Radio scanning is a unique hobby that you don’t hear about a lot anymore. Radio scanning is the searching of different radio frequencies for different communications. Radios can only be tuned to one frequency at a time, so “scanning” is the rapid changing of radio frequencies in search of something worth listening to. The “seek” function found on some car radios is somewhat like a rudimentary scanning function in that it rapidly runs through channels looking for one that is playing something comprehensible, so most people have some experience with it whether they know it or not.
Scanning is a fun hobby for people that like to know what is going on in their area. Most radio communications come from police and emergency response teams. In fact, aside from hobbyists, most of the people that use radio scanners are off-duty emergency personnel. Different kind of scanners exist for different kinds of signals, and different scanners exist at different price points. More expensive scanners can generally store more frequencies to check, and can check frequencies more quickly, sometimes hundreds in a single second.
If you are curious about what goes on in the airwaves of your area and would like to get into radio scanning, look online. You can find reviews for different kinds of scanners, and information about scanning techniques. For instance, if you would like to primarily listen to police broadcasts, you can find police scanners for sale at BearCatWarehouse.com, as well as information about them. As with many hobbies, radio scanning has only gotten more engaging with the advent of the web, so don’t be afraid to do some research.