The live frequencies in Emergency Radio are powered mostly by a community of volunteers and enthusiasts who broadcast from scanning equipment connected to their computers. The feeds are not necessarily provided by the police and fire departments. As a result, not all locations are available to us, and some are only online certain times of the day. If there isn't a feed available for your location or it's simply not reliable and you have a police/fire scanner, you can host an audio feed for the RadioReference and Emergency Radio community.

To get started hosting a feed, you'll need an analog or digital scanner depending on your location. You can find this out by searching for your location at RadioReference. Scanners are available for purchase online at ScannerMaster or Amazon.com. Once you get a scanner, you'll need to connect an audio cable (3.5mm standard headphone jack) from the scanner to the line-in port on your computer (either a PC or Mac will work) and run software in the background to stream the audio to RadioReference servers. You'll also need to set up the scanner to hear nearby frequencies. A great reference for finding the frequencies in your area is RadioReference.

To find out more about hosting a feed, please go to: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Become_a_Feed_Provider

Once a feed is added to the RadioReference directory, it must be manually verified by EdgeRift. This verification by EdgeRift is automatically performed daily, and allows us to ensure accuracy of the feed's name and GPS coordinates. Once verified, it is submitted to the next Emergency Radio database update. This entire process usually takes just a few days, but may take up to one week depending on the backlog of new feeds.

Unfortunately, sending us scanner frequencies or requests for locations will not help us add them to Emergency Radio. However, if you are hosting a feed (outside of RadioReference) and would like to give us permission to include it in Emergency Radio, we'd love to hear from you!

The feeds provided in Emergency Radio are legal in the United States; however, we recommend that you check with your state, local, and federal laws as radio laws sometimes change.

Some general points of interest:

• It is illegal own and operate a police scanner if you are a convicted felon.
• In some states, it is illegal to carry a police scanner in your vehicle and act on that knowledge. We recommend that you not use Emergency Radio while driving.
• It is illegal to listen to encrypted frequencies such as FBI, SWAT, and DEA. Emergency Radio does not include any encrypted frequencies.

For more information, we recommend that you check out the Scanner Legality section on this page.

Sorry, but we do not currently have plans to develop Emergency Radio for webOS devices.

Sorry, but we do not currently have plans to develop Emergency Radio for BlackBerry devices.

Unfortunately, we have canceled our previous plans to develop Emergency Radio for Android devices. At this time, our primary focus is to continually improve Emergency Radio for iOS.

On your iPhone or iPod touch, open the App Store application and tap on Updates (lower right corner of the screen). If the message "All Apps Are Up to Date" is displayed, you have the latest version. If Emergency Radio is listed in the update list, tap on it, then tap the Free button, and then Install to download the update.

In iTunes, click on Applications in your library. Next, click Check for Updates (lower right corner of the main iTunes window). You can then download the new update and sync your device.

Sound issues are rare and usually are the result of a connectivity issue (either a weak WiFi or cellular network connection). To troubleshoot, turn the volume up all of the way (with both the physical volume buttons and by sliding the volume control to the far right on the screen). Then, try one of the busier frequencies (Chicago police, for example).

It may take a few minutes to hear something if it's a slow time for the department. If you still can't hear anything please check your connection and try to improve the signal strength.

If you have followed the steps above, and are still having problems with audio in Emergency Radio please contact us for assistance.

Thanks for your interest! While we wish we could provide a timetable, it's much too early to provide any details. We will make announcements as soon as Emergency Radio (Android) is available for beta testing, and later when it is publicly released.

To keep up on Emergency Radio news and announcements, you can follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/emergencyradio

Or, show your support and become a fan on Facebook. Can you keep me up-to-date with Emergency Radio news? Of course! Click here to follow us on Twitter.

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