Years ago, back in about 1972, I was part of a REACT team. That's Radio Emergency Action Team for those unfamiliar with the term. We used CB radios to track things like severe storms, tornados, on searches for lost people etc. We also had, and used, police/fire scanners both at home and in our cars. It was all strictly volunteer stuff with no actual legal standing, but the cops knew about it and left us alone unless we tried to beat them to a call or used it in the commission of something illegal.
Anyway, my friend, Bill, worked at a college in their computer section and often worked nights without supervision. He had a brand new 1972 or 3 Dodge Charger and, in it he had: A CB radio capable of receiving two different channels, scanning between the two. A police/fire scanner, along with the standard AM/FM radio. So there were two antennas for the AM/FM, two for the CB radio, and one for the scanner. (We called the car "The Porcupine.") Bill also had a booster amplifier for the CB radio which boosted it's power. Not exactly legal, but we were young and never entertained the thought of getting caught with one of those things.
So I used to go with Bill because I was unemployed and had nothing better to do. While he did whatever it was he did with that computer thing, I would just kill time talking with him. I wasn't Trans then or at least I didn't know what I was. I identified as a cross dresser, but only did it in private, never in public. Anyway, one night here wasn't much for Bill to do and we were just cruising the streets of Champaign Illinois during a time when 'Streaking" was a thing.
We stopped at a traffic light and were just talking when a car came up behind us. Looking back I saw that it was a cop car. Over the scanner we heard:
"Car (whatever). We got a blue Charger at a stoplight, license number ---. ---. Wants or warants?"
"Negative car (whatever) No wants or warants. What is it doing?"
"Just sitting at the light right now, but it's got all kinds of antennas all over it. I wonder if they're listening to us. Hey blue Charger, turn right and pull over!"
So, we did! They parked behind us and came up to the car.
"What are you two up to?"
"Um, we're just looking for streakers." I said.
He flashed his light inside the car and exclaimed, "Damn! You guys got more radios in there than WE do!"
"Yeah, I guess we do." I answered nervously.
The conversation went on for a couple of minutes, then the cops wished us a good night and they went back to their car, laughing.
Bill and I looked at each other and broke up laughing. Then we played it safe and went back to the college and stayed there until Bill was done with whatever he was doing at work.
I tell this story because it wasn't illegal to have the police scanner in the car, but we only used it when we were called out by our REACT Team leader for a fire, or search or storm watch. We were all trained in first aid and several of us were paramedic trained.
Just an entertaining story from my past that I thought would give some of you a chuckle or two and because of Bobbie's blog about police scanners.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
Scanners
The law probably varies from state to state. Or, maybe the cops didn't know that it was illegal to have a scanner. It's a good thing he didn't find your kicker. lol
But speaking of porcupine cars, I saw one at a ham swap that must have had twenty antennas on it. I don't know what he was doing with it. A radio for each band? Not likely, since most were VHF or UHF antennas.
I haven't done this, but I have contemplated putting a number of antennas on our black SUV. Two or three ham antennas, a four antenna array for transmitter hunting, wi-fi, cell phone, and the like. Make sure that the wi-fi hotspot is labelled something like "Surveillance Van 3." Put on a black suit and use the MIB style earphone/microphone set that came with my handheld portable ham radios.
Maybe next Halloween.
Ear phones?
Probably not a good idea. Illegal in Okla as impaired hearing device. Probable cause to pull one over. Antenna's aren't a probable cause. They don't know if they are connected or if they are what they are what is on the other end. How many antennas does one need?
CB
Shortwave
Scanner
Where those antennas are mounted on the vehicle makes a difference in signal strength and direction pulled in and pushed out. Basically a circle or an oval as the flat metal under and around the antenna pulls or pushes the carrier wave. I'm not running a CB nor shortwave on my current vehicles but all this has got me interested again. I've put almost seventy thousand on I-40 this past year. Think I'll drop a couple radios in just for old times sake. At least that shortwave antenna isn't still six feet long. Besides cars no longer have a bumper to mount it on. Oh well
always,
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Um, no
NOT illegal in Oklahoma. Officers may be curious if you start showing up in the wrong places. Law enforcement hates call chasers. But its all in what you are using them for. Due to a change around in vehicles my truck is down to four antennas (police scanner #1 & #2, VHF ham radio*, and a CB radio). The three primary antennas mount on the roof (quad band ham radio, VHF public safety radio, and UHF public safety radio) are still awaiting installation. I have enough IDs to satisfy even the most nosey officer - Amateur Radio Emergency Service, NWS-certified Severe Weather Spotter/Tracker, emergency management member, and press ID as a stringer for a local TV station. Having also recently acquired a smaller car it will be getting some antennas soon. Dual band ham antenna, scanner antenna, and a CB antenna. Maybe a fourth antenna*, not sure. It will not be used as a chase car so I don't need all the extra goodies.
Only been question by an officer once, when I was stopped by an officer for speeding. I was tracking a storm with indicated rotation and had turned off the dashboard lights to see outside the truck better. After it went past me to the south I was hurrying to get back around in front of the cell when I was stopped. I admitted that with the dash lights off I couldn't see my speed and explained what I was doing. This turned into a weather update for him with me showing the radar to him on my laptop. I have access to radar information not found on the apps you find online, and he was quite impressed. So with a mild slap on the wrist for speeding we went our separate ways.
Thing is, I have traveled around the Midwest and the entire tier of southern states from the Atlantic to the Pacific and not been questioned by law enforcement. I don't have flashy signs all over my truck, the only thing visible from the outside are the antennas. No big emergency lights or stuff like that. So I don't attract a lot of attention.
Like I say, it isn't having the radios its what you do with them. No states ban outright the ownership of scanners, put it on your desk at home and unless you are trafficking drugs or something you're good to go. Some states have restrictions on portable or mobile use, but there are exceptions. I qualify for one or more of them so I slip right on through. Most often I shut the scanners off when I leave the state as you really have to be familiar with a system to understand what is said.
As for the restrictions on mobile use of handheld devices most every state I know has included exemptions for licensed amateur radio operators.
* APRS - An Amateur Radio vehicle location reporting system. Beacons your location so others can see where you are. The NWS loves this, they can overlay your location and relate what you are reporting to what they are seeing on their radar.
Karen - K5xxx
Oklahoma Born-and-Bred Weather And Electronics Nut
Ex-LEO
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Transmitting not receiving
While there are some aspects of not wanting people listening in to dispatch and emergency comms that show up in local or state laws, its rarely 'receiving' signals (using a scanner or listening to multiple bands) that will get you in trouble. The moment you choose to create radio frequency signals (transmit / broadcast), is when you need to be certain you know what you're allowed to do. As long as you stay low power, like on the level of radio controlled toy cars and drones or kids walkie talkies... you're probably fine. But if you're broadcasting on allocated frequency ranges... or on ANY band above a certain power level without a license... you WILL be facing fines if not criminal charges.
It doesn't help that the allocated frequencies depend on region... or that the FCC has reallocated bands to support the increased use of cell phones and HD transmission. A big chunk of frequencies in the 600-690 MHz band is being phased out of public use in recent years, such that they are no longer usable at all for wireless microphones and intercom systems by next year. Its something I have to keep tabs on for performance microphone use and backstage comms for work... and we've got about $10k worth of ClearComm wireless intercomm system that becomes unusable within the next 9 month that we have to replace with something else.Other less critical equipment is being retired as well. We're just fortunate that we're only recently starting to seriously switch over to doing musicals and miking our performers... I know at least one company that's going to have to spend nearly a quarter million dollars to fix the problems caused by the change.
But yes... its big money for the FTC. The cell phone industry has paid well to get that band reallocated for their use, you can guarantee that they will go after people who interfere with their signal.
Who said anything
About bootleg transmissions? The subject under discussion is "police" scanners and their use. In my neck of the woods the pirate transmitters have been few and far between. If one shows up everybody turns to with a will and if the idiot continues we triangulate and locate the offender very quickly. Local LEO knows if that happens they can get skilled tracking assistance from the local amateur radio community. What is interesting is since the public safety radios here are now transmitting a radio ID with each transmission it was discovered that some of the pranksters were actually other members of public safety organizations. BUSTED!
No, the problem is what people do with what they hear. Federal law together with state law will really nail you to the cross if you start call chasing. That's the biggie to law enforcement, and they will nail your ass to the wall if you are doing it. If you are using what you hear to facilitate criminal activities then your goose is well and truly cooked. A number of people have scanners hooked to tape :-) recorders. Digital recording has only made that easier. One of my scanners has built-in record capabilities. If it is suspected that someone is monitoring the police transmissions and warning people then I set up a bank with all the various public radio systems (FRS, GMRS, MURS, Marine, CB, etc) and see what I catch. A trained ear can sort through the garbage and key in on the ones that are suspicious. More than one way to skin a cat! ;-)
The clusterf*** in the 800Mhz bands was due to the way the bands were setup and services licensed. Cell frequencies were interleaved with Public Safety frequencies. No interference was expected between the 100+ watt public safety radios and the less than 10 watt cellular equipment. But some companies bit off more than they could use when the frequency blocks were auctioned off. The wanna-be common carrier companies that weren't able to build out on the license went broke with the only thing of value they had to sell were those unused frequency allocations. So in place of the millwatts cellphones and the fairly low power cell sites they ended up with Joe's Taxi with 100 watt base radios and 25-40 watt mobile radios on frequencies adjacent to law enforcement frequencies. Then you ended up with an officer trying to get out a "shots fired, officer needs assistance" only to be drowned out by "You have a fair at the bus station and after you drop them off we're gonna call in an order for pizza." Total chaos would be an understatement.
Then, back in the early days there was little attempt at coordinating frequency usage. Various users basically received whatever was next on the list. In a 5mhz stretch of frequencies the police, the fire, the ambulance services, commercial and paging services could all be found. Then the Part 15 devices such as those wireless mics were shoved in any old place with an extra channel. Those devices, being mostly unlicensed, did get some frequency coordination among themselves. Cue more chaos.
So when the FCC took on the 800mhz mess they decided to try and organize everything. Lots of frequencies such as the VHF-Lo band had been abandoned by the old users and could be reallocated. At the same time the limited space available in the VHF-Air and VHF-High was "improved" be requiring tighter radios capable of working with narrower bandwidth. So the aviation industry had all their frequencies recoordinated requiring new radios that could operate FM-Narrow (or Super Narrow). The same thing happened in the VHF-High frequencies. That meant a sheriff might have to switch from 154.250 to 154.2125. More new radios required, the old ones were not type-certified for the narrower band frequencies.
So all-in-all, pretty much anybody using radios got screwed. $5 billion as the cost would be a lowball estimate. So all I can say is that everbody (except Motorola and M/A-COM GE Ericsson, who make the lion's share of Public Safety and industrial radios) got screwed.
Hey, it's the Feds, what do you expect?
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
800 MHz debacle
I didn't hear about that. I'm glad that we hams didn't end up in that mess.
I did hear about the AM aviation frequencies (105-137 MHz) getting the squeeze. The channels are currently 25 KHz apart, which is plenty of room for channel separation. In Europe, they are tripling the number of channels by going with 8.33 KHz spacing. Fortunately, that is backwards compatible. You don't see something like changing someone's allocation from 154.250 to 154.2125, as you mentioned above. New and old radios will communicate with each other perfectly well as long as you stay on the original channels. I suppose an old radio could put out too wide of a signal for the closer spacing. I doubt if any of the radios built in the last couple of decades would, though.
But FM is a slightly different animal. Closer spacing requires lower deviation.
Now I know why my little Baofengs have an FM Narrow mode. the standard +/- 5 KHz used to be considered narrow, but now they are further putting the squeeze on the signals.
By the way, for less than thirty bucks, those little Baofengs are really capable radios. I have a bunch of stuff in memory that makes it a really nice all purpose emergency radio. Sure, I can only legally transmit on the ham bands, but I can monitor just about everything else. And, in an emergency, I can transmit. It's kinda like carrying concealed. You never want to use it, but it is there if you really need it.
I have all of the FRS, GMRS, Marine, CAP, and NOAA frequencies in memory. Also, a handful of local repeaters. Not that they are used. There is a really nice repeater in Wolf Lake that I have on the secondary frequency so that I can monitor it. Nobody uses it. WTF?
I guess that's what happens when you live out in the middle of nowhere.
In the Detroit area, just about all of the repeater pairs are used up, and some repeaters are quite busy. Around here, nobody is going to complain if you rag chew on the repeater.
Baofengs
I have a VX-5R, been a handy little radio. Been thinking about the extra powerful battery as well as the 6AA battery holder. Just the thing to throw in my tablet bag. As a scanner, its slow scan speed leaves a lot to be desired. But for the price it is a workable compromise. BTW, if you do a search on eBay for "Baofeng" and start poking around you'll find a bunch of Chinese radios, often at ridiculous prices. Found a four-band mini-mobile, one price is less than $10! 20 watts and almost no frills, but for the price!!!!
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Karen, you're right
Back in the dark ages I was making a weekly trip to Guymon and wearing headphones until I was told it was illegal. Never questioned if the guy knew what he was talking about. This is how those false truths start and get spread. We hear or read it and never question or research the source.
https://thenewswheel.com/is-it-illegal-to-drive-with-headpho...
Many thanks for the correction, sis. As an Oklahoma storm tracker you probably passed within a hundred yards of me many, many times. Stay safe girl. Too many of you guys get hurt or killed every year trying to warn others where the danger is coming from. I've been directly under a funnel, it skipped over me. I've taken pictures less than a couple hundred yards away from one as it tore up fences and laid over trees. Nothing like the one that went through Moore and Edmond.
always,
Barb
Life is a gift. Treasure it until it's time to return it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Kicker
I doubt that the local cop would even care about a kicker. Exceeding the max wattage on a CB would be covered in FCC regs, making it a Federal crime. Doubt the locals would want to do the paperwork involve in the charge.
I used to be involved in CB pretty heavily. My single side band mobile was tweeked and peaked to twelve watts PEP in the legal channels. I also had funny channels in it. The wattage up there was quite low, but when the skip was in, I had no trouble talking from Portland Oregon to someplace in Texas.
At home, I ran a White Face Tempo for a base station. 240 watts PEP with an inverted Vee antenna and an 11 meter band crystal along with the standard 10, 20, 40 and 80 meters. Along with that, I had a 6 band short wave receiver. I was listening one night about 2:30 AM as a fellow in Albany Oregon running a KW kicker was up on the funny channels chatting with another person in Seattle. A rather authoritative voice came on and informed them that they were transmitting on US military frequencies and were to vacate immediately. They ignored that warning and two more. Sometime later, one of them said the other should stand by because some one was at his door. He came back, made one more transmission. "The US Marshall is here with an FCC warrant. They're shutting me down." And that was the last I heard from them.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Military bands?
Military bands?
Given how may military installations were out there then I'm surprised it was only the US Marshals and not someone worse!
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
[snicker]
Ignore law enforcement and get shut down. Good way to lose all of your gear, and maybe spend a little time in the pokey.
Just recently, the local club had a problem with unlicensed people chatting on the input of the local repeater. They were bear hunters who had purchased 'special CB' radios from the back room of a local sporting goods store.
The club tracked them down and got the local DNR (Department of National Resources) officers to do the enforcing.
But yeah, actually catching someone operating on the wrong band is difficult. On the other hand, getting cocky and telling law enforcement to take a hike, while continuing to put out nice trackable signals is not a good idea.
Kicker
I doubt that the local cop would even care about a kicker. Exceeding the max wattage on a CB would be covered in FCC regs, making it a Federal crime. Doubt the locals would want to do the paperwork involve in the charge.
I used to be involved in CB pretty heavily. My single side band mobile was tweeked and peaked to twelve watts PEP in the legal channels. I also had funny channels in it. The wattage up there was quite low, but when the skip was in, I had no trouble talking from Portland Oregon to someplace in Texas.
At home, I ran a White Face Tempo for a base station. 240 watts PEP with an inverted Vee antenna and an 11 meter band crystal along with the standard 10, 20, 40 and 80 meters. Along with that, I had a 6 band short wave receiver. I was listening one night about 2:30 AM as a fellow in Albany Oregon running a KW kicker was up on the funny channels chatting with another person in Seattle. A rather authoritative voice came on and informed them that they were transmitting on US military frequencies and were to vacate immediately. They ignored that warning and two more. Sometime later, one of them said the other should stand by because some one was at his door. He came back, made one more transmission. "The US Marshall is here with an FCC warrant. They're shutting me down." And that was the last I heard from them.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Police Scanners and more than most care to know
https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2012/08/police-scanner-app...
About every state makes it legal to own a police scanner radio. ... Other states like California, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia allow mobile scanners, but make it illegal to use them in the commission of a crime
always,
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
2 Meter
I'm contemplating getting a 2 Meter walkie talkie, but the only shop in town is a long bus ride from here, and I haven't been motivated to do that yet. In 1971, I think I had the required license, but I've lost all the documents and go by a different name now, so will likely just take the test again.
I don't want to be an active Ham, I just want to be able to hit any surviving repeaters if the big Quake happens here. There are people running around that are very hysterical about the pending 9.0 Quake. It's been frustrating finding the little radio I want. I don't want one with rechargeable batteries. I just want one that I can put in my pocket.
I'll work on it sometime, hopefully before the Quake. :)
2m HT
Get your licensed renewed and I can probably scare you up an HT at little to no cost. I used to keep a stash of 2m HTs to loan to new hams, there ought to be something around in a box somewhere. Just let me know.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
CBs were all the rage in the
CBs were all the rage in the 70s, everyone had one. My parents still had theirs until the early 90s, never using it but still holding the unit until it got lost in a move.
Scanners are capable of good and evil. A large number of them are used simply for information and entertainment and for work. Back in the early 80s in Boston there was a rash of arson cases that were attributed to a interconnected group of people who were protesting the layoffs and elimination of dozens of fire companies throughout the state as city and town budgets were slashed and municipal workers let go. These men were coordinated and knew where to go and what to do thanks to their scanners. They knew when to start another fire thanks to forces being committed to a main location forcing the reliance on outside help hurting other cities and towns who had to come into the city to help. They were caught, but the use of scanners by non-public safety personnel was damaged for years.
I actually screwed-up badly once by not listening to my father when he said "stay inside" due to a police chase nearby. It was a simple chase, but he sensed that it would turn into a foot pursuit. It was blocks away so I went outside to go see my aunt and uncle, only to open end up almost getting toppled by a fleeing suspect and three officers right as I opened the front door to our apartment buidling. I unintentionally slowed the suspect down and he was caught, but that was scary as hell. All because I didn't listen to someone who knew better from experience.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime