Personal Public Safety Radios...

[Thorny41587]

I was just wondering... some people have actual TXing radios programmed to PS freq's. if a cop were to pull you over and you had that radio is there anything they could do for you have that?

 

[codyshell]

I have a public safety radio, but I'm a firefighter. And I don't have the town PDs or the city PDs talkgroups in it, so. But, as far as I understand, they can (and most likely will) confiscate it.

cody

 

[cristisphoto]

I wouldn't worry about it...

Just say it a reciever ONLY
As long you it not a transciever then you SHOULD
I repeat SHOULD be ok

Just throw it under the seat if you think your gonna be stopped or cover it with a coat or something...
Besides I think most patrols could care less..
What they want are ya know DOPE,fugivtives, Wanted vehicles .persons etc.
Hence I wouldn'r worry to much bout it...

Warm regrads,
Crista

 

[hotdjdave]

I was just wondering... some people have actual TXing radios programmed to PS freq's. if a cop were to pull you over and you had that radio is there anything they could do for you have that?

It really depends on where you live. But I would probably be safe by saying that, baring any special permits you might have or being a volunteer or reserve officer/firefighter/SAR/etc., you would probably be in some violation of law if you had a radio with frequencies of the agency that pulled you over or even adjacent agencies.

With that said, if the radio was off, who was to say it is not just a work radio...yeah, that's what it is, a work radio!

I know that where I live, in Los Angeles, both the LAPD and LASO have volunteer SAR units that have their own communications tuned to department frequencies. In fact, the SAR units many times help out the agencies for emergency or back communications. Some examples of these agencies are the CEMP, who work with the LAPD; and the LACDCS, who work with the LASO.

 

[Colin9690]

I would either say it's for receive only, or you can say you plan on using it for ham use. It wouldn't matter anyways, they can't tell what freq it's programmed to just by looking at it. Just make sure you turn the volume down!

They probably won't even ask about it, they can care less.

 

[BigLebowski]

Unless you live in one of the states that has a law against having a mobile radio in your vehicle (unless you are a ham, such as Kentucky and Minnesota), there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. The point at which you start to violate the law is when either you key the radio up and transmit, or live in a state where mobile scanners/radios are illegal as I said above.

 

[nexus]

ATF you left out Florida... Florida is VERY anal about those things...

Like the others said, it depends on your area. If I didn't have a legitimate reason for having the PD's transmit freq. what I usually did was program the radio to transmit on a ham freq like 144.0000 mhz but the receive freq would be their dispatch channel or something. That way if they do get curious and discover it could receive it, they couldn't say I was transmitting, because when they key up nothing would happen.

I've done this on both amateur radios and commercial (motorola) radios where I had public safety freqs programmed in.

 

[Mstrfxit12]

ATF you left out Florida... Florida is VERY anal about those things...

Like the others said, it depends on your area. If I didn't have a legitimate reason for having the PD's transmit freq. what I usually did was program the radio to transmit on a ham freq like 144.0000 mhz but the receive freq would be their dispatch channel or something. That way if they do get curious and discover it could receive it, they couldn't say I was transmitting, because when they key up nothing would happen.

I've done this on both amateur radios and commercial (motorola) radios where I had public safety freqs programmed in.

Why not make just them receive only personalities so you get nothing but an error/unprogrammed tone on keyup?

 

[nexus]

Why not make just them receive only personalities so you get nothing but an error/unprogrammed tone on keyup?

That is not a feature in amateur radios. And last time I checked, the P100 doesn't do that either. But I'm not the person with the issue. I was just suggesting what I do in those cases. (i.e. if you don't have authoriztion to transmit, don't bother entering the freq in the transmit side of the channel/memory)

 

[traumacop]

Amen, why would you want the transmit programmed.

I would bet they would find something to jack you up on if they had a recent case like the Walmart Employee who was believed to be cause interference in VA.

How would you explain the radio setup if it would get stolen and your area suddenly gets hit with a bunch of unwanted transmissions?

 

[W2SJW]

(In regards to the link above)

[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Unlicensed users of radio frequencies can jam signals between police, fire and rescue personnel. Just listening on the frequency can cause static or squelch the signals.

[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Licensed amateur radio operators can dial into any frequency under emergency situations and must be licensed. They are unlike people who own a regular scanner which only broadcasts police, fire and rescue calls."[/FONT][/FONT]


[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Somebody want to contact the author of this news report and give him a clue?!?
[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[W4KRR]

A guy in Florida a few years ago was caught with a Motorola radio programmed with several local public safety trunked systems in it. He wound up doing prison time for it.

 

[traumacop]

(In regards to the link above)

[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Unlicensed users of radio frequencies can jam signals between police, fire and rescue personnel. Just listening on the frequency can cause static or squelch the signals.

[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Licensed amateur radio operators can dial into any frequency under emergency situations and must be licensed. They are unlike people who own a regular scanner which only broadcasts police, fire and rescue calls."[/FONT][/FONT]


[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Somebody want to contact the author of this news report and give him a clue?!?
[/FONT][/FONT]

I saw that in the article, and thought the same.

Oh well, we all get the point.

 

[BigLebowski]

Trunking radios are a whole different topic because most of them require the radio to affiliate with the sytem for them to function properly. In a case such as that, the system admin can simply inhibit the radio.

Monitoring a public safety trunked system with a commercial portable like an MTS2000 or XTS3000 is a bad idea, both because it will affiliate with the system, and because the radio eventually WILL get inhibited. There are ways to inhibit the transmit via programming on SOME radios, but it takes in-depth knowledge to pull it off correctly.

Personally, if I had a need to monitor a local trunked system, I would replace the PA in a commercial portable with a known bad part that couldn't transmit anything at all.. mostly because I dislike scanners.

 

[Tophtoh]

Why I wanted to get one is beccause I am going to school to be an EMT. And I like to listen to EMS when I am out. And I feel stupid carrying around a scanner. If it is a normal radio no one knows the diff. If I don't TX, why does it matter?

 

[BigLebowski]

It doesn't, provided that you aren't transmitting. Is it a trunked system or conventional?

 

[Mstrfxit12]

Why I wanted to get one is beccause I am going to school to be an EMT. And I like to listen to EMS when I am out. And I feel stupid carrying around a scanner. If it is a normal radio no one knows the diff. If I don't TX, why does it matter?

As said just above it doesn't but as I said before just don't enable transmit at all. You may be well meaning and not intend to transmit but what if one of your friends get it and decide to play breaker, breaker or worse you throw it in the car an inadvertently manage to key the mike. It would really suck to tie up someones channel and potentially put life in harms way just because you had something programmed for xmit you weren't authorized to have anyway. Most any Motorola radio I have ever programmed has the ability to disable transmit on any personality. You were concerned about the look of a scanner, so if you go out and buy a radio typically used in PS, Jedi series, saber, xts, what I have suggested won't be a problem and you'll definatley look wacktastic... Chris

 

[landonjensen]

if you transmited on a ps channel, could they be able to locate the radio?

 

[W4KRR]

if you transmited on a ps channel, could they be able to locate the radio?

If it was on a trunked system, they wouldn't have to locate you, they can disable the radio remotely. And if you were caught, see my reply (#12) above. Jail.

 

[mike_webb59]

Get a handheld scanner. Put the scanner in a tactical radio holder like this one
http://www.thefirestore.com/store/product.cfm/pid_88_nylon_radio_holder_cordura_nylon_web_design/
and who would know the difference.