If you have ever left a Wake County scanner feed running in the background, you have probably noticed that dispatchers and officers rarely speak in full, plain sentences. The traffic is a compressed mix of numbers, clipped phrases, and shorthand that can sound impenetrable the first few times you listen. Learning to decode that language is the single biggest step toward actually understanding what is happening on the air rather than just hearing noise. This guide walks through the categories of codes and phrasing you are likely to hear across Raleigh, Cary, Apex, and the smaller towns in the county, and how to build the habit of interpreting them in real time.

Why radio shorthand exists in the first place

Radio time is a shared resource. On a busy channel during a Friday evening, dozens of units may need to transmit within the same few minutes, and every second one unit spends talking is a second another unit cannot. Shorthand evolved to keep transmissions brief, consistent, and hard to misunderstand across a noisy signal. A dispatcher who can convey the idea of arriving on scene in a single short phrase frees the channel for the next call. Codes also add a small layer of discretion, keeping some details less obvious to a casual listener, and they standardize communication so that an officer who transfers from one assignment to another still understands the essentials. Once you accept that brevity is the whole point, the terse style stops sounding rude and starts sounding purposeful.

The steady shift toward plain language

One of the most important trends to understand is that many agencies have deliberately moved away from numeric codes toward plain speech. After large multi-agency incidents nationwide exposed how dangerous inconsistent codes could be, federal interoperability guidance pushed departments to say what they mean in clear words, especially for anything urgent. In practice this means you will often hear a dispatcher say “structure fire” or “officer needs assistance” outright rather than a number. Do not be surprised if a single channel mixes both styles: a veteran officer may still rattle off a ten-code out of long habit while the dispatcher answers in plain English. Expect a hybrid, not a pure system, and treat the plain-language phrases as the more reliable source of meaning.

Ten-codes you are still likely to hear

Even with the move toward plain language, a handful of ten-codes remain deeply ingrained and you will hear them regularly. While exact meanings vary between agencies, some are near-universal across the region:

• 10-4 — acknowledgment, essentially “understood.”
• 10-20 — location, as in “what is your 20?”
• 10-8 — in service and available for calls.
• 10-7 — out of service, unavailable.
• 10-23 — arrived on scene.
• 10-97 — also commonly used to signal arriving or being on location.

The critical caveat is that no two agencies guarantee identical meanings. A code that signals one thing for a municipal police department may be used differently by the sheriff’s office or a fire district. This is exactly why the industry has drifted toward plain language, and it is why you should treat any printed ten-code chart as a starting reference rather than gospel for a specific channel. When a code does not seem to fit the situation, trust the surrounding context over the chart.

Signal codes, call types, and priority levels

Beyond ten-codes, dispatch centers organize calls by type and priority. You will hear references to call categories such as a welfare check, a disturbance, a domestic, a larceny in progress, a motor vehicle collision with or without injuries, or a subject stop. Many centers attach a priority number that tells responding units how urgent the call is and whether to respond with lights and sirens or simply proceed normally. When you hear a dispatcher assign multiple units at once and emphasize speed, you are usually listening to a high-priority call unfolding. Learning the common call-type vocabulary is often more useful than memorizing numbers, because those descriptions tell you the actual nature of the incident rather than an abstract code for it.

Status phrases that tell the story

Much of the useful narrative on a scanner comes from short status phrases officers use to mark their progress through a call. Listen for a recognizable arc:

• “En route” or “responding” — the unit is heading to the call.
• “On scene” or “arrived” — the unit has reached the location.
• “Out with a subject” or “out with a vehicle” — the officer is making contact, often on a stop.
• “Show me clear” or “clear” — the unit has finished and is available again.
• “Start me another unit” or “send me a second” — the situation needs backup.

Once you can track these phrases, an ordinary traffic stop becomes a small story with a beginning, middle, and end: the officer calls out a plate, requests a check on it, goes out with the driver, and eventually clears. The moment that arc breaks — an officer suddenly requesting expedited backup, for instance — is usually the moment something has changed on the ground, and it is the cue experienced listeners pay closest attention to.

The phonetic alphabet and unit identifiers

To spell names, plates, and street names clearly, radio traffic relies on the phonetic alphabet: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and so on. A license plate read as “Adam-Robert-Charlie four seven” is far less likely to be misheard than the raw letters spoken quickly. You will also hear unit identifiers that encode an agency, a district or beat, and a specific unit. Over time you can learn to recognize which numbers belong to patrol, which to supervisors, and which to specialized units. That single skill helps you follow who is doing what during a busy stretch, because you stop hearing a jumble of numbers and start hearing distinct people with distinct roles.

Turning listening into understanding

The fastest way to learn is to listen with a notepad for a few sessions and jot down every phrase you do not recognize, then look it up afterward. Patterns emerge quickly. Within a week or two you will find that the traffic which once sounded like random numbers has become a readable stream. Keep a short reference list handy, accept that meanings shift between agencies, and pay closest attention to the plain-language phrases, because those are increasingly where the real information lives. Decoding the radio is less about memorizing a master chart and more about learning the rhythm of how calls are dispatched, worked, and closed across Wake County. Give it a little patience and the wall of shorthand turns into something you can genuinely follow.