What to scan during a civil disturbance when first responders are encrypted.

[ecps92]

Since a lot of L.E. and fire is going encrypted. What would be a good source (I assume multiple sources) of 'unofficial' (ie not commercial broadcast) and very local information.

For example during the equivalent of the London riots.

Off hand I'm thinking of C.B. and FRS/GMRS, and local ham repeaters.

Any real life examples would be helpful, in addition to theories.

Thanks
Joel

Not knowing your area radio NETS, many of these are broad suggestions based on my area of monitoring.
But the major items is already knowing who is who/what/enc before hand. And validating they actually do use radios
a. Your Fire Dept
b. Your DPW
c. Your EMS
d. Your EMA
e. The Regional Mutual Aid Channels (Police, Fire, EMS)
f. State EMA and NG
g. State Police/Patrol
h. County Sheriff (here they run the jail so not needed)
i. Federal NIFOG channels
j. Your routine Federal Agencies (this you would need to have/know in advance to ID who is who and who is ENC
l. Your Transit Agencies (Cabs, Bus, Rail)
j. Mall / Store Securities
l. the list goes on.... News Media channels (not just what is on TV)

 

[KC3ECJ]

Common business frequencies such as color dot frequencies may be worth monitoring.

 

[nd5y]

news helo 1 is 135.875, news helo 2 is 135.975.

Where did you get those? How can they be national news helicopter frequencies when they are both used by multiple ATC facilities around the country?

 

[MUTNAV]

Not knowing your area radio NETS, many of these are broad suggestions based on my area of monitoring.
But the major items is already knowing who is who/what/enc before hand. And validating they actually do use radios
a. Your Fire Dept
b. Your DPW
c. Your EMS
d. Your EMA
e. The Regional Mutual Aid Channels (Police, Fire, EMS)
f. State EMA and NG
g. State Police/Patrol
h. County Sheriff (here they run the jail so not needed)
i. Federal NIFOG channels
j. Your routine Federal Agencies (this you would need to have/know in advance to ID who is who and who is ENC
l. Your Transit Agencies (Cabs, Bus, Rail)
j. Mall / Store Securities
l. the list goes on.... News Media channels (not just what is on TV)

Thanks for your ideas.

I'm trying to narrow the list of things to monitor, and anything that might / are likely to become encrypted (especially on short notice) I don't want to bother with. I will try and monitor local / State police, but frankly there is so much (not useful) information, I find it a distraction.


So far... I'm looking at

News helicopter air to air inter-communications
Maybe some low level helicopter chart A/G frequencies.
City transit buses
school buses
Businesses
Mall security

and although not recommended I'll still try FRS/GMRS, C.B. and the local repeaters.
(I don't know what the CCRs come with pre-programmed. )

POSSIBLY marine channel 16.

and of course MW broadcast, FM Broadcast, OTA TV, and Cable TV. (surprisingly the over-the air TV has better local news than cable frequently).

The area I'm in would be considered the Metro DC area.

Thanks
Joel

 

[ecps92]

Where did you get those? How can they be national news helicopter frequencies when they are both used by multiple ATC facilities around the country?

Must be a Philly thing

Businesses (Philadelphia County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Businesses (Philadelphia County)

www.radioreference.com

 

[MUTNAV]

Nice l

Must be a Philly thing

Businesses (Philadelphia County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Businesses (Philadelphia County)

www.radioreference.com

Nice list.

Thanks
Joel

 

[trentbob]

Where did you get those? How can they be national news helicopter frequencies when they are both used by multiple ATC facilities around the country?

I'm a retired newspaper man who worked decades in the media. They were always the frequencies that we used. Just listening to channel 1 today. Also when New York City comes down to cover stuff in Philly and to the New Jersey Shore they use Channel 2.

I I started as a Stringer as soon as I was able to drive and had my own dark room. Was a photojournalist, work my way up to photo editor, then investigative reporter who carried a camera and retired as a department editor and have spoken to other editors across the country especially in my newspaper chain which had 52 dailies and 300 weeklies and they were the frequencies their news choppers were using also.

Don't have an answer for you but, they sure come in handy. Like I said the producers at the news desks on 450 MHz and 455 MHz don't have access to Aviation frequencies so the pilots are very frank about their assignments and speak their mind about exactly what they're seeing on the ground that often doesn't get in the official story LOL.

 

[bearcatrp]

Monitoring the local news media's radio channels (usually 450-451/455-456 MHz) and sometimes at the high end of VHF near the federal and rail frequencies, would be a good starting point. although many larger outlets are migrating to cell or other technologically advanced solutions. Aeronautical VHF, as @trentbob mentioned, can also be productive. Here in LA, 123.025 is one I watch, but know sometimes the airspace above large protests will end up being restricted (aka "91-91").

It's worth mentioning that the tech savvy protestors of today use cell phones and texting plus any number of messaging apps. The same for "the man".

That said, there's a log of Baofeng (and other CCR) radios out there, but as we frequently see here on RR, not a lot of radio savvy end users. It would probably be prudent to program the common test frequencies loaded in the CCr's from the factory.

While some municipalities encrypt their LE and fire radio traffic, local government channels/talk groups remain in the clear so there's a chance of picking up peripheral radio traffic from the folks driving the big trucks.

It all comes down to having a working knowledge of the local radio spectrum and being frequency agile enough to take advantage of all opportunities.

Just to note. That last big protest out in california, the government shut down the cell services in that area so the protesters could not coordinate.

 

[MUTNAV]

Just to note. That last big protest out in california, the government shut down the cell services in that area so the protesters could not coordinate.

I believe that was also done in some other cities, but there was a chorus of "how will we call for help" complaints. My guess is that it would depend on the severity of the situation.

One take on the judicial system (not original, I read about it in a place that was slightly cynical about it). Is that the judicial system is designed to just be effective enough to keep mobs of people with torches and pitchforks from forming. Given how quickly things can swing. I'm trying to get a handle on it with communications monitoring.

Thanks
Joel

 

[trentbob]

I believe that was also done in some other cities, but there was a chorus of "how will we call for help" complaints. My guess is that it would depend on the severity of the situation.

One take on the judicial system (not original, I read about it in a place that was slightly cynical about it). Is that the judicial system is designed to just be effective enough to keep mobs of people with torches and pitchforks from forming. Given how quickly things can swing. I'm trying to get a handle on it with communications monitoring.

Thanks
Joel

On a positive note, if there is civil unrest in November I believe it's going to be much different than last time. What happened in my city was large box stores like Walmart, Home Depot Etc and needed stores like CVS Walgreens and large chain supermarkets picked up and left, never to come back..

Large sections of Market Street Commerce is still boarded up today and never recovered.

Citywide emergency talk groups and Citywide events were in the clear and on cell phones, even though there was a lot of encryption being used and you could hear the police being told to stand down and allow the looting and arson to go on, there were few arrests and that's why big Commerce left.

It will be different this time and that's why they are in the process of encrypting everything and that will be ready by November. I think they will drop the hammer on looters and arsonists.

Let's hope for the best with the new mayor and police chief. For those who have unencrypted police communications in your cities you will be in the best position to have situational awareness of what's going on.

Let's hope it's not like last time, I don't think it will be.

For those cities who are completely encrypted there are great suggestions here.

 

[wtp]

the five 8tacs.
if i got it right they have to be analog or P-25.

 

[rgchristy]

Another thing to add to Bill's list is your local PD may have private channels. They are usually old channels that were used for primary PD dispatch and operations, prior to them moving to a new system. They sometimes keep the old frequencies and use them for private communications.

Also, some town watches share frequencies with PD for private use.

In our township, the PD, DPW, L&I and parking enforcement use the same frequency with different tones. It used to be the PD dispatch frequency, prior to them joining the county system.

 

[MUTNAV]

On a positive note, if there is civil unrest in November I believe it's going to be much different than last time. What happened in my city was large box stores like Walmart, Home Depot Etc and needed stores like CVS Walgreens and large chain supermarkets picked up and left, never to come back..

Large sections of Market Street Commerce is still boarded up today and never recovered.

Citywide emergency talk groups and Citywide events were in the clear and on cell phones, even though there was a lot of encryption being used and you could hear the police being told to stand down and allow the looting and arson to go on, there were few arrests and that's why big Commerce left.

It will be different this time and that's why they are in the process of encrypting everything and that will be ready by November. I think they will drop the hammer on looters and arsonists.

Let's hope for the best with the new mayor and police chief. For those who have unencrypted police communications in your cities you will be in the best position to have situational awareness of what's going on.

Let's hope it's not like last time, I don't think it will be.

For those cities who are completely encrypted there are great suggestions here.

Keep in mind, that (as you stated) things could be completely different this time, in the military / government, there is always a thing about preparing to "win the last war" (vs the next).

Thanks
Joel

 

[trentbob]

Keep in mind, that (as you stated) things could be completely different this time, in the military / government, there is always a thing about preparing to "win the last war" (vs the next).

Thanks
Joel

Haha, I guess riots and civil unrest is a type of War. I feel having situational awareness, dependable news and reports from communications we are able to intercept from those who are actually on the ground intervening and dealing with the riots and civil unrest is important to us, as opposed to bias, inaccurate news reports

I'd rather hear it through radio communications and reports that are reliable.

Our purpose here is to stay informed, have situational awareness even though in many cases we have been cut off from the normal and traditional ways of doing that through encryption. We are looking for workarounds to still get reliable, unbiased flow of information.

Unfortunately riots and unrest are part of today's society and it's good that we establish and document a good way to "monitor" and stay informed when they happen.

 

[bearcatrp]

One thing to note for this situation. Start listening to HF. I listen to news reports from overseas you do not here on our local news. The news in the USA is reduced pretty bad these days.

 

[trentbob]

One thing to note for this situation. Start listening to HF. I listen to news reports from overseas you do not here on our local news. The news in the USA is reduced pretty bad these days.

Yes I hear you as a long time member the media that our news is highly censored and very biased. I agree, I also listen to, read or watch on the internet foreign media to get real facts about what's going on in the world, especially with regard to United States involvement but if we're talking about a riot in a major US city you really aren't going to get any color or comment on what direction a large mob is moving on a large city thoroughfare in real time. I was born in Center City Philly and I still have family there and I want to be able to tell them exactly what's going on and if there is a large, looting, violent angry mob moving in their direction near 20th Street and Walnut Street it's hard to find that out when we are totally encrypted. News choppers would be able to give you that information.

That kind of information won't be gleaned from foreign broadcast of English speaking news.. I do agree though, people would be amazed how other friendly countries who are our allies report news about the United States or involving United States actions, they all report the same thing that we don't hear.

Some other good suggestions here also won't play a part in my cities minute to minute developments. Public transportation will not be running, taxi cabs will not run, no school buses, only duty tow or City Police tow trucks which will be encrypted.

Overall, perhaps when the riots are over you will get a different spin from news services from our allies in Europe that will be more accurate than what you see on the alphabet networks in the USA.

I do understand your sentiment however.

 

[MUTNAV]

Yes I hear you as a long time member the media that our news is highly censored and very biased. I agree, I also listen to, read or watch on the internet foreign media to get real facts about what's going on in the world, especially with regard to United States involvement but if we're talking about a riot in a major US city you really aren't going to get any color or comment on what direction a large mob is moving on a large city thoroughfare in real time. I was born in Center City Philly and I still have family there and I want to be able to tell them exactly what's going on and if there is a large, looting, violent angry mob moving in their direction near 20th Street and Walnut Street it's hard to find that out when we are totally encrypted. News choppers would be able to give you that information.

That kind of information won't be gleaned from foreign broadcast of English speaking news.. I do agree though, people would be amazed how other friendly countries who are our allies report news about the United States or involving United States actions, they all report the same thing that we don't hear.

Some other good suggestions here also won't play a part in my cities minute to minute developments. Public transportation will not be running, taxi cabs will not run, no school buses, only duty tow or City Police tow trucks which will be encrypted.

Overall, perhaps when the riots are over you will get a different spin from news services from our allies in Europe that will be more accurate than what you see on the alphabet networks in the USA.

I do understand your sentiment however.

I do have to disagree slightly with the school and school buses. Once in a awhile a pop up demonstration will show up at the local high schools, and the schools respond by altering how they do things. (late departure, early departure, more security etc...).

Also, I just thought of this, my GPS is pretty good at letting me know the roads blocked up. (Although I'm not IN DC, they tend to gets lots of closures for various reasons), maybe google maps might be helpful? I don't know about there lag time though.

I still have to narrow the list considerably, so public transport seems pretty high now.

Thanks
Joel

 

[MUTNAV]

Haha, I guess riots and civil unrest is a type of War. I feel having situational awareness, dependable news and reports from communications we are able to intercept from those who are actually on the ground intervening and dealing with the riots and civil unrest is important to us, as opposed to bias, inaccurate news reports

I'd rather hear it through radio communications and reports that are reliable.

Our purpose here is to stay informed, have situational awareness even though in many cases we have been cut off from the normal and traditional ways of doing that through encryption. We are looking for workarounds to still get reliable, unbiased flow of information.

Unfortunately riots and unrest are part of today's society and it's good that we establish and document a good way to "monitor" and stay informed when they happen.

I agree, news from outside is a lot more interesting when coming from overseas. Especially on HF, but local news on TV is also interesting. Since I don't speak Spanish though, I never found out why tanks were rolling through the jungle in south america years ago (no mention in US news media at the time).

A type of war, of course. just look at these for a comparison.


Thanks
Joel

 

[trentbob]

I do have to disagree slightly with the school and school buses. Once in a awhile a pop up demonstration will show up at the local high schools, and the schools respond by altering how they do things. (late departure, early departure, more security etc...).

Also, I just thought of this, my GPS is pretty good at letting me know the roads blocked up. (Although I'm not IN DC, they tend to gets lots of closures for various reasons), maybe google maps might be helpful? I don't know about there lag time though.

I still have to narrow the list considerably, so public transport seems pretty high now.

Thanks
Joel

Well our riots are kind of special here in the town of brotherly love. If we win the Super Bowl we have a major riot, if we lose the Super Bowl, we have a major riot LOL.

The fires burn buildings to the ground because the policy is as soon as the fire department starts taking live rounds and The Bullet Holes start showing up in the fire engines they let the fire burn and retreat.

We have three major sections of the city that riot depending on the venue. The only real school buses in the city are in the Northeast and the more suburban areas, you don't see any yellow school buses in Center City Philadelphia. There's a lot of charter schools and they are given passes for public transportation which will not be running during a riot and I guarantee you the schools will be closed for days.

During a riot things go off pretty fast and you will have several hundred people from one group mixed with four or five hundred people from another group because they're all talking to each other on social media and they meet up and before you know it you have a bad situation that developed within a matter of 15 minutes and police resources then go to that area, not to arrest them but to Coral them.

Pennsylvania state troopers of course get involved who are encrypted and you have several Philadelphia police helicopters, New Jersey State Police helicopters and Pennsylvania state police helicopters constantly orbiting the city, they are of course all encrypted. You will also have three to four news Choppers.

There is no real automobile traffic in Center City during a riot except for hundreds of police cars and mutual Aid police so I don't know who would be giving the traffic reports to Google LOL.

We also have the North Philadelphia section or the Badlands, kind of a free-for-all that the police go to after the multiple murders, never before, they're not looking for trouble, that's not a place you or the cops would want to be if there wasn't a riot LOL but if there's a riot you certainly don't want to be driving around there, you won't make it out.

If it's a riot because of a Championship win like the World Series or the Super Bowl or a we was robbed loss of a championship game then you have the Kensington area, South Philadelphia and Center City.

I don't know if you know Philadelphia sports fans but man do they like to set fires and burn things up. They have to grease the street light poles to keep people from climbing to the top of them.

The bottom line is the only people who were out and about in the last big national riots in Philly were the rioters and professional organizers, and police. Schools were closed for several days.

I imagine there are other large cities that experience the same type of situation. The mechanics and dynamics of our riots are very interesting.

I'm being a little facetious with you but what I'm saying is basically the way it is and I'm really going to miss being able to listen to the Citywide emergency band, the Citywide administrative band and events one and two, they call them Bands as a tradition from the old old days, they're actually talk groups, they are in the clear now but every indication shows they are going to be encrypted fairly soon along with District dispatch talk groups. The apx 6000s have all been swapped out and are reprogrammed with a whole new set of talk groups that are encrypted on a separate Zone. The other Zone that has the unencrypted talk groups are still in the radios.

Everything else in the city has been encrypted for a long time but I for one am really going to miss listening.

 

[kb2hpw]

Not knowing your area radio NETS, many of these are broad suggestions based on my area of monitoring.
But the major items is already knowing who is who/what/enc before hand. And validating they actually do use radios
a. Your Fire Dept
b. Your DPW
c. Your EMS
d. Your EMA
e. The Regional Mutual Aid Channels (Police, Fire, EMS)
f. State EMA and NG
g. State Police/Patrol
h. County Sheriff (here they run the jail so not needed)
i. Federal NIFOG channels
j. Your routine Federal Agencies (this you would need to have/know in advance to ID who is who and who is ENC
l. Your Transit Agencies (Cabs, Bus, Rail)
j. Mall / Store Securities
l. the list goes on.... News Media channels (not just what is on TV)

THIS! There's a lot still on Analog here in the Capital District (Alb/Schdy/Troy, Upstate NY). The 3 city PD's are encrypted, but Troy FD is analog, if something big is going down you'll hear FD/EMS, etc too. Same for Ambulance-to-ER comms, if there are GSW's being transported out there, they are on 2 freqs relaying patient info to ER staff. Lifenet is also on one of these, also hear flight dispatches in/out of area. DOT/DPW freqs, if there are barricades needed, roads being diverted, guard rails broken, etc. NYSP still uses some analog freqs, car-to-car is good to monitor. Some colleges use UHF analog freqs, security crews doing rounds, alarms in labs, etc. I do drive around the area and there is some activity on the usual FRS/GMRS freqs, usually businesses and shops. People are always chatting about stuff, might be nonsense now but again just keep a log (like all radio nerds should always do). All this stuff you need to keep in a log book, search for new ones too.