MDT Data frequencies?
- Thread starter ob123
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elk2370bruce
Member
Any towns that have MDT's have them tied ito their own local system. You're not gonna just dial them up on the scanner and play them on your TV or laptop. If you gotta ask how, you're not gonna do it. Legality is should be of great concern to you as well.
elk2370bruce said:
"Legality is should be of great concern to you as well"
What do you mean by this...... I am wondering if I should just forget the whole thing? I was just wanted to know a little about them..... w/e
Thanks
robbinsj2
Member
ob123 said:
Yes, forget about monitoring them at least (but research them to your heart's content). Some towns maintain their own systems -- South Brunswick does for themselves and leases access to some nearby towns -- but I see many towns first go live with a commercially-provided system or eventually switch from their own to one. I believe Verizon is a big provider of this service.
I've read that intercepting these communications is illegal, though I can't cite the statute. I've also read that there is a mandate to encrypt the transmission of NCIC and/or other database data, which leads to encryption of the full MDT system. So aside from being illegal, it also isn't practical to monitor them.
Jim
n4voxgill
Silent Key
Bill Cheek who was one of the early pioneers of scanning died while under charges in federal court of decoding MDT in violation of federal law. He has been mentioned on this site often and you can google him.
902
Member
Some companies will exert tremendous political pressure for an agency to make an example out of someone who catches a flaw in their systems - in Cheek's case, discovering that a very expensive system (which is now obsolete) was engineered without encryption. That's a very big oops in the manufacturing community. Most of these systems have been replaced by the next generation of equipment that either runs hardware or software encryption end-to-end. A while back there was talk in the industry that the legacy systems were retrofitted with encryption making it officially illegal to monitor, as per the ECPA. That also made these systems pointless to attempt to decode. As Gill points out, despite being a very intelligent and talented guy, Cheek's last days were made miserable.n4voxgill said:
Many other data systems that don't ride on internal systems now use aircards for 2.5 or 3G wireless. Coming to a police car or firetruck near you very soon will be the 'national' 700 MHz broadband 'interoperability' network. It will be all IP based (EV-DO? WiMAX? Flomax? :lol: ) and effectively unmonitorable.
res5cue
Member
I would have to say just about every agency that i know who uses MDTs is now using Aircards for them. I am not 100% sure but I think even NJSP is using Aircards. IF you look at the patrol car the antenna will be a White Circle on the back of the roof. Not everyone does though. Warren County finally got away from 4800 baud radio mdt's and now use aircards.. and I believe it IS illegal to monitor most MDTs due to them being in Cellular.
ctrabs74
Member
Not to belabor the issue, but what reason would there be to post the MDT freqs in the first place, considering there's no way to monitor anything via a scanner? Is it just for reference or are there other reasons?
902
Member
I do see potential value - say you wanted to monitor one certain town but your radio locks up on the channel because of "noise." Is that noise someone's MDT system that you can't fix and would have to use a receiver with PL, or is that something else that you can try to fix, like RFI? If it were in the database, someone has already isolated it and it would save time for the next person who heard it. For that reason alone, that would be helpful.ctrabs74 said:
In addition to being illegal for confidentiality of police information, It's illegal so we can't read officer Instant Messages (IM) back and forth. Some of them would get fired or sued. Ask a lawyer you trust. Supervisors I know constantly tell road cops to knock it off cause it all can be supoenaed into open court. Radio, audio, video & MDT traffic.
BTW, some departments have the capability to transmit car video and audio back to Headquarters live and Belmar cops have started wearing VidMic, a clip on mic that doubles as a body video/audio camera.
BTW, some departments have the capability to transmit car video and audio back to Headquarters live and Belmar cops have started wearing VidMic, a clip on mic that doubles as a body video/audio camera.
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