The Lojack transmitter is activated when a vehicle has been stolen.you pick up lojack with close call
And there are lots of base stations transmitting every 64 seconds. The base station turn off and turn on the protected assets as well as control their sending rate when turned on.Possible, or you are near the base transmitter site.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) - LoJack
LoJack - Signal Identification Wiki
Is my LoJack System always “on”?
if i recall correctly a lojack device is activated when the vehicle has been entered into LEADS.
How widely used is LoJack these days? I would have guessed the ubiquity of GPS and cellular/wireless networks long rendered LoJack obsolete.
I’ve always scanned LoJack frequency in my normal scan list and in 15 years, I’ve found 2 stolen items... a boat and one of those BobCat earth movers.
Turned on my scanner both times and it stopped on LoJack with the tell-tale squawk. So decided to investigate. Here’s how I tracked them down with a Uniden 396T, then 396XT
Put on a low gain UHF (yes UHF) with squelch set to 0 and went driving around with the attenuator turned off. When the signal got full strength, turned on the attenuator till the signal went full strength. Removed the antenna and turned off the attenuator till the signal got close or full strength. Attenuator turned back on went walking around until the signal went to close to full scale. Now I’m in a construction site building a few homes. Now I put a 50 ohm SMA terminator on the antenna port with a 1/32” hole drilled through the side metal shell. This acts like a beam antenna where the small hole is. Using my body as a RF shield and the 1/32” hole pointed away from my body, I went around all the heavy trucks and machinery and got a strong hit on a BobCat. Put on another 50 Ohm terminator without any hole and there was no question the BobCat was emitting the LoJack signal.
Called my local PD and they showed up, quite skeptical honestly. They ran the serial number and it came up stolen from another state 3 weeks earlier. Asked how I got a LoJack receiver, I showed them my simple scanner and antennas used to hunt it down. Long story short, they staked out the BobCat and arrested the owner of the construction company and the BobCat was returned to its owner. Same thing happened to a docked boat I got a hit on 7ish years later.
As far as I know, no PD within 100’s of miles has a LoJack receiver in their squad car.
I’ve always scanned LoJack frequency in my normal scan list and in 15 years, I’ve found 2 stolen items... a boat and one of those BobCat earth movers.
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That's normal for routine, daily operation (Not tracking anything. I assume it's polling.Thanks for any help.
Thank you for that information and also for the link. I was just about to start looking on YouTube to see if there were any examples. I don't guess we can actually decode the signal but I'm guessing it will make a different sound when it is receiving a signal from a stolen or tripped vehicle. Thanks again for the help full information!That's normal for routine, daily operation (Not tracking anything. I assume it's polling.
I forget what it does when tracking something, but you'll hear the difference.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-Rm7uqKAE
*Google is your friend.
Decoding the signal will only yield an unusable multi-digit reference code.I don't guess we can actually decode the signal
You are hearing one or more of the towers.I'm just put in the 173.075 frequency on my SDS200 and I get a squawk about every 10 seconds or so.