Lewisville Police and Fire Radio - Live Feed

We're experimenting with a new service here at the Lewisville Texan Journal: providing the public with a live feed of police and fire department radio. There has been an online feed of the Lewisville Fire Department already, but up to this point, nothing for Lewisville Police.

The stream that you can listen to here may contain radio traffic of a sensitive nature. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This service is provided as-is, as available, and may be discontinued at any time for any reason. NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND ARE EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE LEGALITY OF ANY DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THESE RECORDINGS. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Click the play button below to listen to the feed:


If the above player doesn't work, try this one for Windows Media Player. This link may also work.

Here are the last 8 days of archives:

Archive instructions:
Select a date from the column on the right, and click it. Dates are in the format DD-MM-YYYY. (Which is backasswards from normal American date formatting, but that's how the software works, and we can't change that.) Select an individual file to play, or scroll all the way down to the bottom, and select one of the hourly playlists to play all of the radio traffic from that hour. There are also playlists for the entire day, and just police traffic or just fire department traffic.

F.A.Q.:
Q: I don't see the play button. What's wrong?
A: You may need to install Flash on your computer.

Q: Is the audio live?
A: It is live audio, but on a short delay.

Q: Is this legal?
A: Yes, it's legal to listen. You cannot use the information you hear in the commission of a crime, or for personal gain. There is nothing here that you couldn't listen to by purchasing your own scanner.

Q: Is this all radio traffic?
A: It's *most* radio traffic. This feed has a priority set for police traffic, since there is already a dedicated fire department feed out there. But if fire department traffic is active, it may miss the beginning of a police department transmission. We also may block or delay transmissions on some channels in order to protect sensitive personal data that is not newsworthy, or might compromise police operations. Lewisville police know how to contact us if they need us to switch off or delay transmissions.

The other thing to note is that police get some information shipped to them on their computers in their cars. You may hear the dispatchers reference that. In these cases, you won't necessarily understand what is going on. In other cases, when police need to transmit something securely, they may use their department cell phones.

Q: What should I do if I hear something newsworthy?
A: We would love to hear about it. We don't always listen, so we miss a lot. Part of the reason for us posting this is so that we can have some extra eyes and ears to tell us about developing situations in Lewisville. Be sure to tell us the approximate time that you heard the transmission. If you are near the action, we would love to get a picture. How to submit story tips.

Please do not endanger yourself or others, or interfere with first responders to do this. Keep a distance, and be safe.

Q: Do you have archives beyond the most recent 8 days?
A: Yes we do, going back to July, 2012. We're working on making those available to the public, but we have some things to do in order to be responsible about it and provide something that is easy to use. See "Planned Improvments" below. If you would like to be a beta tester for us, please email editor@lewisvilletexan.com.

Q: How do I know what time that a given transmission in the archives took place?
A: The files are all marked in the filename with the Hour and minute of the day. Times are in 24 hour time or military time. For instance if the file begins with 21-09, then the transmission was at 9:09 p.m. We don't have them marked to the second, but the files are all sequential, so the third number in the sequence is an absolute sequence. Lower numbers occur before higher numbers.

Q: How do I listen to a playlist?
A: The playlists are .m3u files, which most MP3 players will recognize. Just click the link, and if you are prompted to save the file, click OK. Then click the file to open it Windows Media Player can play them. iTunes and Winamp should also be able to play the playlist. The playlist is just a specially formatted file that links to the files on our webserver. You're not actually downloading all of the sound files at once. They are streamed and played sequentially from our webserver. Note that the files will expire from our server after 7 full days. After that time, your playlist will not work.

Q: Why do you only have 8 days worth of archives available?
A: It's to prevent abuse of the system, and provide some level of security over personal data that is sometimes mentioned in radio transmissions. Plus, most of the time, anything over 8 days old is not going to be very newsworthy. By limiting it to the current day, plus the 7 days prior, we keep it simple to find what you're looking for.

Q: How often are archives updated?
A: Currently, each individual radio transmission becomes available right as it finishes. Hourly, we create the playlists, and just after midnight, we roll off the expired date.

Q: Why do the archive directories display file dates on them that are later than the date they were recorded?
A: It's a bit of goofiness with the way our scripts create the playlists and operate on those directories. It's something we want to replace with a better interface, but it was quick and dirty to just let the webserver do it this way.

Q: Are the files copyrighted?
A: The sound files are public domain. The playlists are copyrighted by The Lewisville Texan Journal. However, you are welcome to use them or share them as long as you attribute the source by linking to this page. We would appreciate your link anytime you use one of the files.

This is a work in progress.

Planned improvements:
- Find a way to provide older archives for registered users
- Better user interface
- Ability to listen to just fire, or just police in a live or near-live feed.
- Features to prevent abuse

Common "10" Codes:
Most police services use some form or variation "ten" codes over the radio as a type of shorthand. They're falling out of favor, but some are still used. The Police Department tends to use them, and the Fire Department usually does not.

Here are some of the most common ones:
10-4: Okay - affirmative - understood.
10-7: Out of service
10-8: In service
10-12: Visitor / Subject present. (Subject within earshot of radio)
10-20: Location
10-99: Subject is wanted

You can find numerous canonical lists of them on the internet, but they do vary. If you know of some other ones used locally, let us know.

Related Links:
- Lewisville Jail Custody Report
- Denton County Jail Records Search
- Lewisville Police Department
- Lewisville Fire Department
- 10-code list
- Radioreference.com Lewisville Fire Department Radio feed

Originally posted 7/21/2012 - re-topped 9/21/2012.