Land Pirates ????

[fourwd1]

Last night around 7:30 PM I caught some sort of net check-in on 157.15 - Marine CH 23A.

These were base and mobile units giving locations including Owings Mills, Crownsville, Pikesville, Reisterstown, Catonsville, Ferndale, Severna Park, Riva, with "Radio" as part of the name (ie, Riva Radio), and using ID's such as 1 Tango, 1 India, 1 Yankee.

Not all the locations responded, and all were fairly weak, including the Catonsville mobile, which is my area.

What's this all about ?????????????????????????

 

[SCPD]

Sounds like a security company went on the cheap and thought the marine radios would be a better choice for their business. Or maybe a neighborhood watch??

Marine radios seem to be the choice for alot of "pirates". They tend to be cheaper and are less crowded than FRS or GMRS radios now. In my area, I heard what sounded like a security company using a Marine channel recently. My brother-in-law, along with his buddies, tend to use them on their hunting trips. I've tried to explain to him that they could interfere with legitimate users. His rationale is, "There are no boats in the area where we hunt", and "No one else can listen to us", and the list of reasons goes on. Anyway.... I believe that as long as the equipment becomes less expensive and readily available there will be more pirating of the allocated frequencies.

 

[rescue161]

A Walmart in South Carolina was using marine radios. They were not hard to miss as they were white...lol

 

[DaveH]

These illegitimate users are in for some walloping penalties if they get caught. It's hard to believe that a fixed business operation would think to get away with something like this.

The regulations is the U.S. and Canada are no doubt somewhat different but I believe in order to operate a marine radio from land, even the shore, would require a special licence, which would not be granted to just anybody.

Dave

 

[fourwd1]

I know all about the illegallity of it, they're obviously bootleg, hence the thread title about Pirates.

My post is to see if anyone else local heard or can ID them.

Not a business, sounded more like a neighborhood watch type thing, except it covers 2 counties. Amateurs (not hams) trying to sound "official" or something.

 

[fourwd1]

Aw come on now, somebody in the Baltimore area must know something about this ????????????????????

 

[SCPD]

I believe in freedom. Freedom for alot of things, especially purchasing consumer goods. When I see people having a total disregard for rules and regulations it kind of makes you want to see restrictions placed on certain things. Pirating of marine frequencies, GMRS frequencies, Ham frequencies, etc. makes me want to support restrictions on these items.

I have to deal with foul mouth truck drivers on 10 meters because they bought a "big radio" at the truck stop with 50 watts so they can talk to each other 2 miles away, that cool sounding echo so they can't understand each other, and "all dem channels thar driver". $400+ for a "CB" radio? Puhleeeease! And the majority of the time they use channel 19 anyway. I wish the Customs Service and FCC could put the squeeze on the "ten meter" radios being imported into this country. Usually, 1Kw of C.W. tone makes 'em run.

If the FCC won't police up the illegal users in all areas of the spectrum then why should I even worry about getting/re-newing my license? Hell, I could just pirate the local Sheriffs channel and use it for my own personal use.

 

[Mark]

Lets not get crazy! Restricting radios for Marine etc is like banning guns.It won't work but I agree the FCC should do a better job of nailing Pirates who abuse set assigned radio bands.
You would think that given the current state of homeland security enforcement would be strict but they would rather frisk 80 year old ladies at the airport.
Feds will probably ban scanners before enforcing illegal radio usage.
Wait till Kerry gets elected! I shudder at what could be up ahead.

Mark

 

[TinEar]

Mark, there are lots of police officers that wish scanners were banned. I heard a discussion on York County (155.625) a couple of nights ago when an officer was dispatched for road racing. They were gone when he got there and he mumbled and grumbled about the no good people that listen on scanners for when the police are coming. I'm not sure how he knew they were using a scanner. Maybe he just assumed it since that seems to be common wisdom since the movie The Fast & The Furious made the rounds. He was extremely angry about it too. There was an article on the front page of the Washinton Post today about the identical situation.

I'm not sure scanners will ever be banned but I think we'll see more and more encryption in years to come for that very reason. That's another argument that has reasonable points on both sides. Personally, I think the right of citizens to monitor what public employees are doing outweighs any other argument. I'm not even persuaded into agreeing that vice/narcotics should be encrypted. I know that's not a popular opinion. But why is busting a minor drug dealer or a prostitution ring more important than hearing that officers are responding to an assault or rape or even murder on the other channels? I think encryption should be reserved for the most serious of offences like terrorism or perhaps a child abduction - only the most egregious crimes.

 

[Mark]

Got to agree with you 100% on that post Tin.
Police are getting around now anyhow without encrytion sytems.
For example Elkton PD here in Cecil County have NEXTEL phones on the payroll for their secure coms and nearby Delaware State Police (DSP) are heavy into laptop coms.
Listening to DSP lately the voice coms 800 system are far and few between as officers in normal patrol rely heavily on those laptops.
Only in emergencies or when laptops are down do you hear them come alive.
Big Brother is getting the upperhand now and soon we will be monitoring only civilian and routine local govt traffic soon.

I personally wouldn't invest too much money into new advanced scanners anymore.

Mark
Northeast Maryland

 

[N_Jay]

Got to agree with you 100% on that post Tin.
Police are getting around now anyhow without encrytion sytems.
For example Elkton PD here in Cecil County have NEXTEL phones on the payroll for their secure coms and nearby Delaware State Police (DSP) are heavy into laptop coms.
Listening to DSP lately the voice coms 800 system are far and few between as officers in normal patrol rely heavily on those laptops.
Only in emergencies or when laptops are down do you hear them come alive.
Big Brother is getting the upperhand now and soon we will be monitoring only civilian and routine local govt traffic soon.

I personally wouldn't invest too much money into new advanced scanners anymore.

Mark
Northeast Maryland

On the MDT or Mobile Computing side it's called Silent Dispatch, and it is getting popular for lots of reasons. (Not just to piss off scanner listeners.)

 

[TinEar]

Mark, since you're up in Cecil County, would you confirm something for me? I've been copying 155.79 as the Elkton primary police channel but it's not listed that way in the database. What's the real story? If that isn't primary, what is the use of that freq? Thanks for any info you've got.

 

[Mark]

Elkton PD uses that freq 155.790 as their primary dispatch.Thats how I have it labeled also on my scanner.
The other 2 freqs seem to be PD talk around channels.

I think you are correct as database is mislabeled.

Mark

 

[TinEar]

Appreciate that Mark. Thanks very much.

 

[Dispatcher308]

Hey Folks I do not know if this maybe apart of what you are listening to but the Coast Guard has Different Flotilla's thru out the area they are not all near the Water however they may do Radio Check's or Net's Just an Idea

 

[fourwd1]

Hey Folks I do not know if this maybe apart of what you are listening to but the Coast Guard has Different Flotilla's thru out the area they are not all near the Water however they may do Radio Check's or Net's Just an Idea

At last a response that is actually relevant to this thread !

If this was CG activity I think they'd have ID as CG in some way.
Thanks for the input.

 

[HoDo]

Where do you buy these Marine radios? Are they handheld? What company makes them, Motorola? How far of a distance do they work on? Just curious, I am a newbie sorta...

 

[dc2wheel]

Where do you buy these Marine radios? Are they handheld? What company makes them, Motorola? How far of a distance do they work on? Just curious, I am a newbie sorta...

They're available from boating supply stores among other places, and generally are manufactured by most public safety radio makers. They come in base and handheld varieties just like public safety radios & range varies depending on power output. Info here:

http://www.boatus.com/onlinecourse/documents/COMMUNICATION.html#VHF

and for some reason they're usually white [never figured out why...]
-dc2wheel

 

[hill]

These transmissions weren't land pirates operating on VHF-FM Marine Band Channels, but members of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary operating a Training net. These are required by the CG. These Radio Facilities are used to assist the CG to back there COMMS.
Hope this helps out.

 

[fourwd1]

These transmissions weren't land pirates operating on VHF-FM Marine Band Channels, but members of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary operating a Training net. These are required by the CG. These Radio Facilities are used to assist the CG to back there COMMS.
Hope this helps out.

OK, this is good info. But why didn't they ID as CG in any way? And would they normally conduct this exercise way inland, over a 2 county area ?

Thanks.