First Post and a few ?'s

[USAPatriot]

Howdy,

This is my first post here and I'm just getting back into scanning after being out for many years. My last scanner had crystals and trunks were only found on trees. Also an old CB'er from the 70's (KAB*4572)

Anyhow, am in S. California, have a new 796D and what I don't understand about it far outweighs what I do. My questions:

Does anyone have freqs for the news helicopters in the area? Not ATC traffic but organization traffic.

A scanner specific question:

I note that my scanner tells me when data rather than voice is being recv'd but is there a way to grab and display the data? Uniden's manual is next to useless in many respects. Thx.

 

[swest90]

Welcome Back!,
The 796D is a great scanner. I have one currently and hope to get another (cant wait until they release a base with the 396 features).
Most of the news station feeds/helicopters run in the 450/455 range. If you setup a chain search in the morning for 450-456 you will surely pick them up as they are very busy in the mornings.
Not quite sure I understand your question about the data, What are you trying to grab? The digital audio? (That should be done automatically by the scanner). The only things that this scanner can decode afaik are the P25 and the Control Channels for the supported trunking formats.
Let us know if you have any other questions!

Link http://www.freqofnature.com/index.php?m=Common&p=Media


Happy Monitoring
Shawn

 

[USAPatriot]

Thanks for the reply. I guess my question about the data was about information (text) being transmitted rather than voice data. Where the police is concerned, most of it should be public and most of it just routine stuff. I'm just curious as to whether it can be accessed. Thx.

 

[swest90]

Hello, The decoding of data that you are not authorized fell under the DMCA. Therefore making it a federal crime. There was a program out several years ago that decoded 4800bps MDT data. Once soe irresponsible users and the media got hold of that they spread it all over and of course a new law was created that ordered the departments to switch to a secure format and or encrypt their traffic. There have been a few post over the years about people trying, but it never turns out to be anything, surely because its not worth the federal time.

Thanks
Shawn

 

[USAPatriot]

I knew that you couldn't attempt to decrypt transmissions and didn't know they had in fact encrypted them. Such is life. Still...it's data used by a public entity and "should be" public property. Much of the routine stuff that goes on "should be" accessible IMNSHO. Again, such is life