Chicago PD Using Baofeng's for Uniformed Officers???

[Ghost117]

 

[NC1]

Well, you have to spend the big money on quality equipment for reliable communications

 

[Hit_Factor]

Looks to me like some Officers may have solved a problem on their own.

 

[N9JCQ]

During the street protests last summer, CPD's communications were frequently disrupted by someone or some people using Baofengs or similar. If you look on Facebook Marketplace here in Chicago you will see some clown selling them as "Police Scanners." The city will eventually migrate to a trunked system where in all likelihood, it will be encrypted as the large balance of the suburbs are now. At least CPD would have a legit reason for doing it.

 

[laidback]

They are legal to use, but only on the amateur bands. (Of course, you'll need to get a license first).
There was a lot of debate on whether they were legal, but the FCC finally stated that they were. Thus the older search results you found, such as this one.
Since they are not type-accepted, they are not legal to use on other bands such as FRS, GMRS, etc.

If the radio messes up I guess the PD can shoot it.

This boy Chicago born and raised. YES I said that

 

[N9JIG]

Officers usually buy these for several reasons:

These are often used to allow CPD officers to monitor Tac channels at the same time as the Zone. Most of the time the Zone channel is too busy to allow use of the Scan function.

Some guys will pop in some oddball freq as a non-sanctioned C-C channel for his team.

Occasionally they are used if not enough department radios are available during events, protests etc.

These are pretty common in the suburbs as well.

 

[west-pac]

Indianapolis PD did/does the same thing. I believe there were news articles about them being caught using amateur radios. Some of the officers actually have FCC licenses for private 150mhz frequencies for officers to use also. Granted, IMPD is all on 800Mhz now, so those may be irrelevant by now.