What are peoples thoughts on people programming and selling the Baofeng and Quansheng radios as scanners?
I recently came across a local news social media page and found the administrator selling Baofeng handhelds as scanners. I never did find out what kind of pricing was set on them and politely informed the person selling them they were not scanners and not appropriate to be sold as such. You could tell they were not really familiar with the radios or programming them, but they did have a few frequencies listed. I also told him that the radios he was selling to people are not going to work in a few months once the new P25 system going into my county comes online. The seller doesn't seem to be a supporter of law enforcement at all and chases the PD in his city from call to call.
The person selling them asked me "codes" to get them to work on a Motorola Type II system and how to make them continue to work when the new system arrives. I kind of got a little bit of a laugh out of it all. He messaged me earlier this week asking if I had found a solution for when the new system comes online and I said I didn't know of one in his price range.
IMHO it's people like this who make the jump to digital make sense. Not going to discuss the E stuff here, but I also have to wonder how many times he has purposely keyed that radio or other agencies. I have no issue with people scanning to find out what is going on and fully admit for many of us it's more a function of being nosy without interfering with whatever is going on with a particular agency or incident.
Any thoughts?
I recently came across a local news social media page and found the administrator selling Baofeng handhelds as scanners. I never did find out what kind of pricing was set on them and politely informed the person selling them they were not scanners and not appropriate to be sold as such. You could tell they were not really familiar with the radios or programming them, but they did have a few frequencies listed. I also told him that the radios he was selling to people are not going to work in a few months once the new P25 system going into my county comes online. The seller doesn't seem to be a supporter of law enforcement at all and chases the PD in his city from call to call.
The person selling them asked me "codes" to get them to work on a Motorola Type II system and how to make them continue to work when the new system arrives. I kind of got a little bit of a laugh out of it all. He messaged me earlier this week asking if I had found a solution for when the new system comes online and I said I didn't know of one in his price range.
IMHO it's people like this who make the jump to digital make sense. Not going to discuss the E stuff here, but I also have to wonder how many times he has purposely keyed that radio or other agencies. I have no issue with people scanning to find out what is going on and fully admit for many of us it's more a function of being nosy without interfering with whatever is going on with a particular agency or incident.
Any thoughts?
