Some illegal transmissions going on

[Floridarailfanning]

Having a interest in sirens is fine, no harm done. But when he's playing with a transmitter and a peice of software that can send two tone paging then there's a strong chance it could blossom into trouble.

Sorry. I guess I don't see the humor in this.

I totally agree. Say what you want about it being on FRS or that he's using crap CCR's the potential for harmful interference whether intentional or not is very real.

I have nothing against people having unique interests or hobbies and nothing against this particular individual, but there's a right and a wrong way to do this type of "RF Experimentation" and he is clearly misguided thinking that his actions won't bother anyone or cause any issues.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Fire alarm companies are always looking for people [around here]. If he went to one and expressed a sincere interest in the work and took some computer science/IT coursework at a local community college, he'd have a decent career waiting for him.

 

[paulears]

I know he's operating illegally - but people have done stuff like this in more out of the way places for years and nobody died. Doing it in a popular busy band will annoy the hell out of people if he sends data. Some will be big, burly and have baseball bats. He's young and immature - we all were at some point. I have NEVER come across a radio ham who has not operated illegally at some point, but they always have loud voices slamming anybody who deflects from the absolute wording of licences. In the 80s, I was legally sending full bandwidth video signals to holland using 100W, a long yagi and it filled the ENTIRE 70cm band. Anybody bringing up the local repeater let my noise in for hours on end. I was legal and people hated me! A local reporter got it all wrong in the local press and I got a visit from our authorities who validated what I was doing as fully legal BUT very unfriendly. The suggested I went up to 1.3GHz, and one of them was also a ham and arranged for a supplier to lend me a transmitter and got me a write up in the RSGB magazine, and they sold a few to interested people. Nowadays, unless you jam emergency services, nobody is interested in the short range bands. He is learning useful stuff, while annoying everyone. He will get older.

 

[chrismol1]

Started watching his videos and the recommended videos were full of news stories of Siren Hacking! He's already got a tone siren that you'd have have installed in a patrol car, all the beeps boops, wail, yelp, much to the joy of his neighboors

Theres a video when one of the sirens apparantly didnt go off, so him and his friends decided to try I assume call the county for a failed test but nobody picked up the phone LOL He diagnosed it as a malfunction with the main control. He does sound like he could have a decent career as long as he keeps his nose clean

 

[amp1776]

This reads like the Radioactive Boy Scout. lol

 

[MTS2000des]

cocky, misdirected, bright young mind. Part of me wants to see something constructive come. But the attitude is what will get in his way. Another part of me is impressed that he's at least somewhat interested in radio. Most kids don't know/care about RF. From the time they popped out of their mother, they're handed an iPad/phone/whatever and the world is delivered via an app and they don't know/care how it got there or that RF itself is the vehicle that brings it to them.

at the end of the day, one can get away with something many many times. They only have to get caught once, and then it's all over. Life changing consequences for them (and others) could be in store. Mom and dad can end up burning up his college fund on lawyers and fines getting him off, but will a lesson be learned?

can't help but wonder if R8000s comments are true and a story of some errant, rogue activation of alert sirens or fire station alerting (in areas where old DTMF/2-tone is still used).

 

[mmckenna]

don't know/care how it got there or that RF itself is the vehicle that brings it to them.

Knock it off, dude, that's my retirement plan you are talking about. The less people know about RF, the more money I make.

 

[Floridarailfanning]

Knock it off, dude, that's my retirement plan you are talking about. The less people know about RF, the more money I make.

I think your safe for the time being!

 

[paulears]

Sometimes the blame also lies with the people not protecting their own systems properly. A young guy who works with me is interested in being a reverse hacker - working for companies exposing their vulnerabilities, so he needs to learn how to get in. I watched one day when with his phone, he got into a windfarm system and sent one of them off pointing in the wrong direction. Took nearly ten minutes before the controller noticed one had wandered off and retook control. Same sort of thing I guess - but here in the UK, our free channels are mega crowded and somebody sending data on them would get sorted quickly - sending it on somebody else's frequency in my book is pirating and into social, and of course illegal. I don't really see having a quiet chat on an unused channel as being remotely like taking control of somebody else's system on their frequency!

 

[AK9R]

I watched one day when with his phone, he got into a windfarm system and sent one of them off pointing in the wrong direction. Took nearly ten minutes before the controller noticed one had wandered off and retook control.

I wonder if the direction control is automatic or manual. In other words, did the system notice it was pointing the wrong direction and fix itself or did an operator get an alarm and have to issue a manual command.

Based on my experience with HVAC control systems, I'm going to assume that the system probably took care of itself. But, I'll also assume that any automatic direction control is a very slowly-reacting control loop so that the windmill doesn't try to keep up with short fluctuations in wind direction. In other words, the 10-minute delay you mentioned may have been the natural operation of a slow control loop.

In our controls, someone who gets into the system can issue an "adjust" command to an output which the system would correct itself based on the update rate of the PID loop or someone can issue an "operator override" which would require manual intervention to correct.

 

[R8000]

can't help but wonder if R8000s comments are true and a story of some errant, rogue activation of alert sirens or fire station alerting (in areas where old DTMF/2-tone is still used).

Indeed it is. Slide me a PM.

 

[davidgcet]

ok I could not watch that video, it made my head hurt with all the bouncing around. so is he setting off a siren he owns? if so what is the harm other than noise ordinance violations? who cares if it uses the same tones as a public system, the tones are NOT licensed for exclusive use and it is very common for the same tones to be used for various different systems.


the cheap Chinese radios are here solely because the ham market brought them over..... I never minded them on unlicensed bands but I have fought many hams that programmed licensed freqs in them so they could use with the vfd or search and rescue. they were in a much more severe violation of the law than this kid...…..