Another "not sure where to put it"

[russellv2]

As I traveled to work this morning I was hearing some interesting traffic on one of the local police frequencies. Basically a lot of transmissions that the dispatcher couldn't copy (I couldn't either.) Turns out (my hypothesis thus far is that) someone has in their possession, a police radio and is transmitting. It is quite obviously some punk kid(s) thinking that it is a game and just acting stupid. I would sure hate to be them when the department finds the source of the transmissions!
I'm curious to know what other surprises might they get other than uniformed police officers at their door wanting their radio back? (i.e. arrested, court proceedings, fines, etc.) Anyone know? I'm sure that they would not make good holiday gifts.

 

[mikey60]

As I traveled to work this morning I was hearing some interesting traffic on one of the local police frequencies. Basically a lot of transmissions that the dispatcher couldn't copy (I couldn't either.) Turns out (my hypothesis thus far is that) someone has in their possession, a police radio and is transmitting. It is quite obviously some punk kid(s) thinking that it is a game and just acting stupid. I would sure hate to be them when the department finds the source of the transmissions!
I'm curious to know what other surprises might they get other than uniformed police officers at their door wanting their radio back? (i.e. arrested, court proceedings, fines, etc.) Anyone know? I'm sure that they would not make good holiday gifts.

Beyond the other charges, the FCC can lev fines of up to $10,000 per incident.

Mike

 

[jerneedog]

There's a similar problem in my area, but with Amateur Radio, someone has been
randomly voicing curse words and just being a total @$$. It has been going on for
awhile now and the local club has an Operator Officer and I'm surprised he hasn't been
caught yet.

Someone always has to ruin it for us all.

 

[INDY72]

In these post 9/11 days, not only will they face the local PD, but also the FCC, the FBI, and even possibly HomeSec investigations. Interfering with Law Enforcement will lead to a lot of things that are all BAD! Not to mention the possibility that the local PD might go to a digital encrypted system that can NOT be interfered with this way, and kill any monitoring of it. This is the very reason that LEA's are paranoid about anyone being able to monitor them.

 

[russellv2]

Thanks for the replies.
As an update... it's still going on. It happened again around 11:30 (presumably while at lunch.) We'll have to see if it continues again after 3pm or so.
I figure one of two things will happen, either they will be able to find him using some triangulation (if he's not moving and he keeps transmitting) and/or his battery will die and he won't be able to charge the radio and keep transmitting. He'll have one heck of a souvenier.
Not something I would want to be doing or messing around with. LEA's are not happy folk when it comes to interfering with their transmissions! There used to be someone (several years ago) in this area with a frequency blocker that was causing lots of havoc around the county. That ended very quickly once one of his friends reported him to authorities and he spent some time in the state "license plate and pre-fab wall" academy.
Anyhow... if you're in the area and want to earn some bonus points with Genesee County 911... join in on a foxhunt.


Oh... jerneedog... you mentioned ham radio. We had an interesting thing happen here last week. Someone had a "cross-band" repeater accidently set on one of the fire frequencies linking through to the ARES repeater. Boy did that cause an uproar on the ARES end. The trustee of the repeater was running around like a chicken with his head cut off for a while trying to figure out what to do. Eventually someone realized what they had done. It made for an interesting evening though.

 

[K2KOH]

This reminds me of the jackass years ago who had the stolen NYPD radio, and billed himself as the "Voice of God."
Trust me...let a couple of cops catch this moron, and he'll think twice before acting stupid again.

 

[russellv2]

This reminds me of the jackass years ago who had the stolen NYPD radio, and billed himself as the "Voice of God."

ROFLOL... wow that's great! Not funny at all at the time, though I'm sure it got a few under-the-breath laughs afterwards.

To update yet again... the fun started again around 4pm. They were still transmitting when I left to come home at 5:30. Transmitting bogus calls to "send all police officers that you can to a party store near X highway and X street for hudlums drinking and (I quote still) they have weapons." If I could have reached through my scanner to strangle one of the 'transmittering people' I would have!!!! Haven't heard them this evening, though I haven't been hanging around the scanner (I decided to carve the Halloween pumpkin and watch CSI instead.)

 

[eyes00only]

Not sure what type of system your refering to, but these days, one click of the mouse and the radio is out of the system............. I think.

Jerry :roll:

 

[mikey60]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them. If you do, and can get the rough area of the people doing this, call that in to the PD. If scannists can work with police on issue like these, it will help overcome some of the negative feelings out there.

Mike

 

[russellv2]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them.

Unfortunatly Genesee County Sheriff doesn't use a repeater except for crossover cases (a car in the south trying to access the north dispatch frequency and vice-versa.) These folks are getting into the south system from the middle of the county I presume. Their signal was stronger at work than at my home. But that doesn't help much since I work in downtown Flint and live just inside Genesee County from the Oakland and Lapeer County lines. Since I trust the S-meter on my ham gear more than on my 296D scanner I tuned up the freq. on there, but again, couldn't get a really good beat on it. (I didn't have too much time to drive around on my way home from work either.
Like I said in an earlier post... anyone that feels like a foxhunt, you could earn bonus points with Genesee County 911.

 

[russellv2]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them.

Unfortunatly Genesee County Sheriff doesn't use a repeater except for crossover cases (a car in the south trying to access the north dispatch frequency and vice-versa.) These folks are getting into the south system from the middle of the county I presume. Their signal was stronger at work than at my home. But that doesn't help much since I work in downtown Flint and live just inside Genesee County from the Oakland and Lapeer County lines. Since I trust the S-meter on my ham gear more than on my 296D scanner I tuned up the freq. on there, but again, couldn't get a really good beat on it. (I didn't have too much time to drive around on my way home from work either.
Like I said in an earlier post... anyone that feels like a foxhunt, you could earn bonus points with Genesee County 911.

 

[russellv2]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them.

Unfortunatly Genesee County Sheriff doesn't use a repeater except for crossover cases (a car in the south trying to access the north dispatch frequency and vice-versa.) These folks are getting into the south system from the middle of the county I presume. Their signal was stronger at work than at my home. But that doesn't help much since I work in downtown Flint and live just inside Genesee County from the Oakland and Lapeer County lines. Since I trust the S-meter on my ham gear more than on my 296D scanner I tuned up the freq. on there, but again, couldn't get a really good beat on it. (I didn't have too much time to drive around on my way home from work either.
Like I said in an earlier post... anyone that feels like a foxhunt, you could earn bonus points with Genesee County 911.

 

[russellv2]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them.

Unfortunatly Genesee County Sheriff doesn't use a repeater except for crossover cases (a car in the south trying to access the north dispatch frequency and vice-versa.) I thought about that. I even checked my scanner to varify that there was no input frequency. These folks are getting into the south system from the middle of the county I presume. Their signal was stronger at work than at my home. But that doesn't help much since I work in downtown Flint and live just inside Genesee County from the Oakland and Lapeer County lines. Since I trust the S-meter on my ham gear more than on my 296D scanner I tuned up the freq. on there, but again, couldn't get a really good beat on it. (I didn't have too much time to drive around on my way home from work either.
Like I said in an earlier post... anyone that feels like a foxhunt, you could earn bonus points with Genesee County 911.

 

[russellv2]

Do you have the repeater input frequency programmed into your radio? Start listening to the input freq to see if you can hear them.

Unfortunatly Genesee County Sheriff doesn't use a repeater except for crossover cases (a car in the south trying to access the north dispatch frequency and vice-versa.) I thought about that. I even checked my scanner to varify that there was no input frequency. These folks are getting into the south system from the middle of the county I presume. Their signal was stronger at work than at my home. But that doesn't help much since I work in downtown Flint and live just inside Genesee County from the Oakland and Lapeer County lines. Since I trust the S-meter on my ham gear more than on my 296D scanner I tuned up the freq. on there, but again, couldn't get a really good beat on it. (I didn't have too much time to drive around on my way home from work either.
Like I said in an earlier post... anyone that feels like a foxhunt, you could earn bonus points with Genesee County 911.

 

[nwadler]

This would not make them change to an encrypted system since the people are using a two way radio which is obviously police issued. If this radio is not police issued then who sold them the radio and or who programmed it for them since most of the software and know how is not an average persons do it yourself project. I hope when they catch them that they spend a little close persanal time with the arresting officers prior to being brought down to the station. Putting false statements could cause an oficer to have an accident and other things I dont want to think about.

 

[russellv2]

My computer evidently was under the influence of something last night. Sorry for the thousand of posts. You can delete a few of those Lindsay.

Haven't heard them this morning.

 

[ECPD279]

This would not make them change to an encrypted system since the people are using a two way radio which is obviously police issued. If this radio is not police issued then who sold them the radio and or who programmed it for them since most of the software and know how is not an average persons do it yourself project.....

Not necessarily, they may be using ANY kind of radio capable of transmitting on those freqs. It could even be a modified HAM radio for that matter. The only way they would NEED a police department radio is if it was a trunked system, which it must not be if they are not using repeaters.

 

[russellv2]

I can say with pretty good certainty that it was a police radio. The dispatcher did eventually pull a unit ID off of the radio transmissions. That's when they truly varified that it was someone with malicious intent, because the station using the radio did not give a good agency name for the unit's ID. (Like a lot of counties do... say "27" is a specific police department in the county. When she asked for the name of the department it didn't line up with the number of the radio.)

The "excitement" (and I use that term loosely) is done at least for the time being. They weren't transmitting today that I heard.

I take that back... just heard at this very moment, "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? etc."

 

[n8gni]

fines and time

I'm sure that everybody has heard of this!

If convicted of the two counts of computer interference with police communications, Mitra could face up to 20 years in prison, according to The Capital Times.

http://badgerherald.com/news/2004/03/08/halloween_radio_hack.php

http://badgerherald.com/news/2004/03/05/radio_jammer_on_fede.php

 

[nwadler]

I know nobody would tell how anyways but how do you alter a ham radio. If done this would only be used under strict authorization of chiefs of departments. I have seen the sold on ebay. There is also radios for sell on ebay for 80 bucks you can program it without the software non ham.