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Author Topic: FCC Proposes Largest-Ever Fine for Unlicensed Broadcasting  (Read 10630 times)
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Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« Reply #25 on: February 20, 2020, 01:26:51 PM »

When Radio Shack was closing these two guys came in while I was in the store shopping. I overheard their conversation. They were looking for a scanner, to gather social security numbers. Many police departments will run SS numbers when they make traffic stop when they suspect the person has outstanding warrants. If I ever get stopped and asked for mine I’d definitely refuse and mention their broadcasting of such info.

Some of the police seem ignorant to the fact that people do listen.

Here the police use the in-car computer for that, which means nothing today.
There is no 'routine' reason to give the police the SS number. One has the state issues photo ID which is enough.
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« Reply #26 on: February 20, 2020, 01:50:03 PM »

 Turned on  the IC-7100 while cruising around in the mobile last night around 1900 Eastern time and the radio was blasting the The Beach Boys Fun, Fun, Fun on 3885 from somewhere.  Several other classic 60s cuts followed. Lasted about 20 minutes after I first heard it, not sure how long it had gone on before that.

Fun is fun, but in this day and age when the SDR networks make DFing by anyone who knows how to do it, it’s pretty risky, I would think, to do stuff like that.  Won’t be much fun when Daddy FCC takes the license away!

https://youtu.be/_JasiSpmfsU

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Chris, AJ1G
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« Reply #27 on: February 20, 2020, 02:24:59 PM »

It gets even scarier when one recognizes that there are networks out there that are much more  capable than the Kiwi network, and that the data are stored on big honking drives for later review.  The only thing that saves folks from being bagged is that the FCC has more important things to do and not much time to do it with.  But if a situation becomes chronic or notorious it's much easier than in the old days when the radio cars had to run patterns locally.
The good old days of horsing around on the air are behind us, for better or worse.
73 de Norm W1ITT
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« Reply #28 on: February 20, 2020, 05:17:28 PM »

One NYC pirate about 20 miles away placed themselves on our 96.7 frequency ...

They ended up moving to 96.5 and had to get new banners for their studio (they streamed a live studio cam on the net) and the logo repainted on their van.

I small thread hijack, sorry.

I don't think any commercial (legal) FM stations occupy adjacent channels in the same area. If there's a station at 88.1, then 88.3 will be unused, etc.

Does anyone know why?

Bill, W4EWH
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« Reply #29 on: February 20, 2020, 05:29:10 PM »

Indeed. On a similar subject...

One of the most shocking "heads up" I've ever seen was about 15 years years ago when a ham friend stopped by with a handheld "cell phone enabled" scanner.  He had modified his scanner to pick up cell phone calls and demonstrated it. He said it was a simple mod.

Doesn't seem like it would be simple for a scanner: there are several different standards, and the cellphones are often moving from cell-to-cell, so any scanner would have to deal with CDMA, TDMA, and GSM, and also have a  capability to follow a specific IMEI, in order to be usable.

Bill, W4EWH
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« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2020, 11:51:38 AM »

Indeed. On a similar subject...

One of the most shocking "heads up" I've ever seen was about 15 years years ago when a ham friend stopped by with a handheld "cell phone enabled" scanner.  He had modified his scanner to pick up cell phone calls and demonstrated it. He said it was a simple mod.

Doesn't seem like it would be simple for a scanner: there are several different standards, and the cellphones are often moving from cell-to-cell, so any scanner would have to deal with CDMA, TDMA, and GSM, and also have a  capability to follow a specific IMEI, in order to be usable.

Bill, W4EWH

15 to 20 years ago that was just coming into play.

Not to mention, I had phone by Verizon that could be put into service mode with an internet available passcode.  Once in service mode, it could be put into monitor mode, and it would "decrypt" any traffic it came across.

I believe the cell sites are harder to listen to now, but 15 years to 20 years ago, it wasn't the case.

--Shane
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« Reply #31 on: February 28, 2020, 07:49:24 AM »

Indeed. On a similar subject...

One of the most shocking "heads up" I've ever seen was about 15 years years ago when a ham friend stopped by with a handheld "cell phone enabled" scanner.  He had modified his scanner to pick up cell phone calls and demonstrated it. He said it was a simple mod.

Doesn't seem like it would be simple for a scanner: there are several different standards, and the cellphones are often moving from cell-to-cell, so any scanner would have to deal with CDMA, TDMA, and GSM, and also have a  capability to follow a specific IMEI, in order to be usable.

Bill, W4EWH

The incident you mentioned was likely more than 15 years ago. Before cell service went digital, it was all analog in the 800-900 MHz band. After the FCC passed laws, the scanner manufacturers had to restrict reception in that part of the spectrum. The mods, to restore receiving capability, were readily available and were usually nothing more than adding or cutting a jumper.  Once it went digital, the mods were useless.today I see no purpose for the restrictions, especially with SDR receivers now being so versatile.
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« Reply #32 on: February 28, 2020, 11:13:26 PM »

When cellphones were still analog, but scanners were made so as to prevent 'jumper hacks' to include the desired frequency band, one could sometimes enter a frequency that was half the celluar frequency + or - the scanner's 1st I.F. and receive the calls. high pass filters were sold to block the 450MHz range so that this would work better. If it worked with the particular scanner, it was a simple matter to set scan limits. Also IIRC there were 666 analog cellular channels? hehe. None of that matters any more.
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