Elwood Police Scanner Online - Beta Test

Submitted by kpaul.mallasch on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 8:40pm.

I've had this idea since I first saw it online for L.A. and New York, etc., but always thought it would take tons of resources to pull it off. I talked with Al Jordan (The Computer Dude - who runs ElwoodIndiana.org) about the idea and he ran with it. He was able to find free software to stream (once) to a remote server where it's then divvied up between all the users connecting. Seems to be working ok, but we've only been live a few hours.

I posted a note to Poynter's Online-News list to try to spur some good discussion (on HOPE for JOURNALISM), but I wanted to say something here too and encourage you to check it out - Elwood Police Scanner.

There's also a discussion (with EMT, Fire and Police participation) going on at Anderson Free Press.

I guess this isn't anything 'new' or 'bleeding edge' - but the fact it's being done by a grassroots operation (two of them working together actually...) with little to no resources is something, I think.

Not to get too negative, but why isn't some of the hefty profits being made by newspapers poured into community service things like this?

I think some of the members at AFP were surprised a cash-strapped org like kpaul media and The Computer Dude could pull this off, but we have.

Again, though, kudos to Al Jordan for doing all the dirty work and looking into the idea to come up with a low-cost solution.