I am in the UK for a week zero scanner traffic?

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scanhopkins

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I am in the UK for business I was able to bring my G5 and the BCD436HP.. Public Safety in such a large city is silent. Zero police or fire traffic. I hear air planes and some trains lol... Thats it???

South east London is my location.
 

scanhopkins

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I do not know alot about radio systems however I notice the police talk on something that looks like a old Nokia phone
 

mmckenna

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Yep.

While you may find some analog radio traffic, it may not be where you expect. Europe uses some frequencies for two way radio systems that are not used here in the USA. There is stuff up around 70MHz, might try looking there.

The rules are different, too. It's a bit more difficult to get LMR licenses in some European countries, so a lot of business type users either rely on cellular, TETRA or PMR type radios. The European PMR service is a lot like FRS in the USA. Check around 446MHz for that sort of stuff. It'll be short range, but you might pick up something.
 

Project25_MASTR

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TETRA...never took off here in the US. You see a few systems here and there...one I know of ended up becoming Motorola's first Capacity Max system to be sold in the US.
 

Project25_MASTR

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No-one likes their private or business conversations to be listened to.
Parliament has passed these laws to protect the privacy of radio users.

If there is something going on that I don't want to be "common spectrum" is when my radios begin displaying ÆS Ø. Seems to be a major difference between the US and UK in that mentality right now.
 

Your_account

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While you may find some analog radio traffic, it may not be where you expect. Europe uses some frequencies for two way radio systems that are not used here in the USA. There is stuff up around 70MHz, might try looking there.

The rules are different, too. It's a bit more difficult to get LMR licenses in some European countries, so a lot of business type users either rely on cellular, TETRA or PMR type radios. The European PMR service is a lot like FRS in the USA. Check around 446MHz for that sort of stuff. It'll be short range, but you might pick up something.
The Point is often a Cellphone (Contract) is much more cheaper than a Radio Licence.
In my Case I pay 5€/ Month for 100Min, 100SMS, 2GB who is enough for me.
The most Company who have +50 / +100 Cellphones pay 1€ - 2€ per Simcard, Unlimited Calls on internal Company Number and every Department, Group,... get X000 Minutes for external Calls + X SMS + X MB.

The benefit for Cellphones is Roaming is no problem anymore but here is no "Roaming" for Radios.
When I would use my Radios outside of Austria I had to register it on the Country who will cost... or I have to rent Radio (mostly old Analogue or lowend Digital Radios).

Normaly when I see People with Radio the use Motorola or Hytera Radios for DMR but just a Handfull use encrypt System.

I never would buy an Scanner and use just SDR on a Device who is encrypt (ok its illegal in UK do not give the Key to the officals....)
 

Project25_MASTR

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The Point is often a Cellphone (Contract) is much more cheaper than a Radio Licence.
In my Case I pay 5€/ Month for 100Min, 100SMS, 2GB who is enough for me.
The most Company who have +50 / +100 Cellphones pay 1€ - 2€ per Simcard, Unlimited Calls on internal Company Number and every Department, Group,... get X000 Minutes for external Calls + X SMS + X MB.

The benefit for Cellphones is Roaming is no problem anymore but here is no "Roaming" for Radios.
When I would use my Radios outside of Austria I had to register it on the Country who will cost... or I have to rent Radio (mostly old Analogue or lowend Digital Radios).

Normaly when I see People with Radio the use Motorola or Hytera Radios for DMR but just a Handfull use encrypt System.

I never would buy an Scanner and use just SDR on a Device who is encrypt (ok its illegal in UK do not give the Key to the officals....)



Depends. Average cost for cellular in the US right now is approximately $50 per line. The big problem you run into though, coverage becomes a joke once you get out of populated areas because the carriers here aren't going to build infrastructure to cover a population density less than 5 people per square mile because they'll never see the return on the investment. So cellular isn't an option for a lot of agencies/departments over here because of that.


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Your_account

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What kind of communication the people out there use?
Us is not known for sat phones usage.
Landline? Here you pay per Minute depend peak/ off peak and local and country wide.
If you want here Landline Internet you get a Phone Number to.

Use a Radio System is not so common but more and more Company who do the Security stuff there use Hytera Radios.

oh i found a list which Tetra Radios got certified:
MOTOROLA Endgeräte
 

Project25_MASTR

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It depends. Non-public safety you either have had two way for the last 30 years and have just kept updating the infrastructure and equipment with time or you utilize an airtime service (Privacy Plus, LTR, DMR or NXDN depending on what the system owner built out) or you just deal with the lack of cellular coverage in areas.

For public safety it's the same on the two way side. Either you use sites you've been using for the last 40 years or you hop onto a P25 trunking system some municipality built out and made open to public service agencies (for a fee).


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mmckenna

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What kind of communication the people out there use?
Us is not known for sat phones usage.
Landline? Here you pay per Minute depend peak/ off peak and local and country wide.
If you want here Landline Internet you get a Phone Number to.

Use a Radio System is not so common but more and more Company who do the Security stuff there use Hytera Radios.

oh i found a list which Tetra Radios got certified:
MOTOROLA Endgeräte

Here is the U.S., land line telephone is still pretty popular. The cable plants are well built out in most rural areas, so getting a telephone line is pretty easy.
Costs are low, $30-$50/month. Many services are no charge for use, free long distance in the U.S. low rates everywhere else. International calls are a few cents per minute.

DSL over the phone lines is pretty common. Speeds are limited and distance from the phone company's equipment is limited. It is not available everywhere.

Cable TV systems can carry phone and internet traffic, but their networks are not built out as far as the telephone companies are.

Satellite based internet is available, often they use a dial up line for your outgoing traffic and the satellite TV system for the incoming traffic. Not perfect, but it does allow useable bandwidth just about anywhere.



Many, many years ago there were parts of the country that were served by microwave to a local service point. Parts of the western US still have similar setups, although fiber optic cable is taking over.
Not that long ago there were parts of the very rural western US that had radio links for phone service. Used to require calling an operator, asking for the remote point, and the radio connection would be set up. Not cellular, but actual point to point radio links.

For the most part, most parts of the country have fiber optic cable somewhere nearby. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, there was a lot of fiber put in the ground linking cities, towns and just about everywhere in between. Fiber cables follow railroad lines, highways, pipelines, etc.
You'd really have to try hard to get away from some communications infrastructure in the US. It can be done. Cellular coverage is not a good example, as the carriers only build out their systems where there is enough usage to cover costs. With a cellular radio site costing anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, it takes a lot of customers to make that pay back. Costs for the equipment has dropped, but radio site leases are expensive if the cellular carrier does not have it's own facilities.
 

Your_account

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Satellite based internet is available, often they use a dial up line for your outgoing traffic and the satellite TV system for the incoming traffic. Not perfect, but it does allow useable bandwidth just about anywhere.
How is the price? Here are 2way Systems from Astra available and the price is just ok.
For the most part, most parts of the country have fiber optic cable somewhere nearby.
Here the Cable Company block every Fiber expansion. The Problem every private owned Cable Infrastructure who run truth public space get immediately into the state owned Fon company property. So everyone get screwed up who want build some Fiber/ Phone lines.

so the state want money for everything.
 

Project25_MASTR

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Here is the U.S., land line telephone is still pretty popular. The cable plants are well built out in most rural areas, so getting a telephone line is pretty easy.

Costs are low, $30-$50/month. Many services are no charge for use, free long distance in the U.S. low rates everywhere else. International calls are a few cents per minute.



DSL over the phone lines is pretty common. Speeds are limited and distance from the phone company's equipment is limited. It is not available everywhere.



Cable TV systems can carry phone and internet traffic, but their networks are not built out as far as the telephone companies are.



Satellite based internet is available, often they use a dial up line for your outgoing traffic and the satellite TV system for the incoming traffic. Not perfect, but it does allow useable bandwidth just about anywhere.







Many, many years ago there were parts of the country that were served by microwave to a local service point. Parts of the western US still have similar setups, although fiber optic cable is taking over.

Not that long ago there were parts of the very rural western US that had radio links for phone service. Used to require calling an operator, asking for the remote point, and the radio connection would be set up. Not cellular, but actual point to point radio links.



For the most part, most parts of the country have fiber optic cable somewhere nearby. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, there was a lot of fiber put in the ground linking cities, towns and just about everywhere in between. Fiber cables follow railroad lines, highways, pipelines, etc.

You'd really have to try hard to get away from some communications infrastructure in the US. It can be done. Cellular coverage is not a good example, as the carriers only build out their systems where there is enough usage to cover costs. With a cellular radio site costing anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, it takes a lot of customers to make that pay back. Costs for the equipment has dropped, but radio site leases are expensive if the cellular carrier does not have it's own facilities.



I actually help manage an WISP. Fiber isn't around my customers or I have better business pricing when compared to the traditional ISPs. Depending on where you are in the country last mile dsl, satellite (like HughesNet or Verizon VSAT), or microwave may be your only options.

Working in the Permian Basin, a lot of people above me wouldn't understand why connectivity was such an issue for the company (well the higher ups who worked out of Houston or California). Only way I could even get it through their heads how BYOC (bring your own connection) the Permian was took me flying them to midland (middle of nowhere as far as they were concerned), putting them in a pickup for 4 hours and then watching the look on their face when cellular dropped 1/2 mile off the pavement and then driving them 25 miles deeper to the active rigs.


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paulears

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The current state of play in the UK is that nobody bothers very much if you have a scanner any more because Police, Fire, Ambulance and the really interesting stuff is on a TETRA system called Airwave - due for replacement in just a few years now, being replaced by a transition nationally to a cellular system, piggybacked on one of the big National cellphone companies and supported by Motorola. It means that nobody can listen in to these services. The result was a loosening of the old rules, and if you want to listen to anything else, including digital business radio, that's fine if you have the equipment. FM radios are still by far the most common, and in all the bigger cities, frequency allocation is pretty full. Ham band allocations a little different to the US - 144-146, 430-440 and no 220MHz allocation. Pretty unused. CN exists and is also unused. We have a licence exempt short range walkie talkie band PMR446 which is in the very bottom portion of 446MHz. There is still a bit of legacy business radio in the 70MHz band, but not very popular. The removal of emergency services too lots of the fun away of course - just how it is here. We don't have guns, we do have free health care (even to visiting US citizens) and our murder rate is lower. We do have drugs, we do have gangs now (sadly) and we do have rap music - I think the idiots watched US movies and TV and copied what they saw - hence why we now have idiots who even try to talk with a US accent, thinking you have to do this to rap. We have idiot politicians too, so again, we seem similar. This isn't new. In the 70s, we watched convoy and started to buy CBs (illegally) and hearing a British accent saying "good buddy" made many people fall about laughing. We seem to try to copy you Americans, but generally do it very, very badly - so bad that I think a US citizen listening in to CB would wet their pants (That's UK pants not US pants).

In the 70s, MI6 didn't officially exist, lots of Government sites were missing from maps, and walking down a road with a radio would get you arrested. Things have changed very quickly.
 
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