I have been listening to scanners for over 30 years. It all began while drooling over a Radio Shack catalog when I was 10 years old. Soon thereafter, I was the proud owner of a Radio Shack Pro-50 scanner. It cost $99 on sale, which was the entire contents of my piggy bank.
The Pro-50 was an entry-level handheld scanner, but was remarkable for its day. It had 20 programmable analog channels, which was just enough to program in the local police/fire/EMS/ham/airport frequencies. I was hooked!
Back then, there were few Internet resources for scanning. Radio Shack sold a paper scanning directory called Police Call, but having spend all of my savings on the scanner I didn't have the funds to purchase it. Thus finding new frequencies was a challenge. There was no radioreference.com site to look up information. Much time was spent searching the bands for new signals, which was actually a lot of fun.
Things are different today. Radio systems have increased in complexity. Just having a frequency is no longer enough information to program your police scanner. You'll probably want to use a computer. There is so much information of the Internet now that it's difficult for a new scanner enthusiast to find a starting point.
So, what's the point this post? Today's digital scanners are expensive. It's no longer possible to walk into a Radio Shack with $100 and walk out with a new scanner. I want others to have the same listening opportunities that I had. That's the point of this site: a starting point for finding online scanner audio for Bloomington and Monroe County, Indiana.