UID Blocking

[shanelynn321]

It may be deliberate but I do not know. The part I find interesting is that the prefix to the UID is nothing close to everything they use here.
and
I had that idea originally but like you, I am unsure how that would work on a trunked system on simulcast towers.

 

[n1chu]

Yea, that makes it tougher. But there are resources out there that can and routinely do something similar to a “fox hunt”. You may be able to narrow down the location by increasingly attenuating the signal. But I would hesitate to pursue this action as it may give away how close you are getting to the bad guy. He may shut down and screw up any official investigation, which may put you in hot water.

 

[shanelynn321]

Yea, that makes it tougher. But there are resources out there that can and routinely do something similar to a “fox hunt”. You may be able to narrow down the location by increasingly attenuating the signal. But I would hesitate to pursue this action as it may give away how close you are getting to the bad guy. He may shut down and screw up any official investigation, which may put you in hot water.

I personally won't be doing any searching lol. Im simply passing the idea's on to my dispatchers to be able to possibly resolve this issue.

I appreciate everyone's ideas and assistance. If I hear anything else from them I'll update the post.

 

[ofd8001]

Yeah there is a bigger issue going on.

You cannot lock out a specific radio from being received by your scanner. No way, no how. If you monitor a given channel, you have to listen to every radio that transmits on the channel. Picking and choosing is not an option.

The radio system administrator should be able to deal with a situation where a microphone is repeatedly in transmit when it shouldn't be. This administrator should know exactly who is using the radio with the given Unit ID. (Of course the administrator should have set the time out timer too so this does not happen).

And as noted above, if a kind word to the radio user doesn't fix the problem the administrator has ways of dealing with it, as in kicking it off the system.

A codeplug is in essence the programming for the radio, such as frequencies, scanlists, systems etc. If it was a scanner, we'd call it a "Profile".

 

[jeepsandradios]

If its a true issue I would think the county system manager would just disable to radio. It takes all of 15 seconds to change it in the system so it can't work. then someone calls and says hey my radio dont work. Simple solution. I know this doesn't help your situation but if it was an issue the county had they could fix it.

 

[west-pac]

Here is the exact transcript:
Me: "You probably cant give me any details for security, but whoever is on county fire channel with uid 9988001 tends to leave the Mic wide open for sometimes long periods of time and sometimes short periods of time"
Me: "I'm sure you know who"
Dispatcher: "I'm actually not working today. County fire actually gets stuck open but not by dispatch, we're not sure where it's coming from but we have to fix it every so often"
Me: "Yeah its weird. Its always the same uid. And every now and then we can hear conversation"
Dispatch: "For us it shows as suburban_fire. None of the county houses will claim its them"
Me: "Sounds like an ongoing investigation"

Do you know these dispatchers personally, have some affiliation to county govt, or are you calling into Dispatch as an unknown citizen telling them what they already know? These people (dispatchers) use these radios 24/7/365. It's a big part of their job, and they get paid to use them. Why do you feel the need to intervene? Would you want some random person calling you at work and telling you how to do your job better? Do you listen to local industry/factory radio communications and then call them also?....

Receptionist: "XYZ company..."
Random phone caller: "Hey, this is (random guy that lives in town) and listens to you on my scanner. Dept 97 is having a hard time getting a forklift operater. Can you find out what's going on?"
Receptionist: "Uh...... is this a prank?"

It's people like that, that make public safety want to go encrypted.

 

[shanelynn321]

Do you know these dispatchers personally, have some affiliation to county govt, or are you calling into Dispatch as an unknown citizen telling them what they already know? These people (dispatchers) use these radios 24/7/365. It's a big part of their job, and they get paid to use them. Why do you feel the need to intervene? Would you want some random person calling you at work and telling you how to do your job better? Do you listen to local industry/factory radio communications and then call them also?....

Receptionist: "XYZ company..."
Random phone caller: "Hey, this is (random guy that lives in town) and listens to you on my scanner. Dept 97 is having a hard time getting a forklift operater. Can you find out what's going on?"
Receptionist: "Uh...... is this a prank?"

It's people like that, that make public safety want to go encrypted.

My bestfriends sister is a dispatcher and has been for awhile. I myself am apart of a group of non profits that listen to the feed and inform the city of events going on while maintaining censorship when and where needed. Evansville.watch is the website and the Facebook group is evvwatch for example. I mentioned it one day to her when we noticed the scanner feed stuck on the county fire channel and I started looking through the history and logs and seen it was a common occurrence. One of the evansville watch members is also a dispatcher for the county. I am simply attempting to assist them in possible resolutions. My bestfriends sister told me earlier that the IT guy is on it and I asked her to pass the ideas along to see if they help.

 

[ofd8001]

My first paying job out of college was as a dispatcher. My oldest son's first paying job was as a dispatcher. My daughter in law is a dispatcher. So with all the respect in the world for dispatchers, they might not be the best folks to talk to about technical issues with a system.

If someone is keyed up on a talkgroup, typically no one else is permitted to to transmit. So I'm sure if this is an issue, other users may have reported it because it is a bigger pain to them.

 

[shanelynn321]

My first paying job out of college was as a dispatcher. My oldest son's first paying job was as a dispatcher. My daughter in law is a dispatcher. So with all the respect in the world for dispatchers, they might not be the best folks to talk to about technical issues with a system.

If someone is keyed up on a talkgroup, typically no one else is permitted to to transmit. So I'm sure if this is an issue, other users may have reported it because it is a bigger pain to them.

I totally agree with you on that one. Thats why I asked them to pass the info along or get me in contact with them and I can give them the info I know.

 

[BenScan]

Not sure if this would help, but if the scanner supports it, try adding a negative delay. That may be a temporary fix to the problem. That should continue scanning after the amount of seconds you've entered.
Below is only an example of where to set it in the Sentinel software.
Happy Scanning!
Ben

 

[shanelynn321]

Not sure if this would help, but if the scanner supports it, try adding a negative delay. That may be a temporary fix to the problem. That should continue scanning after the amount of seconds you've entered.
Below is only an example of where to set it in the Sentinel software.
Happy Scanning!
Ben

View attachment 94046

I changed this in my handheld and will let you know how it goes. If all goes well, then I'll update the feed unit.

Thank you all!

 

[u2brent]

Maybe all this is done deliberately to bork the feed and stop other traffic from getting passed on as long as the TG is tied up..

 

[shanelynn321]

So to update everyone, the negative delay did not help as the TG stayed continuously keyed up. The county did finally figure out who it was and got it resolved and I have since went back to the default 2 second delay on that TG and haven't had any issues anymore.