Regional Auto Theft Task Force freq

[maus92]

I was talking to an BPD Foxtrot Observer the other day. I was asking him some aviation related questions when I asked what freqs do they routinely monitor. He said they are normally on Citywide, but switch to the District channels when on a call. He also mentioned that they montior LoJack, and get several hits a shift.... I wonder what freqs LoJack uses... Anyway, he said that they routinely monitor the RATF freq - anyone know what this is?

CA
Annapolis

 

[nd5y]

LoJack is 173.075.

 

[Dougie]

LoJack is 173.075.

Will you hear human voice on this freq, and and would a icom r -3 receiver ect. show anything ?

 

[nd5y]

LoJack has no voice traffic. You will only hear data bursts from the base stations every once in
a while and I understand that when a subscriber's vehicle is stolen and the unit is activated it
sends a data burst about once a second.

 

[mlevin]

TG ID 4624 on the Baltimore County trunked system is used by officers from all the Baltimore metro jurisdictions who are involved in the RATF. They are called RATT on the air.

 

[Dougie]

Cool, im glad we made this clear on this thred, I didnt think that info on this freq was good to anyone else but police depts.

Good day!!!

 

[jparks29]

well.. there is ONE thing about monitoring that frequency.. if you DO hear anything..then a car that has been outfitted with a lojack transmitter has been stolen.. and probably no more than a few blocks from you.. although beware of impound lots..as recovered stolen autos tend to NOT have there transmitters turned off for one reason or another.. probably because once they have the car back,noone bothers notifying lojack that the car has been recovered..

 

[trimmerj]

What format is the data burst in ? I've heard that the data from the troopers on 44.74 can be easily be decoded.

 

[ka3jjz]

AFAIK it's nothing more than 1200 baud ASCII data; the data being sent is a bunch of coordinates. Any good decoding package can handle this

73s Mike

 

[maus92]

A bit more about the LoJack question. I asked the FO how they could tell which car is the target, i.e. stolen car, from the air. He said that LoJack transmits a ID number, and from that number they can look up the make and model info. I am unclear if they keep a database in the helo, or if they have to call it in... He also said that it becomes obvious which car is the target after a while - through the process of elimination.

CA
Annapolis

 

[Dougie]

AFAIK it's nothing more than 1200 baud ASCII data; the data being sent is a bunch of coordinates. Any good decoding package can handle this

73s Mike

^ This guy is GOOD !