Search strategies for the weird, the strange, the anomalous, the outlaws?

KB2GOM

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Even though I've been using scanners successfully for a few years as part of the Commuter Assistance Network -- Commuter Assistance Net -- I am pretty much an outright newbie at taking advantage of the sophisticated capabilities of today's scanners.

If you were interested in hunting for new frequencies (perhaps folks using frequencies in places they weren't supposed to be, the weird, the strange, the outlaws, etc., as opposed to simply finding new users or talk groups for existing systems), what strategies would you use and where would you look?

And since I brought it up, what have you found that is curious, unusual, or otherwise worthy of note?
 

nd5y

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what strategies would you use and where would you look?
Search the frequency ranges used by the most readily available (mainly to consumers) and commonly used 2-way radios.
136-174 MHz
400-512 MHz

By search I mean a upper/lower frequency limit search with a scanner.
If you use a SDR you can search large parts of spectrum at once.

Scan the FRS/GMRS, MURS, itinerant and CCR channels. Some of the frequencies in the CCR wiki article could be used by legitimate licensees depending on where you are. There is probably no way to tell if anything on the itinerant business channels is legitimate because business users rarely if ever ID as required by FCC rules.

Learn which band segments are used by aviation, marine, private land mobile radio, government land mobile radio and the band plans and channel spacing. That will allow you to spot sore thumbs sticking out. Depending on where you are UHF-T band could be used for PLMR or there could be TV stations that would make the band nearly useless for radio.

Learn and remember what is active in your area. That can be hard for some people and might not be practical in a large metro area with thousands of legitimate users and frequencies.

Learn what various digtial voice and data modes sound like on a FM receiver.

And since I brought it up, what have you found that is curious, unusual, or otherwise worthy of note?
Too many things to list here.
 
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nd5y

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sonm10

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Quite a broad question...

Have a look at this link Common Itinerant and Business - The RadioReference Wiki there are some radio lists to consider.

Things to be aware of...
Users can appear anywhere, licensed or unlicenced operation. They can appear where you might not expect for the sake of anonymity.
There is a thread here about a military group that uses UHF business frequencies for training purposes (theory). Also, not uncommon for LEO.

Keep in mind out of banders. CB types have been known to operate out of band. Might try scanning around slightly below and slightly above to CB band. Also, not uncommon on HF. Chinese radios have a problem of wide open frequency ranges. Anyone can pick a frequency and operate illegally.

How far is Troy from the Canadian border? Also keep in mind, Canada uses slight different frequency ranges.

Certain areas are saturated with users to the point of having to use unusual frequency ranges. Certain parts of the east coast (someone else can correct me on actually locations) use the T-band, 470-512.
Old paging frequencies are also be utilized also.

Military has quite a large range. I will let someone else comment on the exact ranges.

Just be aware of common users and where they may operate. Private businesses more than likely will be 150-160, 450-470. Be mindful of where utilities, DPW, schools, railroads, aviation, federal, public safety users, etc. typically operate.

You are in the north-east, so users show up in weird places because of the saturated market. 2 counties over may be different than the county you reside in. Next state over may be even more different.
 

MiCon

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And since I brought it up, what have you found that is curious, unusual, or otherwise worthy of note?
I have no idea what kind of weird stuff you'll find today, but back in the 60's & 70's the military was using low band freqs that were also being used by the fast food restaurants. Occasionally you would hear Army helo's conducting war games on your local McDonalds drive thru frequency. The military still uses these low band freqs, but the FF industry has moved on to higher frequencies.
 

nd5y

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How about just a couple?
Years ago there was some base station or repeater on 851.5875 DCS 073 that made one telephone ring tone (440 Hz + 480 Hz) for about 2 seconds. No voice, data, CW ID or anything else. It did that every 15 minutes for a year or so then disappeared. There was nothing licensed on that frequency anywhere near here.

Once I heard some guys on an air band frequency on AM, I think 123.45 but don't remember. They had fading and picket fencing consistent with ground level mobile stations at highway speed. They were passing through town on the freeway. I don't know if they had mobile or hand held radios.
 
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nd5y

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Do you have any suggestions for tuning steps for initial searches in those ranges?
All of that is covered in the links in the wiki article in post #3.

Actual assigned channels vary in the 136-174 range.
136-137 12.5. Some AM aircraft could be 8.33
137-138 satellite band varies
138-150.775 (minus 2m ham band and 149.9-150.05 satellite band) should all be 12.5 kHz.
150.775-162.025 varies with different services. The parts with 7.5 kHz spacing aren't equally spaced throughout the whole band. Marine band is 25 kHz.
162.05-173.2 federal 12.5
173.2-173.4 non-federal varies
173.4-174 federal 12.5

406.1-420 federal 12.5
450-451/455-456 broadcast auxiliary varies
the rest of 450-512 is mostly 12.5 with some 6.25 interstitial channels.

None of the above applies to unlicensed users on random frequencies they pulled out of their ___.
 
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KB2GOM

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All of that is covered in the links in the wiki article in post #3.

Actual assigned channels vary in the 136-174 range.
136-137 12.5. Some AM aircraft could be 8.33
137-138 satellite band varies
138-150.775 (minus 2m ham band and 149.9-150.05 satellite band) should all be 12.5 kHz.
150.775-162.025 varies with different services. The parts with 7.5 kHz spacing aren't equally spaced throughout the whole band. Marine band is 25 kHz.
162.05-173.2 federal 12.5
173.2-173.4 non-federal varies
173.4-174 federal 12.5

406.1-420 federal 12.5
450-451/455-456 broadcast auxiliary varies
the rest of 450-512 is mostly 12.5 with some 6.25 interstitial channels.

None of the above applies to unlicensed users on random frequencies they pulled out of their ___.
Both funny and helpful!
 

BinaryMode

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...taking advantage of the sophisticated capabilities of today's scanners.

What I found was that some people would use DMR or NXDN on an FRS/GMRS frequency. So it helps to have both upgrades of DMR and NXDN even though you may not want to hear specific DMR and NXDN traffic from some business or whatever.

What I do is program all of the FRS, GMRS, MURS and CCR (Cheap Chinese Radio) default frequencies as analog only in their separate independent systems in my scanner via Proscan and then duplicate those four systems and set to digital ONLY modulation. That way it helps differentiate what is what in the log and audio logs.

I run a program called FreeFileSync that automatically backs up all of the audio and history logs from two scanners once per hour to a USB drive. I used to also send the data to the cloud but I'm trying to get rid of Amazon S3 and go BunnyCDN instead.

Now when it comes to listening to things I pull out the ABSOLUTE bestist little program ever called Everything.exe from Voidtools and I can use very specific search patterns and regex (regular expression) to search the whole swath of audio recordings via the type of group, system and time & date, etc.

So now if I want to hear nothing but MURS channel 1 digital only hits during such and such date range I can pull it all from my logs via Everything.exe. A whole years or more worth in fact.

It is my hope that when AI gets better and I can use the scanner audio recordings with Ollama. I'll then be able to decode the words in the audio streams so NOW I can say, "search for any audio clip mentioning the word "10-7" or "code black,"" etc. I'm like my own little NSA. :D

And since I brought it up, what have you found that is curious, unusual, or otherwise worthy of note?

A street construction crew (probably city contracted) using CB of all things. Some of the audio was in Spanish. Which brings me to this as it pertains to AI: Hopefully one day AI can interpret languages, too.
 

KB2GOM

Active Member
Joined
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Messages
698
Location
Rensselaer County New York
What I found was that some people would use DMR or NXDN on an FRS/GMRS frequency. So it helps to have both upgrades of DMR and NXDN even though you may not want to hear specific DMR and NXDN traffic from some business or whatever.

What I do is program all of the FRS, GMRS, MURS and CCR (Cheap Chinese Radio) default frequencies as analog only in their separate independent systems in my scanner via Proscan and then duplicate those four systems and set to digital ONLY modulation. That way it helps differentiate what is what in the log and audio logs.

I run a program called FreeFileSync that automatically backs up all of the audio and history logs from two scanners once per hour to a USB drive. I used to also send the data to the cloud but I'm trying to get rid of Amazon S3 and go BunnyCDN instead.

Now when it comes to listening to things I pull out the ABSOLUTE bestist little program ever called Everything.exe from Voidtools and I can use very specific search patterns and regex (regular expression) to search the whole swath of audio recordings via the type of group, system and time & date, etc.

So now if I want to hear nothing but MURS channel 1 digital only hits during such and such date range I can pull it all from my logs via Everything.exe. A whole years or more worth in fact.

It is my hope that when AI gets better and I can use the scanner audio recordings with Ollama. I'll then be able to decode the words in the audio streams so NOW I can say, "search for any audio clip mentioning the word "10-7" or "code black,"" etc. I'm like my own little NSA. :D



A street construction crew (probably city contracted) using CB of all things. Some of the audio was in Spanish. Which brings me to this as it pertains to AI: Hopefully one day AI can interpret languages, too.
Wow, that is very informative and interesting. Thanks!
 
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