Police scanner feeds for event monitoring are the fastest ground-truth signal available for incidents around a venue. When dispatch radios a unit to respond to a fight at gate 12, the chatter is on the air 20 to 40 minutes before the same incident shows up in local news or social media. SignalGuard surfaces the same public scanner feeds your security team would manually monitor via Broadcastify, the largest aggregator of public-safety radio in the US.
What this signal monitors
The Scanner Feeds signal identifies nearby public-safety scanner feeds — police, fire, EMS, and combined dispatch — for the county the venue sits in. The signal points your team at where to listen; it does not transcribe or analyze audio (transcription is on the BYOK upgrade path, see below). The output is a deep link to the county's Broadcastify feed listing, plus (when configured) feed-level listener counts and agency names.
Data sources
SignalGuard's broadcastifyClient.js runs in one of two modes. Mode A (default, no API key): the client geocodes the venue, extracts the county and state from OpenStreetMap Nominatim, and returns a deep link to Broadcastify's county search page. The user clicks through and listens manually. No audio, no transcription, no terms-of-service exposure — this is the always-on baseline. Mode B (with BROADCASTIFY_API_KEY): the client calls the Broadcastify Audio Feeds API and enriches the response with feed names, genres, and live listener counts. The card surface is identical between modes; Mode B is just denser. The Broadcastify Audio Feeds API requires a developer key with active subscription; see their developer documentation for current terms.
How SignalGuard scores severity
This signal is informational and always reports low severity. It is a pointer signal — it tells the security team where to listen rather than scoring threat level itself. The AI synthesis layer can treat scanner availability as a context pointer when generating an event-day brief, but it doesn't escalate the overall threat level. Operators who want scanner audio scored as a threat signal should connect a transcription provider on /integrations (see below) and use SignalGuard's chatter pipeline to apply NLP threat classification to the transcribed text.
Use cases for event security
- Pre-event baselining. Before doors, an ops manager spot-listens to the local dispatch feed to gauge normal activity volume. Knowing what "quiet" sounds like for this county on a Tuesday makes anomalies during the event obvious.
- Incident corroboration on signal collision. When the airspace card shows three news helicopters circling the venue and news chatter is silent, the scanner feed is where the operational truth lives. Listen for unit responses to the venue's address.
- Mutual-aid awareness. Multi-jurisdiction events (interstate festivals, college rivalry games) draw mutual-aid response. The Broadcastify county listing surfaces adjacent counties' feeds the same way the venue's local feed appears — useful when an incident spans jurisdictional lines.
Pairs well with
- Airspace monitoring — press helicopters above the venue, dispatch chatter on the ground.
- Traffic monitoring — accidents on the access road usually appear on dispatch before the TomTom card.
- News chatter — scanner is 20–40 min ahead of news; news is the public version.
Premium upgrade path
For real-time transcription and NLP-driven event detection on scanner audio, BYOK OpenMHz, Broadcastify Calls (the transcribed-calls product), or pair Broadcastify audio with a transcription provider like Deepgram or AssemblyAI on the Integrations page. RadioReference (Broadcastify's parent) offers premium feed access with lower latency. For larger metros with encrypted P25 networks, public scanner coverage is limited regardless of provider; in those markets the value of this signal is the dispatch-channel coverage rather than tactical channels.
Frequently asked questions
Does SignalGuard transcribe scanner audio?
Not in the default Broadcastify integration — that's by design (terms-of-service and audio-rights reasons). To get transcribed and NLP-classified scanner content, BYOK a transcription provider on /integrations.
Why is scanner severity always low? Scanner feeds are a pointer signal, not a scored one. They tell your team where to listen rather than asserting a threat level. Transcribed and classified scanner content (via the BYOK upgrade) can contribute to scored chatter signals.
What if my venue is in a county with no Broadcastify feed? Some rural counties have no public scanner feed listed. The signal returns the deep link to the search page anyway; some metros aggregate multiple counties under one feed. For encrypted-radio jurisdictions, no public scanner feed exists at all.
Does scanner coverage work outside the US? The Broadcastify integration is US-only. International scanner coverage is fragmented; we currently don't have a global BYOK partner. See SignalGuard docs for roadmap.
Is listening to police scanner audio legal? In the US, listening to public-safety radio is legal in most states; some states restrict scanner use while driving. Broadcastify only carries feeds where the operator has confirmed legal redistribution. Check your local statutes if rebroadcasting.
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