FLEX/POCSAG in Western Canada

[boy_ryan22]

I know how much you admins hate this stuff so I will make it short.

If there is anyone decoding Flex/Pocsag pagers please e-mail me at stuck@scanbc.com I am hoping to compare data.


Please do not reply to this topic.

 

[mikewazowski]

Why would the admin's hate it?

Last time I checked it was legal in Canada.

 

[Jay911]

I have some experience doing POCSAG with various equipment. Every time I've tried FLEX, no matter what my signal strength, the signal keeps getting garbled.

 

[boy_ryan22]

Why would the admin's hate it?

Last time I checked it was legal in Canada.

I just got that feeling from searching RR for FLEX info... Seems alot of threads got locked and such... But if you say so!

 

[Jay911]

As a moderator for Western Canada, I have no problem discussing it here. I'm not 100% sure on the legalities of it, but I know that a lot of things here are not outlawed like they are in the States, where the majority of this site's users are. And, unfortunately, a lot of people here assume that everyone else where is from the States, and try to apply their laws to whatever discussion is on the go. So any discussions about certain things often get grief for being "illegal", despite the fact they're not.

 

[boy_ryan22]

aha.. Well in that case..

I just recently had someone put a descrim tap on my scanner. I plugged it in and downloaded PDW (FLEX/POCSAG) decoder. I have been watching this for a few days now and have been copying down the Interesting pages and their cap codes. Now I am organizing all the cap codes together to see who gets which pages.... I am monitoring 931.7375 Which I have been told covers a large area... I am getting pages from all over the west coast.

I was wondering if anyone else on the west coast is monitoring Flex/Pocsag and if they already had some Cap Codes Labled to make it easier for me.

 

[Jay911]

Here, the frequency you mention is a TELUS paging network, and I presume it is the same across the country. That's the one I have severe grief with when I try to decode Flex. I got stuff all the way from Toronto when monitoring here in Calgary area. IIRC a lot of it is realtors, some IT professionals getting diagnostic messages about their systems, production lines too (i.e. automotive manufacturing/other assembly lines), etc. I never bothered putting more than a broad generalization like the above on most pages; I was looking for a few specific ones that are from my organization and other local agencies.

I haven't done any monitoring of this system in ages. When I did, I had kept only the ones that interested me. I know this sounds a little hypocritical, but I'd prefer to discuss capcodes themselves off the forum; it's possible to determine individual persons and/or their phone numbers by certain capcodes, and direct identification of individuals is something that this site frowns upon. I'll contact you in PM for further discussion on that particular element.

 

[boy_ryan22]

Well I wont go into great detail But I have managed to figure out the cap codes for: Whistler SAR, BC Coroners Service, And some Tow Truck company on Vancouver island.

I have also been recieving pages that look like this.

******* 11:16:27 09-03-07 FLEX-A ALPHA 3200 Subj: HGI Stinger message : Vehicle 475JGF(001011) Door Open

I googled HGI Stinger and it came up with a Bait car system... I was under the impression that when a bait car is activated Dispatch recieved the message on their Dispatch console. Not on a pager.

 

[Jay911]

Interesting.. however as a dispatcher, though not a police dispatcher, I've never heard of a "plugin" or add-on, if you will, that would allow a dispatch console to do this. Our CAD systems are designed around taking emergency calls and dispatching emergency services units.. this kind of thing isn't handled by CAD.

The last time I saw a bait car story (I think, in Car & Driver magazine), it was shown that the car was controlled by a laptop computer kept in an unmarked vehicle nearby.

 

[electricsheep]

I have also been recieving pages that look like this.

******* 11:16:27 09-03-07 FLEX-A ALPHA 3200 Subj: HGI Stinger message : Vehicle 475JGF(001011) Door Open

I googled HGI Stinger and it came up with a Bait car system...

That's awesome... So if I theoretically were a car thief or wanted to advise them how to avoid bait cars, all I would have to do is have a small laptop with a tapped scanner (along with the scanner I use to keep track of the police, of course!) and then see if a page like this comes across the network when I break into a car. If it does, walk away... Good job. Any other nuggets that may help the bad guys? Heh.

And since RR.com posts show up when you do Google searches, maybe adding the keywords "HOW TO AVOID GETTING CAUGHT IN A BAIT CAR" might really increase traffic (and ad revenue!) to the site...

Just kidding.

 

[boy_ryan22]

Unfortunatly that Page doesnt give me the city or even province. and I am sure that 99% of Police departments get it to E-mail and not pagers... This could just be a small rural department.. or even a private security company.

 

[electricsheep]

Unfortunatly that Page doesnt give me the city or even province. and I am sure that 99% of Police departments get it to E-mail and not pagers... This could just be a small rural department.. or even a private security company.

Yeah, the BMS system (Stinger) seems to brag that it uses all three big providers, Telus, Bell, Rogers, and their news release section seems to pump up success with their Ontario installs and IMPACT in British Columbia.