I’ve Lost My Scanner Ear

One of the most valuable pieces of paper I had when I worked in WBTW's Lumberton Bureau was a cipher of all the "10 codes" issued over the Robeson County Emergency Communications channel that I so closely monitored. It got to the point that I knew exactly what was going on when the dispatcher put out the call, and I could get right to the scene.
That's how I found the quadruple fatal accident on U.S. 74 late one Saturday aftenroon in 2003 so quickly. I was not so far away from the scene when I heard the call over the scanner, and I got right to it. Three old ladies from Maxton died that afternoon when their car hit another car head-on.
Then, there was the afternoon when I heard the call about an accident way out on Highway 41 involving a school bus. It was the week before Easter 2003, and a woman from Bladen County had hit a little girl as she got off the school bus.
I got there as quick as I could.
I'll never forget that scene as long as I live.
When I moved to the Florence newsroom later that year, I had to learn a whole new set of codes for the scanner there, which was programmed to pick up several counties. Luckly, most dispatchers in the Pee Dee actually said what the problem was, rather than using just a "10 code" or another type of code. So, we would--more often than not--listen for the address given, to figure out which county it was.
I picked up on countless deadly car crashes, house fires, and shootings just by sitting at my desk, and listening intently, all the while doing other tasks.
I'll never forget the Sunday night, right before Halloween 2005, when I was producing and anchoring the weekend news, when I heard the call go out about a "tractor trailer versus tractor" accident way out on Dudley Road near Latta. I was the first to hear it, and News13 was the first on the scene, and I was able to relay the news to the Associated Press about the horrible deadly hay ride accident.
Anyway, since then, it seems, I've lost my scanner ear. I am not missing stories, so much as I just am not hearing all of them.
There could be any number of reasons for this.
Since then, my duties around the TV station have changed slightly. For a year or more, I was a very busy man, turning 11 p.m. stories, in addition to anchoring and helping produce the 10 p.m. news. Very little down time in that shift.
But, now I am more of an anchor and producer, so I have more "down" time.
However, in our newsroom now, we have a peculiar new system wherein the scanner is actually routed so we can listen to it on our computers. This makes it rather difficult to understand sometimes, but it works.
Our 11 p.m. producer, Molly Baker (be sure to catch her vlogs on scnow.com every night!) has developed quite a scanner ear, and can pick up on the news, even through the tinny little computer speakers we have. She is dedicated to that scanner, and we rely on her (for better or for worse) to listen to that almost religiously.
Scanner listening is a very valuable part of our jobs, and I need to re-dedicate myself to picking up the ability I used to rely on so much.

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