If you noticed Grandma’s police scanner went silent in the past few weeks, it didn’t signal the end of crime and fires. It’s just that the cops and firefighters are using new radios.
And Grandma is going to have to buy an expensive new digital scanner if she wants to keep listening to 911 communications.
St. Louis County officials on Tuesday said they have finished the job of converting every law enforcement, rescue and fire unit in the county from analog to digital radios. Moreover, Sheriff Ross Litman said, they did it on time and $800,000 under budget.
The county joined the Minnesota State Patrol, state Department of Transportation and most other law enforcement agencies on Jan. 1 when the old radios went silent and all personnel went to digital equipment on the Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response system, or ARMER.
In just St. Louis County, the move…
