 5 | Always-on host for both dongles | ~$90 | Amazon → |
| RTL-SDR Blog V4 + dipole antenna kit | Receiver #1, antennas, coax, mounts | ~$55 | Amazon → |
| RTL-SDR Blog V4 (second) | Receiver #2 — fire/EMS or a second system | ~$35 | Amazon → |
| Powered USB 3.0 hub | Clean, stable power for two warm dongles | ~$35 | Amazon → |
| 16-piece SMA adapter kit | Joins any antenna to any dongle, first try | ~$18 | Amazon → |
| RG316 SMA pigtail kit | Flexible jumpers between hub, dongles, antennas | ~$15 | Amazon → |
| USB-C power supply (5V/4A+) | The Orange Pi 5 needs solid power for 24/7 duty | ~$15 | Amazon → |
| microSD card (64GB, A2) | OS plus months of recorded calls | ~$12 | Amazon → |
Kit total: about $250–275. Worthwhile upgrade once it's earned a permanent shelf: an outdoor discone antenna (~$40) that hears everything from 25–3000 MHz — see the antenna guide. Prefer a Raspberry Pi 5 host instead? Same build, swap the board — Pi 5 (8GB) on Amazon and the SBC build guide.
From boxes to first decoded call
- Flash 64-bit Linux (Debian/Ubuntu image) to the microSD and boot the Orange Pi headless.
- Plug in the powered hub, both dongles, and the antennas — the adapter kit bridges any connector mismatch.
- Install GopherTrunk — one free static binary, no dependencies: download, then follow the setup guide to point it at your county's system from RadioReference.
- Open the web console from any phone or laptop in the house — live calls, talkgroup names, and a scrollable, replayable recording archive.
Two honest caveats before you spend a dime: check RadioReference that your agencies are not encrypted — no device decodes AES — and skim the legality rules for your state (listening is legal in the US; a few states restrict use in vehicles). Rather have a no-computer, pocketable option instead? That's the dedicated scanner guide.
Frequently asked questions
How can I listen to a police scanner online for free?
Go to Broadcastify.com, browse to your state and county, and press play on a live feed — free in any browser, no account needed. On a phone, the Scanner Radio app (Android) or 5-0 Radio (iOS) streams the same volunteer-run feeds. Search by county, since most public-safety dispatch is organized at the county level.
Are online police scanner feeds live or delayed?
Mostly near-live — expect roughly 15–60 seconds of streaming latency. Some agencies require their feed to be intentionally delayed as a condition of carrying it, and Broadcastify may delay or disable feeds during major incidents at agency request. Your own scanner is the only zero-delay option.
Why is there no scanner feed for my area?
Feeds are run by volunteers with their own receivers, so coverage is a patchwork: no volunteer, no feed. Even where a feed exists it carries only the channels its operator chose to relay — often main dispatch but not fire, EMS, or neighboring towns. If your county is missing, running your own scanner or SDR is the fix, and you could even become the feed provider.
Why did my local scanner feed go quiet or disappear?
The most common reason is encryption: when an agency encrypts dispatch, the feed goes silent permanently, because no receiver can decode it. Feeds also vanish when the volunteer’s hardware or internet fails, or when the agency moves to a new radio system and the operator hasn’t reconfigured. Check the feed’s status notes on Broadcastify.
Is it legal to listen to police scanner feeds online?
Yes — streaming and listening to unencrypted public-safety audio is legal in the US. State-specific restrictions mostly concern using a scanner in a vehicle or during the commission of a crime, and they target radio receivers rather than internet streams. See our state-by-state legality guide for details.
What's better: a scanner app or a real police scanner?
Apps win on price (free) and zero setup. A real scanner or SDR wins on everything else: zero delay, every channel rather than the feed operator’s selection, coverage where no feed exists, and it keeps working when feeds are delayed, dropped, or overloaded during major incidents — exactly when you want it most.