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You can listen to Columbus police radio live without buying a scanner. The easiest way is the Scanner Radio app on your phone. Here is what is on the feeds and how to start.
Download Scanner Radio, free on iOS and Android, then tap the Columbus Police Dispatch - Citywide button below or search "Columbus" in the app and press play. Nothing to program, no antenna.
Columbus Police Dispatch - Citywide
Franklin County, Ohio
Columbus has the largest police department in Ohio, about 1,800 sworn officers. The city is split into six patrol zones, each with its own dispatch channel. Zone 6 was added in 2023 for Linden and the near east side.
Police and fire run on MARCS-IP, Ohio's statewide digital trunked system, so a scanner that can receive it costs several hundred dollars and needs programming. A live feed skips that. Columbus Police Dispatch - Citywide scans all six zone channels in one stream.
Expect dispatchers sending cruisers to calls, officers arriving and clearing, requests for a medic, and traffic stops. Officers go by cruiser number and mix codes with plain language. Our guide to police scanner codes covers the common ones, and how emergency dispatch works explains the order calls come out in.
Each zone also has its own feed. Boundaries are approximate.
A single zone is quieter and easier to follow than the citywide feed.
The Columbus Division of Fire runs 36 stations and handles both fire and EMS, and most of its runs are medical. Columbus Fire Dispatch carries the dispatch channel: stations alerted, medics assigned, companies marking on scene. Columbus Division of Fire, Franklin County Fire and EMS is wider, adding fireground channels and suburban departments. During a working fire, the fire and police feeds carry different halves of the same incident.
You do not need a feed running all day to know when something big happens. Scanner Radio surfaces headlines for major activity such as a shooting, a large fire, or a serious crash, and can notify you. It can also alert you when a feed's listener count jumps. A spike proves nothing by itself, but it usually means listeners heard something worth checking.
Listeners can tag a feed with the type of event in progress, such as a building fire, so you can see what is going on at a glance. Live transcription lets you read the traffic when you cannot play audio. And Clips is a short-form feed of scanner moments other listeners captured, for anyone who enjoys the odd things that come across the radio.
Download the Scanner Radio app, search for Columbus, and pick a feed. Columbus Police Dispatch - Citywide and Columbus Fire Dispatch are the two to start with. EMS calls come across the fire feed, since Columbus Fire runs EMS.
Yes. Listening to public safety radio is legal in Ohio and across the United States, as long as you do not use it to help commit a crime.
No. Columbus police and fire use MARCS-IP, a digital trunked system, so a compatible scanner costs several hundred dollars and needs programming. The Scanner Radio app plays the same traffic on your phone.
Start with Columbus Police Dispatch - Citywide, which scans all six zone channels. Add Columbus Fire Dispatch for fire and EMS.
Six, with 20 precincts. Zone 6 was added in 2023 for Linden and the near east side. Each zone has its own feed, from Columbus Police Dispatch - Zone 1 through Columbus Police Dispatch - Zone 6.
Yes. Scanner Radio is free on iOS and Android, and the Columbus feeds stream at no cost.
Listening from somewhere else? Swipe through our other city guides.
