While it certainly wasn’t as exciting as it was back in the day when a scanner could listen to the Police, I was having some fun listening to the goings on with the buses in Birmingham and surrounding areas on the Quansheng K6. Well, that is no more. Not on an analogue Quansheng anyway. It seems as though they have all gone digital in my area. Literally a few days ago. I had quite a few channels saved from various bus depots and could hear the drivers talking to the control room and vice versa. They were very busy all day. Road accidents, trouble on the bus, lost property, missing people, breakdowns etc, Then, all of a sudden, one day every channel was dead. Total radio silence.

I know there has been a rollout going on for a few years now. There was a contract worth a few million pounds that was awarded to some company to replace the bus communications to DMR. It took its time, but it seems like the buses have now finally moved over to a digital system [DMR]. Slowly slowly everything is going digital. There’s not much left to listen to on analogue radio that’s interesting anymore.