"It's not that you get turned on by it. It's just interesting."

Debbie Newell used her 24-hour hobby to such helpful ends. For her, the chatter between dispatchers and officers is like a well-timed symphony.

But that drama turned real a few months ago when she and her husband were driving near the city's marina, where they passed a woman using a phone booth.

It struck her as strange -- no one uses phone booths anymore, she thought to herself.

"Calling all officers to the scene of a phone call in progress at the corner of 6th and Main ..."