Hey Group!

I'm new to this whole concept. Oddly enough, I became interested in
"scanning" after my TIVO recorded a show called Area 51:Fact or
Fiction.

It was a stupid show, but one of the men on there went up on a mountain
peak and was using a laptop program (and presumably some equipment
hooked up to the latop) to monitor the radio communications taking
place at Area 51 which was over 25 miles away.

I'm not a conspiracy buff, but the program he was using on his latop
was intriguing to me. It looked like he could monitor any frequency he
wanted.

I've actually wasted quite a bit of work time trying to find similar
equipment, but I'm not really turning up anything. Therefore, I thought
I would turn to this group and ask you guys (or gals).

Is there a hardware/software available that you can hook-up/install to
a laptop computer that would allow you to "scan" or "trunk track"
virtually any frequency along the "usable band"?

Sorry if I'm using the wrong terms...as a newbie, this is the best way
I can phrase the question.

Thanks in advance for your help/advice.

-neo