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

[bearcatrp]

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.

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Thanks
Joel

What kind of cell phone do you have? I have a iPhone that has a translator on it. Just hold it up to the speaker and turn it on. Works pretty good. Not sure if android phones have it but probably does.

 

[MUTNAV]

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.

I was considering the sports analogy, win or lose, there will be street riots. I never understood the rioting because of a win aspect.

I'm really bad at social and political aspects of things, it's never gotten me in trouble, but it keeps me from understanding large groups of people, or when we are heading for war or civil disturbances.

Thanks
Joel

 

[MUTNAV]

What kind of cell phone do you have? I have a iPhone that has a translator on it. Just hold it up to the speaker and turn it on. Works pretty good. Not sure if android phones have it but probably does.

I have the cheapest cell phone I could get, and plan (if everything goes as planned) on downgrading to a flip phone when I need a new one. There are flip phones for old people, and flip phones that are seriously hardened, I'm thinking hardened.

I would prefer to just learn another language, newscasts seem good for that as they seem to try and follow the languages rules with minimal slang and accents. Especially MW, FM and HF transmissions.

Thanks
Joel

 

[trentbob]

I was considering the sports analogy, win or lose, there will be street riots. I never understood the rioting because of a win aspect.

Thanks
Joel

Mostly alcohol.

 

[IC-R20]

CCR default frequencies and FRS/GMRS if you're close enough to the riot to catch the rioters on radio. Sometimes they use them, specially the bigger more politically organized ones.

 

[ladn]

I imagine there are other large cities that experience the same type of situation.

Change a few location names and you've described LA's "civil unrest" as well.

With sports-related riots, alcohol is certainly a factor, but there are also professional agitators who take advantage of the situation to exacerbate the violence or use it as a over for retail theft.

 

[trentbob]

Change a few location names and you've described LA's "civil unrest" as well.

With sports-related riots, alcohol is certainly a factor, but there are also professional agitators who take advantage of the situation to exacerbate the violence or use it as a over for retail theft.

Yep, as was the case with the national riots also, that's why I'm hoping it'll be different this November. For a while for no reason at all we were having large mobs go into the small retail areas of high-end stores around the Rittenhouse Square area and cleaning them out, a lot of them have left but I've noticed with the new administration and police commissioner that has abated, there's a lot more bike Patrols also. The daily murder rate is still very high but some hope is there.

With all the good suggestions for alternative ways to get information and situational awareness in an encrypted environment, the situation with big large cities doesn't leave many alternatives.

The news Chopper option is my only hope, you know if the weather is bad, all the police choppers will fly because they need that intelligence information to keep track of the different mobs but the news Choppers turn around so we may not even have them.

Hey we could be headed to the World Series this season. It is a running joke here that win or lose the mobs will take to the streets. Like I say they just love to burn things up, especially police cars lol.

Yep, philly, LA, Chicago are big problem spots.

 

[BinaryMode]

I would first check Broadcastify and make sure the department doesn't already provide a feed. Some do despite being encrypted. They may have a delay though.

Other than that I'd scan EVERYTHING! I'd set each scanner dedicated to its own band. One for VHF low, another for VHF high, another for UHF, etc. The aforementioned itinerant channels are a good place especially the default CCR (Cheap Chinese radio) frequencies.

As to news choppers, I'd bookmark this. It may however be incomplete. If anyone thinks it is list the tail numbers and I'll update the hex IDs.

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live

ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live - aircraft flight history

globe.adsbexchange.com

When I see a chopper somewhere doing circles I'll check out that area's news via an IPTV stream found at Github and use the IPTVnator program (coded in Electron) to watch what's going on.

 

[IC-R20]

Another more unconventional one I forgot to mention was Taxis. If you have any in your area that run normal duplex as opposed to half-duplex/mixer-off like FDNY or LA County Sheriff it makes for a good source of what’s going on around town as they drive pretty much everywhere while talking to people off the street and love to chat about everything happening over the radio.

Everytime monsoon hits hard I would tune to the local Yellow Cab and have a better picture of all the flooding/downed lines/various conditions around town faster than tuning into the skywarn net or weather radio.

 

[KC3ECJ]

Another more unconventional one I forgot to mention was Taxis. If you have any in your area that run normal duplex as opposed to half-duplex/mixer-off like FDNY or LA County Sheriff it makes for a good source of what’s going on around town as they drive pretty much everywhere while talking to people off the street and love to chat about everything happening over the radio.

Everytime monsoon hits hard I would tune to the local Yellow Cab and have a better picture of all the flooding/downed lines/various conditions around town faster than tuning into the skywarn net or weather radio.

Yeah, I listen to some systems that have busses and it's a good source to find out about traffic jams.

 

[bearcatrp]

Same with school busses during school season. Have listened to some weird conversations with the driver and dispatcher.

 

[YalekW]

I just go straight to flex and POCSAG transmitters and frequencies because those output the most amount of textual data involved with public safety and security. If anything on a police or fire channel is encrypted just go straight to a paging transmitter or frequency and listen to the traffic there because that stuff is *not* encrypted usually when it comes down to public safety.

 

[HamEnjoyer]

Another thing to consider are the "default" radio frequencies, like on Baofengs it's 136.025 and 470.625. I've seen photos of protests/riots with Baofengs in them. Since they're cheap and the operators probably don't know how to change the frequencies, they might just keep to the preset channels. There's a possibility of protest/riot organizers literally just posting the frequencies online before/during the event, so keep your eyes for posts like that aswell.

 

[KR8MR]

I see that news choppers are mentioned here. May i suggest getting a small Ku band FTA satellite dish? Typ just 40" and the receivers are dirt cheap approx $40. Park the dish on the 7 channel CNN mux. They often have live unedited feeds of every riot plane crash forest fire with.aircraft dumping water and chemicals. Most of the feeds are from ABC or other alphabet soup networks local choppers. Sometimes if they dont like the candidate they will orbit overhead outside political events looking for trouble so they can do their slanted coverage.You can watch whats happening.

 

[trentbob]

Yes much discussion about news helicopters, really all we have to get raw in a big city secondary to encryption during emergencies, especially air to air communication between the pilots on designated news chopper aviation frequencies that is unedited, unfiltered and certainly not censored. Large cities don't always have some of the useful sources mentioned in this thread.

The Choppers in my area are all local stations and affiliates of the large alphabet networks, they feed the networks, in all my years I've never seen a CNN news helicopter, I guess they exist but not in my area. I wouldn't know where they get their footage and what affiliates they use, I'm really not qualified to say as I have not watched or followed CNN for decades.

ADS-B shows, local NBC, ABC, CBS and fox choppers in Philadelphia during major national events or emergencies. Really a great source of news. The pilots talking air-to-air if you have a rooftop, offer great insight to the reality of what they are seeing and share openly with each other.

They cannot be monitored by the news desks which are on the 400 MHz frequencies and don't have access to the aviation frequencies. Often the pilots interpretation and experience is not even close to what ends up getting reported.

 

[es93546]

I would always bring up the National Interagency Fire Centers comm systems mainly used on wildland fires. You don't get as many wildland fires in the east and this system is quick to respond and quick to install. It is not encrypted. It has been used at couple of Democratic and Republican national conventions. If it is during the off seasons for fire using the NIFC systems would make sense. I would also do a lot of work looking through the federal frequency sets for FEMA and other mutual aid. Most of this stuff uses UHF or VHF as the feds don't have any frequency assignments up in the 700/800 bands. Someone already mentioned making sure to scan the NIFOG stuff.

 

[trentbob]

I would always bring up the National Interagency Fire Centers comm systems mainly used on wildland fires. You don't get as many wildland fires in the east and this system is quick to respond and quick to install. It is not encrypted. It has been used at couple of Democratic and Republican national conventions. If it is during the off seasons for fire using the NIFC systems would make sense. I would also do a lot of work looking through the federal frequency sets for FEMA and other mutual aid. Most of this stuff uses UHF or VHF as the feds don't have any frequency assignments up in the 700/800 bands. Someone already mentioned making sure to scan the NIFOG stuff.

So as police helicopters are monitoring mobs of 400 here and 500 there intersecting with another 500 in another neighborhood conversion on one area to loot, burn and destroy and all those transmissions would be encrypted, where exactly does NIFOG come in to give situational awareness to those businesses and residents about to be attacked? Just trying to be reality based here.

No one would be allowed in that area except the criminals who would have free reign.

There are no taxis or buses to give reports, they've been halted. There are no school buses as schools have been closed for days.

That's why I said that in real civil unrest which is most likely to happen in an inner city, who all have the same exact government leadership and the police are encrypted.. There is NO situational awareness other than what the media will tell the next day, which most likely will not be true and long after you have been attacked, your business burned, looted and destroyed.

 

[KR8MR]

I have a ham buddy in Fletcher NC. Originally from eastern europe he led all ICOM service in south africa. He had access to alarm company dispatch radio comms. This was how he realized what the news people held back. He moved his family from there and lives in Fletcher NC now where he is dealing with all the problems of the hurricane.

I do expect philly and detroit and all the usual suspects to have problems soon. Which aside from the 90+ degree weather is just one reason we moved to western MI.

There is definitely NO model for the financial situation our country is in now.

 

[KR8MR]

Yes much discussion about news helicopters, really all we have to get raw in a big city secondary to encryption during emergencies, especially air to air communication between the pilots on designated news chopper aviation frequencies that is unedited, unfiltered and certainly not censored. Large cities don't always have some of the useful sources mentioned in this thread.

The Choppers in my area are all local stations and affiliates of the large alphabet networks, they feed the networks, in all my years I've never seen a CNN news helicopter, I guess they exist but not in my area. I wouldn't know where they get their footage and what affiliates they use, I'm really not qualified to say as I have not watched or followed CNN for decades.

ADS-B shows, local NBC, ABC, CBS and fox choppers in Philadelphia during major national events or emergencies. Really a great source of news. The pilots talking air-to-air if you have a rooftop, offer great insight to the reality of what they are seeing and share openly with each other.

They cannot be monitored by the news desks which are on the 400 MHz frequencies and don't have access to the aviation frequencies. Often the pilots interpretation and experience is not even close to what ends up getting reported.

CNN does not have news choppers. This is why they use feeds from local ( mostly ABC ) stations. I do not watch CNN or sky news ever. But this 7 chan mux is unedited has no voice over or anything. They do have reporters from these networks waiting outside courtrooms and their reports are slanted but there are 6 other channels and whats on them changes constantly. You can get into the FTA hobby for under $300. Especially 11.7 to 12.2 GHz [ Ku] which uses a much smaller dish typ. 1 meter.

 

[trentbob]

I have a ham buddy in Fletcher NC. Originally from eastern europe he led all ICOM service in south africa. He had access to alarm company dispatch radio comms. This was how he realized what the news people held back. He moved his family from there and lives in Fletcher NC now where he is dealing with all the problems of the hurricane.

I do expect philly and detroit and all the usual suspects to have problems soon. Which aside from the 90+ degree weather is just one reason we moved to western MI.

There is definitely NO model for the financial situation our country is in now.

I appreciate your comments but it would be totally off topic to speak of it here, but you are correct, if things unfortunately turn out the way I think they're going to next month there definitely is no model for the financial situation our country will be in. Buckle up. When it comes to civil unrest we haven't seen anything yet but this is off topic for this thread and I for one ask that we not continue in this direction.😉