Anyone do Stringing here?
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:14 pm
Just wondered if anyone here is or was a 'Stringer' for a newspaper?
During the early 1980's I used to be a freelance stringer for a city newspaper. The work was mainly around night time or at the weekends. For those who don't know what a Stringer is, it's listening to emergency services frequency on one or more scanning receivers and as soon as something newsworthy comes up on the scanner, you call it in to a pre-arranged phone on the editors floor, or by two-way radio or fax. The Editor interviews you first before he decides to freelance you, so making sure he's not dealing with an idiot. Money is paid on a sliding scale of newsworthiness. If your call gets the paper an exclusive on a serious event, then I used to get around $100 - $150. Big money in those days! For other stuff like MVA's or house fires only about $30-$50. Some Stringers used to go to the scene with a camera, but unless you have a Press card, you can be told to get lost, especially if the cops are there, or if you get in their way, they can accidentally 'drop' your equipment.
I never went out. I had a back room (Shack) with three scanners going, AM/FM and UHF CB and a shortwave receiver with SSB capability and a phone/fax. I has several roof antenna including a discone, a Yagi and an HF longwire array. I had this setup as it was my main hobby. Someone I knew asked me if I wanted the Stringer job as he was quitting, so I took it and did it for about a year, then I got fed up with the hours and gave it away. I had no PC in those days. My logs were all handwritten and sometimes I would fax the log sheet to the newspaper. The following year the cops went digital in the area where I lived. Many cops I knew were real smug about it and one told me that my 'days' of illegal eavesdropping were done. Nice.
These days, many TV crews use scanners in their vehicles to keep UTD on stuff. Fire channels are probably the best to monitor for most action nowadays. Those cops you get to hear on analog now do not have best radio procedures and most of their stuff is routine traffic over the air and if something needs to be passed of a confidential nature, they will use mobile phones. There's talk of cars getting computers for name checks and other matters, so I reckon they will be even quieter times ahead for VKR on 468mHz.
These days I have one scanner set on the local QFRS and the other scanning presets. I am hoping to get a dual watch capability scanner when funds permit, something like the Icom R20.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has one on this forum.
Airband monitoring can be interesting to those who have knowledge of the 'lingo'. Civil aviation voice traffic is largely routine. Airband frequencies for airline company matters are on their own frequencies. You may hear take off times, arrival times, minor or major airplane problems, blocked toilets, broken seating, wheelchair PAX, special meals for PAX, UM's (Unaccompanied Minors) and and problems that the Captain wants e.g. Police waiting on arrival to pick up a drunk and disorderly PAX or worse.
All monitoring requires patience and luck of having your scanner on when it happens.
Cheers
Steve
During the early 1980's I used to be a freelance stringer for a city newspaper. The work was mainly around night time or at the weekends. For those who don't know what a Stringer is, it's listening to emergency services frequency on one or more scanning receivers and as soon as something newsworthy comes up on the scanner, you call it in to a pre-arranged phone on the editors floor, or by two-way radio or fax. The Editor interviews you first before he decides to freelance you, so making sure he's not dealing with an idiot. Money is paid on a sliding scale of newsworthiness. If your call gets the paper an exclusive on a serious event, then I used to get around $100 - $150. Big money in those days! For other stuff like MVA's or house fires only about $30-$50. Some Stringers used to go to the scene with a camera, but unless you have a Press card, you can be told to get lost, especially if the cops are there, or if you get in their way, they can accidentally 'drop' your equipment.
I never went out. I had a back room (Shack) with three scanners going, AM/FM and UHF CB and a shortwave receiver with SSB capability and a phone/fax. I has several roof antenna including a discone, a Yagi and an HF longwire array. I had this setup as it was my main hobby. Someone I knew asked me if I wanted the Stringer job as he was quitting, so I took it and did it for about a year, then I got fed up with the hours and gave it away. I had no PC in those days. My logs were all handwritten and sometimes I would fax the log sheet to the newspaper. The following year the cops went digital in the area where I lived. Many cops I knew were real smug about it and one told me that my 'days' of illegal eavesdropping were done. Nice.
These days, many TV crews use scanners in their vehicles to keep UTD on stuff. Fire channels are probably the best to monitor for most action nowadays. Those cops you get to hear on analog now do not have best radio procedures and most of their stuff is routine traffic over the air and if something needs to be passed of a confidential nature, they will use mobile phones. There's talk of cars getting computers for name checks and other matters, so I reckon they will be even quieter times ahead for VKR on 468mHz.
These days I have one scanner set on the local QFRS and the other scanning presets. I am hoping to get a dual watch capability scanner when funds permit, something like the Icom R20.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has one on this forum.
Airband monitoring can be interesting to those who have knowledge of the 'lingo'. Civil aviation voice traffic is largely routine. Airband frequencies for airline company matters are on their own frequencies. You may hear take off times, arrival times, minor or major airplane problems, blocked toilets, broken seating, wheelchair PAX, special meals for PAX, UM's (Unaccompanied Minors) and and problems that the Captain wants e.g. Police waiting on arrival to pick up a drunk and disorderly PAX or worse.
All monitoring requires patience and luck of having your scanner on when it happens.
Cheers
Steve