Austin Metro — Real-Time Public Safety Intelligence
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Calls / 24h live
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Incidents Detected / 24h
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Homicides Mapped — 2026
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Agencies Monitored
▴ Battle Buddy

Before the tweet.
Before the article.
Before anyone else knows.

Battle Buddy monitors every Austin public safety radio channel around the clock — transcribing, classifying, geocoding, and mapping incidents the moment they happen. No scanner. No waiting. No missed calls.

Open Live Map
01

Speed

Incidents are detected and mapped within seconds of the first radio transmission — before any news desk, tweet, or dispatch alert reaches the public.

02

Completeness

Every APD, AFD, DPS, Travis County EMS, UT Police, and ABIA transmission captured simultaneously. Battle Buddy never tunes out, never takes a break.

03

Verification

Every homicide marker links directly to the official APD press release. Scanner intelligence cross-referenced with confirmed public records — not speculation.

Platform Features

Eleven Intelligence Layers. One Feed.

Running simultaneously, 24 hours a day, across Austin and Travis County.

📡

P25 Radio Monitoring

Software-defined radio captures the Austin GATRRS P25 trunked radio system (WPQY813) across all public safety talkgroups simultaneously, 24/7. Every transmission logged.

🤖

AI Transcription

OpenAI Whisper converts every transmission to searchable text in near-real-time. Every call timestamped, tagged by talkgroup, and stored for the complete incident window.

🔍

Incident Detection & Classification

AI classifies incidents automatically — shootings, structure fires, SWAT activations, officer-down calls, pursuits, hazmat, mass casualties, and more.

📈

Escalation Tracking

From welfare check to K-9 standoff, Battle Buddy tracks the full chain as incidents escalate across dispatch, field, and tactical channels — following the radio traffic as it moves.

🗺️

Live Incident Map

Every incident plotted in real time with address, agency, incident type, and transcript excerpt. Geographic patterns visible at a glance across the entire metro.

⚡

Instant Subscriber Alerts

Critical incidents trigger direct alerts the moment they are detected — before any public notification, press release, or news broadcast exists.

🚁

Air Asset Tracking

ADS-B transponder data monitored continuously. When APD Air1, STAR Flight, or any low-altitude helicopter enters Austin airspace, Battle Buddy maps it and alerts subscribers — intelligence that persists even when radio goes encrypted.

📰

APD Press Release Monitor

Austin Police Department press releases are automatically retrieved within 5 minutes of publication. Homicides and major incidents are geocoded, mapped, and cross-referenced with scanner intelligence.

🔴

Austin Homicide Map

Every confirmed 2026 Austin homicide sourced directly from official APD press releases — geocoded, mapped, and linked to the source document. Heat map and incident markers. Self-updating. View it live.

🛸

FAA Remote ID Drone Detection COMING SOON

FAA Remote ID broadcasts from licensed drones captured via software-defined radio and plotted on the live map in real time — adding aerial dimension to ground-level situational awareness.

📊

Public Intelligence Dashboard

Live Grafana dashboard showing shooting intel tiers (confirmed vs signal vs official press release), homicides YTD, structure fires, EMS callouts, radio volume by agency, and incident trends — with a full confidence model so you know exactly how to read each number.

🗞️

Intel News Feed

Every confirmed incident and APD press release delivered as a live RSS feed directly in Nextcloud News — auto-subscribed at signup. One scrollable feed covering radio detections, press releases, and homicide updates across Austin.

💬

Talk Bot Database Queries

Ask the Battle Buddy bot anything directly in Nextcloud Talk. Natural language queries against the live incident and transcript database — how many shootings this week, what radio said during the last homicide call, SWAT callouts in the last 30 days. Type !help to see all commands.

Battle Buddy connected ecosystem across laptop, phone, and tablet
Connected Platform

Every Device.
One Intelligence Feed.

Battle Buddy is built on a private Nextcloud platform — not a generic SaaS stack. Subscribers get access to a full ecosystem of connected apps alongside the real-time intelligence feed, all hosted on the same hardened infrastructure.

Every app runs on the same server as the scanner pipeline. No third-party data exposure. Accessible from any device — phone, tablet, laptop — in the field or at a desk.

  • Talk — encrypted team messaging; where incident alerts are delivered
  • Files — shared briefings, incident archives, and ATAK data packages
  • Calendar — event coordination and assignment scheduling
  • Maps — offline maps for field deployment without cell connectivity
  • Notes — field intel and incident notes synced across all devices
  • News — live incident and press release feed, auto-subscribed at signup
How It Works

Radio Wave to Mapped Incident in Seconds

A fully automated pipeline with no human in the loop.

1

P25 Radio Capture

A software-defined radio receiver continuously monitors the GATRRS P25 trunked radio system — the shared radio backbone for AFD, DPS, Travis County EMS, UT Police, ABIA, Austin Energy, and others. Every unencrypted talkgroup is captured simultaneously, 24 hours a day. APD traffic is P25 encrypted and does not produce transcripts.

2

Whisper Transcription

Each recorded transmission is passed to OpenAI Whisper running locally. Audio is transcribed to text within seconds, tagged with talkgroup ID, timestamp, and call duration, then logged to the incident database.

3

AI Incident Detection

Transcripts are analyzed by a large language model that classifies the call type, extracts location information, and determines whether an active incident should be opened, updated, or escalated. Address strings are geocoded in real time against Austin and Travis County data.

4

Press Release Cross-Reference

APD public press releases are polled every 5 minutes. Confirmed homicides, fatal shootings, and major incidents are automatically pulled, geocoded, and added to the homicide map — linked directly to the official source document so every data point is verifiable.

5

Live Map, Archive & Alerts

Active incidents are plotted on the live map and pushed to subscribers. Incidents are tracked until cleared, then archived with full radio traffic transcripts, geocoded address, agency attribution, and escalation chain for the complete incident window.

Battle Buddy incidents displayed as CoT markers on ATAK — Austin aerial view
TAK Integration

Live Incidents.
On Your Tactical Map.

Every incident Battle Buddy detects is automatically pushed to FreeTAKServer as a CoT marker — appearing in real time on WinTAK, ATAK, and iTAK displays across your team.

No manual entry. No copy-paste. The moment a shooting or structure fire is confirmed, a red marker hits the map at the geocoded address with incident type, timestamp, and description.

  • CoT markers auto-post on incident detection
  • Markers auto-clear when incident closes
  • Works with WinTAK, ATAK Phone, iTAK
  • Connects via FreeTAKServer over SSL — tak.example.local
  • Incident type drives marker color and stale time
Who Uses Battle Buddy

Built for Anyone Who Needs to Know

📰

Journalists & News Desks

Beat reporters and assignment desks covering Austin crime, fire, and public safety. Know about breaking incidents before any official statement exists.

🏘️

Community Members

Residents who want to understand what is actually happening in their neighborhoods — verified and mapped rather than rumor-driven social media posts.

🔬

Researchers & Analysts

Academics, policy analysts, and public safety researchers who need incident-level data with timestamps, locations, and agency attribution.

⚖️

Legal & Insurance Professionals

Attorneys, investigators, and adjusters who need timestamped incident records cross-referenced with official press releases and radio traffic logs.

Austin Does Not Slow Down.
Neither Do We.

Subscriber access includes real-time alerts, full incident history, and the complete intelligence feed — built for people who need to know right now.

Request Subscriber Access