DC Embassies Open House This Weekend

Chinese Embassy in Washington DC.
(Photo courtesy of Chinese diplomatic service)

Our friend Allan Henney on the Scan-DC list posted the following:

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"It's May -- that time of year for the embassy open houses! This Saturday and the following Saturday 70 embassies will host opening houses. Some use two-way radios, and I've been fascinated by the legal ramifications. If you go, please bring your scanner and share your close-call hits or at least note which embassies have radios and what type/band. Here are a few notes I have captured in past years and would appreciate further confirmation:"

Australia 171.950? Also had a brief close-call hit on 160.08. They used Motorola EX500/600 series.

Canada 463.5250r/s [d306] and 464.6750r/s [d306] (used in past, repeater and simplex)

French had an FRS-style radio in the guard shack, but was not in use.

Germany 160.270 [156.7] odd one, huh? Also 171.7625 and 172.5625 both freq counter hits (not confirmed) and 468.4125 catering (not confirmed)

Iraqi had a Motorola FRS/GMRS radio (not in use).

Italy 461.1125s [67.0], was: 464.5500s [67.0]

Saudi Arabia 468.6500s [141.3] and maybe 466.0625s

Slovak 462.675s(?) [hired security]

Sweden, House of 464.325s(?)

I expected to see some high-end gear last year, at least from the super powers, but mostly saw old analog Motorola business-style radios. One guard at the British Embassy had an old Motorola GP300 or GP350. Would love to pin down their frequency!

Does anybody have other embassy frequency finds to share?

See these Websites for the participating embassies:

May 5: http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/things-do-see/passport-dc/participating-embassies
May 12: http://www.euopenhouse.com/plan-your-trip
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A pair of Tucson brothers aim to render police scanners obsolete.

Information from: Arizona Daily Star (http://www.azstarnet.com/ ) and the SCAN-L newsgroup (James Richardson).

Parker and Marshall Minardo, owners of a software company called EdgeRift, created a $1 iPhone application called Emergency Radio that gives users ccess to more than 1,200 radio feeds from police, fire and emergency frequencies around the country.

Within days of its launch in early May, the application shot up to No. 2 on Apple's list of paid applications. As of Friday, Emergency Radio was still ranked in the top 40.9

More than 180,000 iPhone and iPod Touch owners have downloaded Emergency Radio, and the application is currently averaging between 1,000 and 1,200 downloads per day, said 20-year-old Parker, Edgerift's CEO.

The Minardos who run the business out of their Tucson home keep 70 cents from each sale, so the application is making the brothers flush with cash.

"Maybe we'll go out to breakfast," deadpanned Marshall, 26, the company president. "We haven't made any plans to celebrate. We're just trying to keep it going."

A free version of the application, which lets you listen to emergency feeds in a few big cities, has been downloaded 80,000 times.

The application taps into the groundwork laid by ScanAmerica part of the RadioReference.com network which streams the scanner feeds. Emergency Radio makes the feeds easy to access on the iPhone and also lists the police, fire and rescue squads' codes and their definitions so you can understand what the emergency workers are talking about.

EdgeRift was not exactly an overnight success.

It all started in 2001, when Parker started developing applications for personal digital assistants.

He and Marshall formed a business called PDA Performance that found limited success selling applications that organized contacts and streamlined the user interface.

In 2004, the company moved to Tucson so Marshall could earn a political science degree from the University of Arizona. The brothers relaunched the company as EdgeRift in February 2008 and shifted the focus to developing software for the burgeoning iPhone.

"All the top apps were entertainment and games, and we were thinking of what would be fun and exciting on the iPhone," Parker said. "It kind of occurred to us that with all the online feeds from emergency and police scanners, there was no easy way to access them and play them on the iPhone.

We thought it would be great if we could do that."

It took the duo four weeks to put the application together, with Parker handling programming while Marshall worked on logistics, such as customer support and day-to-day operations. Apple approved the application on April 18 and released it in early May.

Emergency Radio caught fire, picking up 50 sales the first day, then doubling for the next several days.

"It appeals to so many different people out there," Parker said. "Policemen and firemen are e-mailing us, and they're so excited they love it. It really worked out well."

The Minardos will release a free update to the program next month and are considering working on a version for the BlackBerry. The brothers say they work 80 hours a week and are considering renting out an office and hiring one or more employees to help with the workload.

"It's very strange," Marshall said. "We worked very hard for this one. We never expected anything like this. It's just unbelievable."

CHM Scanning the 56th Presidential Inauguration

If you plan on attending the Prez Inaug next week (personally I wouldn't be within 500 miles of that mess), here is an online PDF guide for scanner radio hobbyist courtesy of the Capitol Hill Monitor group that you might want to bring along.

http://henney.com/chm/0109/chm0109.pdf