Airwaves

Published Sunday, August 16, 2026 at 08:36 AM PT Burbank · Sunday, August 16, 2026 · 8:36 AM · 69°F, 80% humidity, wind 0 mph SSE (gusts 1), 29.52 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 12 The neighborhood got quiet. Not “peaceful” quiet—that’s for places without trains, helicopters, and a police scanner screaming through the midnight hours. I mean the kind of quiet where the usual noise just dropped, and suddenly you’re staring at week-over-week numbers that, for once, are pointing the right direction. Less airwave chatter. Fewer aircraft. A LoRa mesh that’s breathing instead of hyperventilating. The heat wave broke, traffic cooled, and Burbank’s infrastructure exhaled. ...

Published Sunday, August 16, 2026 at 08:25 AM PT Burbank · Sunday, August 16, 2026 · 8:25 AM · 68°F, 82% humidity, wind 0 mph SSE (gusts 2), 29.52 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 22 Christ, the police radio spent the entire day practicing its best impression of a broken record player today—2,779 transmissions, most of it units asking if other units are clear, units confirming they’re clear, and a cancel notice that probably arrived fashionably late to a incident that nobody remembers now. Meanwhile, Fire/EMS picked up the entire workload like they always do, because apparently running toward danger counts for more than running your mouth about radio discipline. ...

Published Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 08:24 AM PT Burbank · Saturday, August 15, 2026 · 8:24 AM · 70°F, 78% humidity, wind 0 mph SE (gusts 1), 29.54 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 12 Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD) Two thousand seven hundred and eight transmissions hit the line today and I’m going to level with you: we extracted exactly four readable calls. Not four incidents. Four calls. Unit 6-3-3 rolling out to Riverside and Fletcher. Unit 51 cancelling a traffic call (which, to be fair, is the best outcome traffic can have—no call). A battery dispatch to West 7th Street in Rampart territory. And that’s the whole show. Rampart got its one guest appearance and then apparently decided the rest of the evening was reserved for meditation and spiritual reflection. ...

Published Friday, August 14, 2026 at 08:24 AM PT Burbank · Friday, August 14, 2026 · 8:24 AM · 72°F, 74% humidity, wind 0 mph SE (gusts 1), 29.45 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 13 This was the kind of day where the radios screamed for hours and delivered exactly zero emergencies that nobody else was already handling. Two thousand seven hundred and eight police transmissions compressed into five actual events. That’s a signal-to-noise ratio that would make a Vegas slot machine jealous — lots of static, zero jackpots, and somehow that’s still the best you’re getting today. ...

Published Thursday, August 13, 2026 at 08:16 AM PT Burbank · Thursday, August 13, 2026 · 8:16 AM · 72°F, 73% humidity, wind 0 mph E (gusts 1), 29.38 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 5 The Burbank police scanner spent the last 24 hours doing what it does best—drowning you in noise while whispering exactly six sentences that matter. Meanwhile, Fire’s been hustling: fire alarms, medical calls, structure fires, and one spectacular motorcycle-versus-physics argument on the 210. Let’s work through the hits. ...

Published Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 08:18 AM PT Burbank · Wednesday, August 12, 2026 · 8:18 AM · 72°F, 75% humidity, wind 1 mph ESE (gusts 2), 29.39 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 5 Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD) Two thousand four hundred sixty transmissions. Three coherent sentences. This is what dispatch looks like when the system runs on fumes and half the units are copying traffic they shouldn’t need to repeat. Units 309 and 350 rolled Code 98 on a subject at a non-secure main entrance (translation: someone where they shouldn’t be, secured now). Unit 11A-17 responded Code 3 to Martin and Casper after 11A-25 canceled the rush. And in the alley at Wilshire and Alvarado, someone reported a prior safety concern — incident 970 — so additional units got dispatched because history rhymes. ...

Published Tuesday, August 11, 2026 at 08:04 AM PT Burbank · Tuesday, August 11, 2026 · 8:04 AM · 74°F, 70% humidity, wind 0 mph SSE (gusts 1), 29.44 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 7 Police logged 2,845 transmissions and came up with two actual incidents. Not two hundred. Two. First: a 50-year-old Hispanic female, blue blouse, white pants, assault victim at St. Anne Catholic Church over by Riverdale and Blake. Incident 1193. Location-specific, witness-available, the kind of call that actually means something happened to someone real. ...

Published Monday, August 10, 2026 at 08:18 AM PT Burbank · Monday, August 10, 2026 · 8:18 AM · 75°F, 70% humidity, wind 0 mph SE (gusts 1), 29.37 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 12 Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD) Twenty-seven hundred police transmissions and six coherent sentences. That’s not a slow night—that’s dispatch operating in absolute chaos, everyone keyed up and screaming at once, the radio itself drowning in the noise of a city that won’t fucking stop for breath. Somewhere in that wall of static is the thing that matters: Oakwood and Virgil, still happening. Not a fresh shooting. The same fucking incident carrying over from yesterday into today, with Unit 3L335 Code 6 on scene, still blocking traffic between West Moreland and Virgil, still watching while nothing gets resolved. That’s not a one-off call log entry; that’s an incident with unfinished business and the kind of persistence that makes you wonder what the hell happened and why it’s still happening twelve hours later. ...

Published Sunday, August 09, 2026 at 08:19 AM PT Burbank · Sunday, August 9, 2026 · 8:19 AM · 74°F, 69% humidity, wind 0 mph ESE (gusts 1), 29.34 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 9 Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD) The police beat Tuesday was a masterclass in invisibility. Out of 2,878 transmissions logged across 24 hours, exactly five calls made it through as something resembling an actual event. A female officer search-and-transport request at MTA Highland Park. A Code 3 trouble call at 305 E 5th Street in LA Mission. Unit 50 posting up at 845 S Burlington here in Burbank for incident 0985, then Unit 11-895 doing the same dance a few minutes later—the kind of follow-up that suggests something landed but nobody wanted to detail it on the air. That’s it. That’s the entire police beat for an entire day across Burbank, NoHo, and the northeast valley. One trouble call. Two units on the same address. Silence for the rest. ...

Published Saturday, August 08, 2026 at 08:17 AM PT Burbank · Saturday, August 8, 2026 · 8:17 AM · 71°F, 73% humidity, wind 0 mph SSE (gusts 2), 29.43 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 10 Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD) gave us exactly one call worth the bandwidth today: a shirtless 30-to-40-year-old male at 3835 Alsace Avenue, wielding an 8-10 inch knife, picking up bricks and hurling them at the neighborhood like he was auditioning for a modern reinterpretation of Waiting for Godot but with more property damage. Code 390, possibly mentally ill, definitely unshod and not giving a damn about the 2,580-plus other transmissions happening around him. Incident 1073. Units made contact. Building search requested at 4121 Beverly Boulevard by 2A45. Then back to status checks, unit positioning, and one downed overhead light pole on Vermont and Monroe that DWP had to roll out for because nobody else was gonna do it. The rest was routing noise—“What’s your status?” repeated into the void like a broken record at a party nobody wanted to attend. ...