LoJack Hit?

[ecps92]

Not sure where they would be chasing a car equipt with Lo/Jack, just follow the signal. Are you sure the stolen car (in the chase) was Lo/Jack equipt ?

I regularly use to hear the LJ and have sucessfully tracked a few with just a WX Cube and/or Scanner. 3-4 Blocks (Suburbs) would be a good distance.

I have 173.0750 programmed into my 996XT but still cannot pick up any lo-jack signals from the vehicles. The police were chasing a car that went north past my house, then the chase went east about 3 blocks from my house and finally south about 1/2 block from my house and I did not pick up the signal at all. I have an Antenna craft ST4 about 30 feet in the air. I can hear the towers transmitting a data burst every minute or so but that is all I hear. I hear the police talking about the bars they getting and the direction the signal is coming from but no lojack. I live in the LA area so we do have an abundance of stolen cars on a daily basis.
Is there something I'm missing? A setting in the radio perhaps?
Thanks.

 

[hd625b]

The police were talking about how may bars and the direction the signal was coming from. Once the helicopter found the car and directed the ground units the chase was on.
I thought there might be a setting in the radio that I missed.

 

[ScannerSK]

We may now have a program to decode LoJack signals. Refer to the following thread for details:

http://forums.radioreference.com/general-scanning-discussion/235059-how-decode-lojack.html

Shawn

 

[ScannerSK]

173.075 LoJack Audio Examples?

If anyone has recordings of LoJack they are willing to share I would be interested in listening to them. Of particular interest are any examples of LoJack signals that are transmitting continuously every few seconds.

Thanks,

Shawn

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

That 10 second polling "feature" kind of amazes me. I recall LoJack bring sensitive to where and what vehicles are equipped. This means if a theft is arranged for a high value vehicle, the thief can be aware of the Lojack and make plans to disable it,

If anyone has recordings of LoJack they are willing to share I would be interested in listening to them. Of particular interest are any examples of LoJack signals that are transmitting continuously every few seconds.

Thanks,

Shawn

 

[ScannerSK]

That 10 second polling "feature" kind of amazes me. I recall LoJack bring sensitive to where and what vehicles are equipped. This means if a theft is arranged for a high value vehicle, the thief can be aware of the Lojack and make plans to disable it,

The 10 second pulses do not begin to be transmitted until the LoJack unit in the vehicle has been activated as stolen. The LoJack receiver itself has no way of determining ahead of time which vehicles are equipped with LoJack or not.

I read one story online of a vehicle theft in which the thief was certain there was a LoJack installed however never was able to find it and disable it before the police arrived.

Unfortunately, it appears there are a lot of attempts to defeat LoJack by thieves in the way of radio jammers. Notice in LoJack Patent 4908629 it clearly states, "The sum of the four inputs [antennas] generates the signal from which the user [tracking device] is able to determine the direction of either a vehicle transponder T being tracked or any device that may be jamming the vehicle/transponder ."

According to this statement, the police will be directed to the location of both stolen vehicles and jamming devices. This would mean the LoJack jammers being sold online are a scam to make money off thieves. The thief thinking his LoJack jammer is working will be led right into the hands of the police.

Shawn

 

[ScannerSK]

That 10 second polling "feature" kind of amazes me. I recall LoJack bring sensitive to where and what vehicles are equipped. This means if a theft is arranged for a high value vehicle, the thief can be aware of the Lojack and make plans to disable it,

Here is the video of someone that knew LoJack was installed and was unable to defeat it and was subsequently arrested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsU3tT43vuc

Shawn

 

[ScannerSK]

I have 173.0750 programmed into my 996XT but still cannot pick up any lo-jack signals from the vehicles. The police were chasing a car that went north past my house, then the chase went east about 3 blocks from my house and finally south about 1/2 block from my house and I did not pick up the signal at all. I have an Antenna craft ST4 about 30 feet in the air. I can hear the towers transmitting a data burst every minute or so but that is all I hear. I hear the police talking about the bars they getting and the direction the signal is coming from but no lojack. I live in the LA area so we do have an abundance of stolen cars on a daily basis.
Is there something I'm missing? A setting in the radio perhaps?
Thanks.

I have found at times in large cities that using attenuation on the channel or a rubber duck antenna often works best. I believe this is due to overload from the nearby television channel in the 174-180 MHz frequency range.

You could test this theory (using attenuation or a rubber duck antenna) to see if it improves your reception of the LoJack towers (broadcast once every 64 seconds).

The LoJack frequency is easily overloaded by the adjacent TV channel.

Shawn

 

[ScannerSK]

Unfortunately, it appears there are a lot of attempts to defeat LoJack by thieves in the way of radio jammers. Notice in LoJack Patent 4908629 it clearly states, "The sum of the four inputs [antennas] generates the signal from which the user [police officer] is able to determine the direction of either a vehicle transponder T being tracked or any device that may be jamming the vehicle/transponder ."

According to this statement, the police will be directed to the location of both stolen vehicles and jamming devices! This would mean the LoJack jammers being sold online are a scam to make money off thieves. The thief thinking his LoJack jammer is working will be led right into the hands of the police.

In addition, companies are making devices to notify detectives, police and others whenever a LoJack jammer is in use enabling tracking of the location of a jammer leading to the location of the thieves and stolen vehicles!

One such product is the following:

Product Name: J-ALERT

The J-ALERT is an RF signal analyzer that monitors Cellular Radio Frequencies, GPS and Lojack to determine if the target is actively jamming these signals. When the J-ALERT detects jamming in the cellular bands a corresponding LED will light to indicate the Received Signal Strength (RSSI) of the Jammer and which band is being jammed. When GPS L1 frequency and a cellular band or Lojack is being jammed a bar graph indication of jammer received signal strength (RSSI) from the Jammer is displayed enabling tracking. If both a cellular band and GPS L1 are being jammed simultaneously or if Lojack is being jammed a beep will sound every 3 sec. to alert the operator a jammer is in use. The J-ALERT also has a stereo jack on the back of the unit with both N/O and N/C contacts for triggering an external device on alerts.

Website for above item

Shawn