MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Ahh yes, the summer of 1996 and 1997, a ten speed, an a low band MT1000 provided HOURS of fun here in the ATL.
Who remembers cordless telephone convos on your scanner?
- Thread starter FPR1981
- Start date
800 mhz analog cellular - those were the best days. I'd have my PRO-2006 scanning all day and night long. Hell, I used to fall asleep listening to cellular calls. It was quite entertaining.
An 800MHz Jedi worked very well - and it transmitted...
Also used a Pro-2006 scanner with the diode mod. Very entertaining for analog cell phones and living in a military dorm and many cordless phone users (49Mhz mostly in that case). Made for a lot of entertainment. Hours upon hours of entertainment, but I made sure to keep it to myself.....and many people thought those cordless phones were "secure".
At work it was Marconi 2xxx series radio test sets, and the drive through fast food headsets, along with analog cell phone activity in the local area. Always heard interesting conversations.
The switch to digital cell phones and DECT encrypted cordless phones made this type of listening a thing of the past. But, I still manage to hear some baby monitors and other cordless devices at times.
At work it was Marconi 2xxx series radio test sets, and the drive through fast food headsets, along with analog cell phone activity in the local area. Always heard interesting conversations.
The switch to digital cell phones and DECT encrypted cordless phones made this type of listening a thing of the past. But, I still manage to hear some baby monitors and other cordless devices at times.
CrabbyMilton
Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2008
- Messages
- 894
Many of those were quite interesting and funny. I do recall I had one that you could scramble the signal ( DONALD DUCK) but perhaps some people either didn't think or just didn't care much to flip the switch.
Guilty.
Mostly 49 MHz, but way back in the early 80's I was listening to a couple of phones down at 1700 kHz. One person ordered a pizza and gave their address. They were almost a mile away. Impressive range.
Oh yea, baby monitors too
Mostly 49 MHz, but way back in the early 80's I was listening to a couple of phones down at 1700 kHz. One person ordered a pizza and gave their address. They were almost a mile away. Impressive range.
Oh yea, baby monitors too
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2007
- Messages
- 6,075
Yep we're talking over a long span of time, I cut the diode on a Pro 2004, so I'm going to say late '80s.. I can judge by my job, in the media we got rid of our heavy 450 MHz HT'S and replace them with car phones, bag phones and then the brick.
It was 1995 that we got the Motorola startac phones. With the heavy black leather case and the flip open we called them.. shoe phones.
It was fun listening to cordless phones, baby monitors and phone calls when there were many less of them, you could actually hear both sides of the conversation on the cell phone even without trunking.
My favorite was always the two step phone communication.. first call would be, hi honey I'm sorry but I'm going to be late again tonight, don't wait up. Second call, I'm on my way babe, mix the martinis
Eventually the laws changed and it's hard to recollect that stage.
It was 1995 that we got the Motorola startac phones. With the heavy black leather case and the flip open we called them.. shoe phones.
It was fun listening to cordless phones, baby monitors and phone calls when there were many less of them, you could actually hear both sides of the conversation on the cell phone even without trunking.
My favorite was always the two step phone communication.. first call would be, hi honey I'm sorry but I'm going to be late again tonight, don't wait up. Second call, I'm on my way babe, mix the martinis
Eventually the laws changed and it's hard to recollect that stage.
Those innocent days of yesteryear were a lot of fun. Analog only, no encraption and a considerably more relaxed attitude (blissful ignorance) about talking on the phone or near the baby's room. I don't recall getting any usable news tips on 49 MHz, but monitoring the 800 MHz cellular band was productive, especially at crime scenes where the cops thought they'd outsmart us newsies by talking on their newfangled cell phone.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2007
- Messages
- 6,075
You know the same for me Roger, I pull up and the sergeant would see me and say on the radio, we've got company, I'll call you on the cell.
Well, you know the rest😉.
Yes, cellphones and baby monitors. What I learned about the neighbors.
In the 90's I lived in an apartment complex for a while. The saturation provided a lot of RF one could monitor using a scanner and even a sub-par antenna.
If you think conversations were risky, I heard a woman call her bank:
A. I heard the number being dialed.
B. She entered some numbers and a recording audibly came back with her name. Which is how I knew it was a woman.
C. She entered more information, again via DTMF and eventually concluded her transactions. Yes, I also heard her account balance.
Fortunately, I am not of bad character. The DTMF decoder on my computer definitely worked and it displayed all of the digits she entered in from points A-C. For me, it was just an exercise where I happened to catch someone calling their bank.
If you think conversations were risky, I heard a woman call her bank:
A. I heard the number being dialed.
B. She entered some numbers and a recording audibly came back with her name. Which is how I knew it was a woman.
C. She entered more information, again via DTMF and eventually concluded her transactions. Yes, I also heard her account balance.
Fortunately, I am not of bad character. The DTMF decoder on my computer definitely worked and it displayed all of the digits she entered in from points A-C. For me, it was just an exercise where I happened to catch someone calling their bank.
I can confirm the two step phone calls mentioned above, a whole lot of that, especially on a military base. The other thing I used my Pro-2006 for from about 1992 to 1996 was to listen to the base paging system.
Being on call with a huge Motorola pager, the scanner gave me about 10 minutes more notice, as I could hear when a team returned to base from their radio transmissions. They had some gear they would have to return to my shop, and when on call, I could get there a few minutes after the page went out, instead of half an hour or so later.
(It was annoying to miss cordless and cell phone calls for this type of monitoring though).
I had a team chief that was pretty mean to younger guys and thought it was great to get on-call personnel in trouble for showing up "late". So, he would have the page sent to whomever was on call as late as possible.....then complain about them arriving later than he thought they should. I began to tip off the on call people, as I had used the scanner to show up quicker myself. Eventually, pagers became analog radios....and the paging step was removed from the process. About the time that team chief retired, never realizing why he could not get more people in trouble.
The late 1980's and early 1990's were a time when scanners were not common knowledge to many....and cordless phones and cell phones were considered obscure enough (until that whole Newt Gingrich incident and people talking about what they heard). Then scanners were made where a diode mod could not easily be performed on the scanners to open up the band, but test equipment was still very useful for monitoring. Miss those days.
Being on call with a huge Motorola pager, the scanner gave me about 10 minutes more notice, as I could hear when a team returned to base from their radio transmissions. They had some gear they would have to return to my shop, and when on call, I could get there a few minutes after the page went out, instead of half an hour or so later.
(It was annoying to miss cordless and cell phone calls for this type of monitoring though).
I had a team chief that was pretty mean to younger guys and thought it was great to get on-call personnel in trouble for showing up "late". So, he would have the page sent to whomever was on call as late as possible.....then complain about them arriving later than he thought they should. I began to tip off the on call people, as I had used the scanner to show up quicker myself. Eventually, pagers became analog radios....and the paging step was removed from the process. About the time that team chief retired, never realizing why he could not get more people in trouble.
The late 1980's and early 1990's were a time when scanners were not common knowledge to many....and cordless phones and cell phones were considered obscure enough (until that whole Newt Gingrich incident and people talking about what they heard). Then scanners were made where a diode mod could not easily be performed on the scanners to open up the band, but test equipment was still very useful for monitoring. Miss those days.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2007
- Messages
- 6,075
Great post, I got it.. if I could give you a like I would and then respond with...
That time period between the late '80s and the late 90's was quite a long time. Regards.
bill4long
Member
You would not believe some of the things that we heard. OR, maybe you would
The stories I could tell.
I had a 24 hour 7 day a week monitoring on the next door neighbor up until they moved away.
She would call the city on all the neighbors for the smallest things. All the neighbors hated her
I had so much PPI(?) on her and her husband. Social security numbers, credit card numbers, birth dates, ect.
If Amazon had been around I could maybe flooded their house with packages.
The Kicker was when I found out she was having an affair.
I miss those days.
She would call the city on all the neighbors for the smallest things. All the neighbors hated her
I had so much PPI(?) on her and her husband. Social security numbers, credit card numbers, birth dates, ect.
If Amazon had been around I could maybe flooded their house with packages.
The Kicker was when I found out she was having an affair.
I miss those days.
IC-R20
LoBand Nation
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2018
- Messages
- 437
They aren't as common but are still there. I know after 2010 there was these white vtech phones that were analog 5.8 GHz, I had one and imagine my surprise one day when I got a phone call and it set off my scanners closecall in the 900 MHz range. The handheld was the only one on 5.8 and the base threw off a really strong signal in the 900 MHz ISM range. I looked up the FCC ID after and wouldn't you know it, and the wild thing was the packaging made no mention of this.
From 2008-2013 I used to find tons of stuff in the 900 range, sennheiser headphones were really popular and I could still find quite of a bit of analog 900 baby monitors and cordless phones. After that it pretty much died off because no one needs homephone or non-bluetooth earsets anymore.
Wildly enough despite being older the 40 MHz stuff far outlasted the newer high frequency analog stuff. I still will find 49mhz baby monitors on the scanner and even saw some new ones in that range being sold on amazon back in 2016 once. Since they're not on all the time cordless phones take a lot more hunting but i have found those as well whereas 900 remains virtually quiet other than the blip of powermeters. It's always fun to go for a drive or walk with the scanner limit searching that range, always surprises me when I still do find them. Even DECT rarely gets much use these days, though for that I have to use an SDR to find them. I have a couple of my own 49 MHz baby monitors I got at a thrift store long ago, I set the base unit under my scanner by the speaker so I can listen to the better receiving antenna all throughout the house. While around the house I use receivers that came with the monitor and then when I go outside or for a walk I'll take the ws1040 for it's hot receiver. Only light static surprisingly at half a mile, it's pretty much full quieting throughout my neighborhood.
For a while last year I used it transmit baroque classical music around the clock as a sort of easter egg for any other potential scannerists that may wander by.
From 2008-2013 I used to find tons of stuff in the 900 range, sennheiser headphones were really popular and I could still find quite of a bit of analog 900 baby monitors and cordless phones. After that it pretty much died off because no one needs homephone or non-bluetooth earsets anymore.
Wildly enough despite being older the 40 MHz stuff far outlasted the newer high frequency analog stuff. I still will find 49mhz baby monitors on the scanner and even saw some new ones in that range being sold on amazon back in 2016 once. Since they're not on all the time cordless phones take a lot more hunting but i have found those as well whereas 900 remains virtually quiet other than the blip of powermeters. It's always fun to go for a drive or walk with the scanner limit searching that range, always surprises me when I still do find them. Even DECT rarely gets much use these days, though for that I have to use an SDR to find them. I have a couple of my own 49 MHz baby monitors I got at a thrift store long ago, I set the base unit under my scanner by the speaker so I can listen to the better receiving antenna all throughout the house. While around the house I use receivers that came with the monitor and then when I go outside or for a walk I'll take the ws1040 for it's hot receiver. Only light static surprisingly at half a mile, it's pretty much full quieting throughout my neighborhood.
For a while last year I used it transmit baroque classical music around the clock as a sort of easter egg for any other potential scannerists that may wander by.
Haha, sesame street firetruck 1992, push on it and ut would make all kind of ruckus, go in circles. Our babysitter flaked, I came home while the wife at that time (lol) attended her after college classes. I could hear the neighbors get to arguing, quit down, and start bickering again , they guzzled beer while watching the afternoon stories (soaps to northerners)😄(now you probably know where this is going) then I thought, Humm..naw..I wonder. I turned on our TV that we rarely used, she & I prefer books, everytime my kid started that firetruck, the tv would fuzz out. Needless to say, wife got home & looked at me like I was bonkers with my ear to the wall and playing with the firetruck
rf_patriot200
Member
Numerous drug deals overheard !
BinaryMode
Active Member
Cordless home phones, AMP cell service and pagers. All were very vulnerable for the time period.
Not all DECT phones use encryption...
I called my phone manufacture and asked if mine did use encryption so she pulled out the company manual and confirmed it did. The best phones would have to be the Engenius variety which I believe use TDMA. Back when I knew of the scanner/phone flaw I made sure my cordless phone in my bedroom was 900 MHz FHSS. And I verified it, too!
Me too. Believe me.
