Well, just when the guy that was transmitting on the Burlingame/San Mateo Police primary frequencies, was caught, either he or somebody new is broadcasting an open carrier on the San Mateo County Fire Control 2 frequency. The broadcast usually last less than 60 seconds at a time (not due to a time-out timer) and is usually the person tapping on the microphone. Last night however, the transmission lasted longer and you could hear two men and a female voice but due to the poor signal strength (it sounds like radio is a handheld), you can't quite make out what is being said. After almost 30 minutes of keying the repeater, a dispatcher working the control 2 channel read a written statement that told the person that they were violating various laws (she gave several FCC and civil code section numbers) and they were impeding the city’s ability to serve the community. She then requested the person to please stop transmitting. Unfortunately… As she read the first couple of sentences, she mispronounced a word and began laughing. She stopped and restarted her warning 3 times. The response from the violator... they just kept keying up.
The action of this person only servers to push cities to upgrade to trunked or digital systems where they can simply "brick" the illegal radio, but it also hurts law abiding scanner enthusiast because if a city is going to spend the money to upgrade their system, they will likely look to encryption which means the investment we all have in our scanners, not to mention the interesting things we hear, will be worth quite a bit less.
I've noticed that most of the open radio traffic by the city of Burlingame, Hillsborough, San Mateo and other local Police agencies are simply traffic stops or in progress emergencies. The major amount of what we all used to listen to is now sent to their MDT's.
Since this is not an isolated occurrence, and certainly not limited to the City and County of San Mateo, I wonder what legal action will start to be considered towards web sites that provide the in/out frequencies and PL/DPL codes etc. like our very own RR and even the FCC data bases. While it is a fun hobby to listen to what is on the public airwaves, we don’t have a constitutional right to have the frequency information. The argument can be made that if the frequency information wasn’t available to the public, illegally programmed radios would be far less intrusive.
If the person that is transmitting on the San Mateo County Fire Control 2 frequency reads the forums here on RR, I ask you to stop your interference.
The action of this person only servers to push cities to upgrade to trunked or digital systems where they can simply "brick" the illegal radio, but it also hurts law abiding scanner enthusiast because if a city is going to spend the money to upgrade their system, they will likely look to encryption which means the investment we all have in our scanners, not to mention the interesting things we hear, will be worth quite a bit less.
I've noticed that most of the open radio traffic by the city of Burlingame, Hillsborough, San Mateo and other local Police agencies are simply traffic stops or in progress emergencies. The major amount of what we all used to listen to is now sent to their MDT's.
Since this is not an isolated occurrence, and certainly not limited to the City and County of San Mateo, I wonder what legal action will start to be considered towards web sites that provide the in/out frequencies and PL/DPL codes etc. like our very own RR and even the FCC data bases. While it is a fun hobby to listen to what is on the public airwaves, we don’t have a constitutional right to have the frequency information. The argument can be made that if the frequency information wasn’t available to the public, illegally programmed radios would be far less intrusive.
If the person that is transmitting on the San Mateo County Fire Control 2 frequency reads the forums here on RR, I ask you to stop your interference.
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