WTOC TV ran a news story tonight on SCMPD's digital conversion. All throughout the news story, they referred to the officers' radios as "scanners," using the term radio only sporadically. Somehow, I don't think SCMPD's officers are carrying scanners as part of their issued equipment. From the video on WTOC's website, it appears that the officers are using Motorola XTS 5000 portables. This is an example of poor journalism, although I'm sure that most would let them off of the hook by saying most people don't know the difference between a two-way radio and a scanner."Savannah law enforcement is entering the digital age. Since early yesterday morning, Savannah-Chatham police and 911 have had all their scanners reprogrammed."
A two-way radio is self descriptive. It communicates two ways, by receiving and transmitting. A scanner is a one way radio, it only receives. There is obviously a difference between the two, but only a couple of times was the proper terminology used. Throughout the article, the radios were consistently and incorrectly referred to as "emergency scanners." Here are a couple more examples (I would assume the second refers to 800 Mhz rebanding):
"Scanner reprogramming should be done by tonight, but as a new technology is installed, an even newer version is on the horizon.It should be the job of the journalist to properly identify the subject of their story. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Next year, the city will go through this process again with an even more updated digital signal for emergency scanners."
Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net
