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FRS question

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ant888

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Sep 11, 2016
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57
Location
NJ
Hello all,

I was just wondering if there was anyone who ever heard police on FRS.
I have a scanner, so this question is just out of curiosity.

Thanks for your input.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk
 

viper1833

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Joined
Sep 30, 2015
Messages
12
Location
Galesburg, IL.
Hello all,

I was just wondering if there was anyone who ever heard police on FRS.
I have a scanner, so this question is just out of curiosity.

Thanks for your input.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

I've never heard any emergency service on it ever, however last year in my area someone had a scanner sitting next to a FRS/GMRS radio set hands free, and you could hear the scanner traffic over the FRS frequency. Can't remember what freq it was, but it was on FRS. Eventually it went away, I think someone was using this as a way to monitor the local PD when they were away from there scanner.
 

ant888

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Sep 11, 2016
Messages
57
Location
NJ
I've never heard any emergency service on it ever, however last year in my area someone had a scanner sitting next to a FRS/GMRS radio set hands free, and you could hear the scanner traffic over the FRS frequency. Can't remember what freq it was, but it was on FRS. Eventually it went away, I think someone was using this as a way to monitor the local PD when they were away from there scanner.
Ah, okay.
I was wondering if a two way radio on FRS would work.

I just lost what you said on one thing though; what is hands free?

(Sorry, I'm new to radios). [emoji14]

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk
 

KK4JUG

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Dec 13, 2014
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GA
Every November, there's a protest here in Columbus, GA. Folks from all over the country show up to protest what they still call the School of the Americas. It's now known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). It's training classes held at Ft. Benning for various Latin American countries. The courses center on civil engineering and EMA-types of classes. Variously, the protest group ranges from about 3,000 to 20,000. The protests have always been orderly and the most serious arrests by LE are usually just for disorderly conduct.

Anyway, the various groups that show up to protest typically use FRS radios to coordinate their activities. For that reason, the communications section of the mobile command post is awash in FRS radios. We tried scanning but there are usually too many conversations going on at one time.
 

viper1833

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Joined
Sep 30, 2015
Messages
12
Location
Galesburg, IL.
Ah, okay.
I was wondering if a two way radio on FRS would work.

I just lost what you said on one thing though; what is hands free?

(Sorry, I'm new to radios). [emoji14]

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk


Hands free is a feature in some radios, where you can activate, and talk on it without pushing the talk button. Most FRS/GMRS radios have that feature nowadays.
 

Rred

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Nov 21, 2014
Messages
830
New Orleans, right after Katrina. FRS was the only thing available to many agencies, among them some PD's.

Normally? No, the FRS radios are limited to 1/2 watt in power and no repeaters, so for the PD it is a "toy of last resort".
 

DPD1

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Jul 24, 2005
Messages
1,994
Every once in a while I've seen some community type groups use them at events, in concert with police. Like Eagle Scouts helping at a festival or something like that. That's about it. Honestly, I don't even think they're getting used much anymore. Maybe car to car on trips or something. But people/businesses use phones for so much now. I was on an 8000' mountain the other day and monitored FRS frequencies for a while. I heard zero.
 

tj20

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Joined
Dec 18, 2001
Messages
197
When frs was first getting popular there were some stories of police monitoring frs, because criminals were using them for lookouts. Now with everybody and their dog having phones it has lost popularity.
 

CaptDan

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Aug 11, 2013
Messages
275
Location
Ocala, Florida
Prior to encrypted radios being so available to law enforcement agencies, some specialized units utilized FRS among themselves for short range non critical communications. They found FRS to work well for them because of the very low power and short range, anyone attempting to monitor them would pretty much have to be practically next to them. Transmissions over the regular Police Radio system could easily be monitored throughout the city.

Nextel direct connect was also a very popular alternative to the regular police radio systems also.
 

mm

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Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
659
Location
oregon
Pima county Sheriff in South Central Arizona and the US BORDER patrol both use the GARMIN RINO GPS/TWO WAY (FRS and GMRS) radios to communicate with each other and to track deputies while out in the Sonoran Desert..

Nat-Geo has a Border patrol tv show and recently they showed some BP units near Nogales Az. using RINO655T'S while on patrol.

Copper Area News Publishers providing news coverage for Eastern Pinal and Southern Gila Counties | PCSO Receives $689k to Combat Human and Drug Smuggling - Copper Area News Publishers providing news coverage for Eastern Pinal and Southern Gila Counti


It's on 5 Rinos in the list of the new tech devices that they used for this DHS grant money so even though it's not a lot of radios, there aren't a lot of deputies who work on foot patrol at PCSO so 5 is probably suitable for this SO.
 
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Delta33

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Oct 23, 2016
Messages
328
Location
Clinton Iowa
Twice in the past, I've heard police using Frs for building Entry and Breaching exercises so as to not tie up their repeater but this was several years ago.
 
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