Can remember listening to the Police in the late 60s early 70s on a small Juliette transistor radio as a kid in my bedroom with an ear plug.. a great chase around New Cross and the Old Kent road, was so long ago when it cut to the police car it had bells rather than a siren.. got told to stop doing it by my parents who said the police would be round.... eventually they did come round but that was a few years later and nothing to do with the radio :)
Sometime around 2005 (roughly), I picked up a police transmission on my computer speakers! I had a lamp on my desk with two metal prongs over the top of the left speaker and I picked up some quite clear chatter. I was confused and happened to look outside where there were 3 ARV units pointing guns at the house opposite. I was ordered back inside, but I never did understand why I'd managed to pick up the noise
@@dermottyoung5267 There's been several shootings passed off as stabbings it is being covered up, some youths on social media showing their arsenal of weapons and nothing seems to be getting done.
I listened to the Police this morning as well. They screamed at me while they battered my skull with trugeons. Mind you, I deserved it. I am an Ulster Catholic, after all.
My interest in radio monitoring in NL started when I could listen to the local police relay with our family transistor FM radio. The frequency was 86.3 Mhz and normal FM broadcast band startrled at 88Mc. So if you scew on the internal oscillator of the radio you could tune to the police channel. For me it was the coolest thing back than.
In 1998 before they went over to tetra, i heard the local plod reporting over their local UHF channel that they were coming round to speak to me over a matter, they said my name and address over the air, apparently a rich old woman who had recently knocked me off my pushbike and drove off {there were reliable witness's} had all her car tyres "slashed" as the police acccused me of... i told em where to get off
I once took a scanner to a friends house in manchester, the plan was to chill and listen to the rozzers which went well… we also ended up tuning into strangeways nick for a while too.
Excellently done and thanks for this. The original VHF freqs were 80-84MHz mobile transmit and 97-101MHz base transmit. They were configured so the mobile set transmission could be heard on the base transmit frequency by switching to 'Talk Through.' With the PR system it was possible to link PR to Main set freqs and when the shift occurred the PRs were better linked as necessary. At the time [for METPOL] the mobile freqs were 143/152MHz and the PRs 155.1/147MHz. Indeed a special mount allowed a Mainset and PR to be hand carried [the batteries were heavy] but giving good coverage of the Mqainset channels and the designated/or command or public order channels afforded by the PR. The PRs used CTCSS to give the 25 channels four possible uses. There were also a number of channels reserved for command and public order. Other Forces/Constabularies did similar but with a variation in frequencies. Occasionally as the PR aged the CTCSS would drop out and you could hear the activity on another division across the MET. One memorable being Hackney on the same channel heard in South London. But the move to UHF for the MET was interesting. At the roll out at a private 'Police Personnel Exhibition' someone in the audience asked if the system was 'scanner proof.' The reply from the representative stated that at least eleven scanners would be needed to track the comms. That, it turned out, was rubbish. Judicial use of squelch/attenuators and utilising the 'directivity' of an antenna ensured a degree of control that allowed an easy 'squelch-open' tracking of talk groups. When Airwave arrived the die was set for the end of monitoring sensitive communications. Caught out in the open with a scanner always afforded the risk of being arrested for 'Going Equipped to Steal' [S25 Theft Act 1968] if police freqs were in the memory but with Airwave casual monitoring will not be possible. Rolling Algorithms form part of the security on both the PR and the Mainset. However, Airwave's days are numbered. With the onset of 5G new technologies are being tested; an officer can now do most of his *necessary* admin from a tablet, so imagine something smaller and with a voice comms capability for what's to come.
Ringway Manchester Thanks! Forgot to mention MI5 Watchers also used P Band until it was thought that the Russian facility at 16 KPG were intercepting the transmissions. That led to a change of frequency just below 2 metres and heavy encryption followed by enhanced Airwave.
as a boy in the early 90's sometimes we would as a family gather round and listen to the police it was fun listening to things cops/robbers got up to we did not use it to get a 1 up on the police was just entertainment
One day I was listening to the police, they were looking everywhere for a particular individual, then the control room came on saying thet had received a call from somone who had been listening, and that the individual they were seeking was at the back of a pub at....... So the public listening to the police is not all bad This could really be the case during majour disasters, when they probably could use all the help thay could get. My thoughts is that the 'main' channel should be non-scrambled, but all the extra ones scrambled, so everyday traffic stuff etc. is easliy listened to, but any more involved stuff is not.
I used to listen in to the VHF (County/Force-wide) and UHF (Personal/pocket sets) channels back in the 90s, it was great! I even had a very old black and white television which would pick up VHF simplex when traffic cars were close by.
Just to clarify on the history bit, I joined the plod in 1988, we had three channel UHF Burndepts, VHF was only used in vehicles and only had about 12 channels. In about 1989 the VHF channels which as you say were near Band II Broadcast (FM) were moved to a higher frequency. The UHF radios were changed to ones that had about 99 channels, Some police forces had Motorola, we had Phillips, interestingly the Fire Service had the same radio but they were badged PYE. The UHF radios were linked to Divisional Operation Rooms and you only used your collar number, no callsign. On VHF you used a vehicle (unit) callsign this was a Divisional identifier (Letter) followed by a number whuich denoted the station, then followed a letter which identified what type of unit, followed by a sequential number The VHF vehicle sets were referred to as "main scheme" after 1989 these sets were huge! The reason being that as well as a VHF radio they contained a UHF repeater, so if the crew were working away from the car in a rural location with no UHF coverage then they could still have comms. the main scheme went through to Force Operations Room. Both UHF and VHF radios would receive on one channel and transmitted on another, so if someone was using a scanner then they would only hear one side plus the busy signal unless they the OR's put talk through on. Airwave has been a bit of a financial disaster as the police are charged airtime per second so it is an expensive system!
The difference between Pye and Philips was age. The Pye PF85 or PocketFone 85 was the one you probably first saw it had xtals I think 3 channels in A band = high band VHF, E band =Low band VHF and finally U band which was UHF. Originally 25KHz channel spacing then later 12.5KHz. Later on exactly the same radio came out with the Philips Logo, same radio just a different logo. then the synthesised PFX came out with 99 channels in all the same variants as the PF85. there was also an analogue encrypted version for special operations. different counties had different schemes depending on their terrain. many of the cars also had Marconi repeaters fitted from VHF to UHF. Philips became Simoco and developed Tetra, later it became Sepura.
How many establishment crimes did you cover ups or covering up for your corrupt copper mates do you do in the time you spent in the force? Genuine question
The pye boot mount still comes up at ham rallies it was a suit case size with a remote head the. fire service used ascoms in some vehicles operating around 70mhz as far as i can remember
I bought a scanner in the US in 2007, was absolutely amazed at the stuff I heard from the police on it, it's still brilliant for air band in the UK though.
Yes, same here. I never ceased to be amazed that local plod were constantly stating informants names over the air live !!! one example was a disgruntled ex girlfriend phoned 999 on her violent boyfriend who'd just drove off in his car drunk. thing is every criminal in Worcester back then was privvy to everything said over the radio 24/7/365 because of a very large chain of "listeners" said information. shows how much the plod really care what happens to people ............
me too! used to really piss them off in the 90's. getting into car chases on purpose too. a dictaphone to record them then play back so they keep taking wrong turns or responding to old calls. aaah the statute of limitations is sweet!
*Well you don't have to join to listen to the police in the UK.* *If you get close enough to two officers talking to eachother you can hear what they're saying. :D*
Didn’t need a scanner in the 70s. Could get Greater Manchester Police CK control broadcast on 101.0 FM in normal transistor radio as a kid. Loved the little high pitch pips. The CK controller directing traffic cars. Then later a scanner could get all the local police. Quebec one and two in Oldham. Now you can’t get anything.
One of the strategist transmissions i have ever heard was a police tetra radio channel which was being retransmitted on to the airband on nfm. It was in a moving vehicle, so some sort of bugging device ,it lasted a couple of days before disappearing.
I miss listening to Manchester police in the 90’s early 2000s on my little Alinco. Me and the Mrs would listen to it at bedtime along with James stanitch.. the good old days
TETRA Encryption uses 4 algorithms covered by NDA (non-disclosure agreement) called TEA (Tetra Encryption Algorithm). From TEA1 to TEA4. DMR uses ARC4 or AES algorithms.
Given the age of the algorithm, equipment, and given it is not a type 1 algorithm with future proof key lengths (unlikely in lowest bidder mass distribution radios) then it may possible to use brute force to derive the keys by now. Probably also one of the reasons they’re moving on.
As a service engineer when we moved from 2 way radio we adopted dolphin telecom which is the first tetra band. Big old handset. Battery terrible , patchy coverage . Then mobile phones became viable shortly after. Was a radio phone hybrid , could call as a mobile at a hefty rate or use the side button push to talk at no extra cost ( which we were encouraged to use)
In the late 80’s I had a separates hifi system and unintentionally picked up the police as the arm came across before coming into contact with the vinyl, was great to listen to on nights...
During the 90s my friend had a scanner. He would listen to the local police in Bridlington.. One day the police were at his house and heard themselves on his scanner. They confiscated it and never let him have it back.
in the early 90s i bought a scanner. it picked up the police. i used it a few times and put it back in its box. swapped it for a Vauxhall chevet which i got a lot of use out of then swapped that for a b reg citron bx in gold. it had the suspension that could raise the body up high off the ground if you ever needed to drive down a farm track or whatever.
I stumbled across this and found it interesting. In the US we can still listen by using available decoding software. I think the argument is "the public should be allowed to listen". I miss the days when everything including cellphones were open and in clear FM :-)
i see the argument but also they have to read out peoples private info that should be kept secret. say you get pulled over and the cop reads out your driving licence number, ss number, dob, full name and address. you could easily be a victim of fraud later. also vulnerable people, children, info about unoccupied houses, alarm status, all can harm innocents. for the plod, telling everyone where they are can give robbers the ideal time to rob a bank, or if the cop is an arse, then when he reports he is leaving the car to go down a back ally and wont have radio contact...he may get a deserved kicking. its better to have encryption, just less fun for us. uk were idiots (or back pocket stuffing criminals) for signing to dolphin/tetra. there were plenty of better systems available at a fraction of the cost.
@@drspastic - Police comms in my area of the US are still UHF T-Band analog FM for 99% of all calls. Any sensitive information is sent directly to their CAD terminals so there's nothing for an identity thief to use. If there is any chance of an individual's security being compromised during a call, the officers will use their cell phones to call Dispatch directly. Of course, all tactical comms for SWAT/SRT are P25 and encrypted. That said, there's no reason why the general public shouldn't be able to listen to most public safety comms. It can even help them do their job. I have an old S-split XTS3000 that I have programmed to monitor only on police channels. In one instance, a guy had just beat up his girlfriend, took her Playstation and her bike. I saw the guy a few blocks away as I was traveling to my next job. I went to the scene and asked the Sergeant if she was looking for a guy with a Playstation pushing a 10 speed bike. "Why, yes. Yes we are!" I pointed them in his direction so they could have a chat with him.
Yes, a lot of people feel that if the radio signal travels onto your property without your permission, you should be able to listen to it. Especially since that those same radio signals can penetrate your home and even penetrate your body. We do understand that some sensitive transmissions should be encrypted, but everyday dispatch signals should be kept unencrypted. Most feel that the public can help police more by hearing those signals than hinder them.
You can listen to the American Police Fire and air traffic on you're phone with various apps. Can be very interesting especially the Police in New York and Chicago. The police in this country now use frequency hoping technology so you need a scanner that can do that they are available but at a very high price.
Possibly, that bit is before my time, people have told me they heard it on their FM radios in the broadcast band which makes me think it was FM. I'm not sure though
PHILL DIXON Yes AM on the Band II FM band...a ridiculous frequency to use that's for sure. What do you mean employed by them ? You were a copper you mean ?
PHILL DIXON it's not bad I guess...there's a lot on there now...some good fm dx and sporadic e reception clips also. So who was your employer not understanding you !
The MET used FM; The freqs in the Broadcast band were in what was known as 'P' Band and split: 83.60MHz to 83.675MHz for mobiles with stronger base stations 98.90 to 101.275MHz in 13 channels. This set up predated the 88 to 108MHz broadcast band. The experiments for stereo transmissions occurred in the early 50's between MW radio and the BBC station on the TV. When the FM Broadcasting arrived the Police still maintained their 'P' Band transmissions. MI5 also used the 'P'Band and were listened to by the Russian Embassy facility down KPG. When this was discovered they predated the police move and went to 142.5000MHz and were heavily encrypted. With Airwave and customer dissatisfaction the move to 4G will be delayed for five years to ensure a decent rollout and first class service.
I remember listening to Australian police through a web site, they was so relaxed it was unbelievable, base station contacted car telling them about a location and a guy looking "suss". I listened to Australian ambulance, the driver said we just bringing the deceased out now, the base station went nuts, put them back n the house it's the coroner's job, so they put the body back.
Very informative. Subbed. I used listen in in the late 80s, and it's amazing that they made it so easy like that. You could discover them by accident. Does anybody know why they did that?
"in other countries you can" - partially true. Most countries now have tetra or digital radio system for official use. Old analog systems can still be listened to, if you have the correct CTCSS codes etc.
My question is: With the magic of You Tube and other video and audio services, does anyone have recordings of police radio transmissions during the years past when they were analog and transmitted in the FM and VHF bands?
I never made audio recordings of the police, but I did make a number of VHS video recordings of the video downlink from India 99, the Manchester police video copter. I think I transferred some of them the DVD. I must see if I can dig it out!
I have memories of my grandad listening to the Highland Constabulary in late 90s. One particular memory was when a woman tried to off her self by dangling off the Kessock bridge in Inverness. I wonder if she got the help she needed & got better.
I was at sea on a fishing boat and we picked up highland constabulary call for a Mrs Mcginty who's flower pots had been smashed at her front door. It was like crime of the centaury the way the police were carrying on. Epic and funny. These days all the buggers do is hide with speed guns. Sod all the other crime going on.
I loved listening to Chorley police at night on my scanner, one time they were after a work colleague after a bad argument with his ex. They were chasing him all over Chorley and I finally got hold of him on his phone telling him where they were looking for him, it went to digital shortly after that 😟
Fascinating stuff. Used to 'enjoy' listening to police radio as a kid. I googled what happened to police radio on fm. Was I technically committing a crime by tuning in? (UK) Apparently I was. Thanks for this.
the crime was not listening but acting on information you heard. say your mate was driving home from the pub and you hear a cop is stopping people for breath tests on his route. you call him and he takes a back road: you are a criminal. you let him get busted and listen to it on the radio: no crime, just an arsehole of a mate
I was shocked and intrigued to find my 5 quid handheld FM /AM radio could pick up my neighbours phone conversations in 2 way! She had a cordless phone...She worked as a psychologist at the Mental Institution where Ian brady was held...She was chatting away to a depressed Canadian Pilot.. It was addictive for a few weeks...But my morals got the better of me and i gave it away....Moral is Don't use cordless phones!
"An individual has been spotted smashing car windows on kirkstall road with a rounders bat" how i loved listening to the police in leeds back in the day
I remember when most of the police divisions had their own control rooms and I think they operated on UHF and when I had a scanner I couldnt pick these up . The police also used VHF from their main control room that broadcast force wide for specialist units like traffic and dogs . You could also pick up fire which operated on permanent talk through so you could hear both the control room and individual fire appliances ( which they still do ) . You could pick up ambulance , but only the control side of the conversation and pip tones when the ambulance crews were talking . As the gentleman says once the emergency services moved to Airwave and digital scanning emergency frequencies more or less made scanning them obsolete . Obviously if you were a criminal involved in a pursuit you could hear where stinger devices were being placed and avoid them . Ambulance services used to broadcast incident locations and patient's names , but with patient confidentiality being take much more seriously calls are now generally passed to mobile data terminals and the ability to press buttons to book statuses such as ' on scene ' and ' leaving scene' has massively cut down on radio traffic for increasingly busy dispatchers .
Hello mate. I’m sure you mentioned this in another video but I can’t seem to find it, what brand antenna would you recommend I get for my boarding uv-5r iii. I’m in uk. Also what adapter if needed to reduce wear on the threads. Thanks.
Funny when you said it was buzzing back in the 90s with scanners that exactly how I remember it. I’m 36 now and when I look back we had some carryons as teenagers with our handheld scanners. I think we all had them in our back pockets when out and about 😂 miss them old days
Very interesting video Thanks, back in the 90's I had a CB radio with the 10 foot or so ariel on my roof and listened to the emergency services etc, I thought it would be nice to try and listen to these again.. but as you said this can't happen now. On the plus side you may have saved me some money as I was thinking of getting a scanner from eBay. 🎙📻
Thanks for the video. I remember listening to all this stuff from the 80's until they went digital. As well as the VHF and UHF repeater networks, they also had some discrete simplex channels within their normal allocations, plus a smattering of channels around 155.750MHz, used for close-in surveillance, drugs squad etc. In London, the Met had a repeater network on 146MHz (can't remember the input frequency). One of the repeater systems - with its input on around 81MHz - was occasionally, unintentionally jammed by 27MHz CB operators using cheap and cheerful 'burners' with poor harmonic suppression. Happy days!
The met had 147mhz to 148mhz and 152mhz to 153mhz and also a channel around 453 mhz when they were experimenting with UHF prior to the Motorola trunk radio system being introduced called Metradio. Never be able to listen to the police radio uk anymore, unless your authorised to do so. Mobile phones used to be another, 890mhz and up.
I always had trouble listening to the Met trunked UHF system, but where I live in mid Wales the local force (Dyfed-Powys) VHF and UHF channels were wide open.
DangerousDavies2008 Bearcat brought out a mobile/desktop and hand held scanner which followed the Motorola system they used. There was also a desk top version a pc and 2 scanners which I heard could be used.
Years ago I used to have a communications receiver and could hear police fire mountain rescue ship to shore and taxis and utility broadcasts but now I have a short wave with airband
Where I am in the U.S., my FD dispatches on 154.xxxx but all the other traffic is 800mhz P25. I think they are keeping VHF in case of a disaster or incident which takes out the repeaters (like 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina). At least they can stage strategically and talk simplex (Katrina). 800 isn't worth sh"t for simplex.
Excellent Info, great to know some of that in detail, it was only the other day I was thinking about my scanner from years ago and wondered what u could pick up nowadays, hence how I stumbled across your video, now I know, nothing 😩 is this the same for Fire Brigade and Ambulances I take it?
So for a simple example a track suited Manc is being perused across counties talk through happens in to other force areas. So the technology does not blind the chaser.The bottom line is trucked radio communications.
I remember listening to the police on my scanner back in the 90s. Those were the days. If I remember rightly you could only hear one side of the conversation then? I could be wrong but that’s what I recall?
Here in the US, many small to medium sized cities have gone digital, but as strange as it sounds, the largest, NYC and some others are still wide open. I suppose new equipment would be a very costly affair for the larger cities. That's a problem, however. Some jerk in a large city in Tx or somewhere scanned the tone codes and set the city's air raid sirens off. I suppose they're now thinking seriously about going digital.
The next best thing you can do is to listen to ShopWatch security which is around the 450Mhz band in analog or digital DMR. Sometimes the police will carry a shopwatch radio or security will have a police radio in the CCTV room.
A very well explained video. I've noticed there doesn't seem to be much in the way of analogue radio traffic to listen to on a scanner in FM. Wherever I've gone, even the Shopwatch radios appear to be on DMR - at a recent place that I worked at the reception security *definitely* were on DMR. Just wondering if there is any clear DMR traffic out there if you were to listen to it on something like a Motorola DM4600, as I've seen other radio hams with DMR kit that have had channels programmed in to scan around in DMR (obviously channels set to receive only to prevent accidental transmission of course).
Cheers mark. There's nothing much of interest these days but if you're in the right place at the right time you still hear surveillance, military stuff, shop watch etc. But yeah tonnes gone DMR now. If you had a digital handheld you'd definitely hear lots but again, nothing much of interest.
Former 911 operator I hated digital because when I used analog VHF even when there was static you could hear the officer, digital it’s not the same. Can you purchase the Uniden SDS 100 in the UK? Because in order to hear P25, or EDACS Provoice.
Slight correction, Tetra airwave used to be owned by BT, known as BT Tetra, then it was sold to O2, and became O2 Airwave, in Feb 2016 Motorola completed and fully acquired AIRWAVE and now owns and operates it.
@@JohnSmith-ze6jm That depends on if airwave is owned by motorola solutions or motorola mobility. Motorola mobility was owned by google and was sold to lenovo, a chinese company. Motorola solutions is a independent company based in the US.
@@zachdemand4508Having done a little digging after your comment, it turns out Airwave is owned by Motorola Solutions. Mobility was indeed sold to Lenovo ~2014. Thank you for providing me with insight and a step in the right direction.
I remember the days when someone I no hacked the police radios and he use to play Roy chubby brown videos on there lines and the police could not speak to each other
The days of listening to the police are coming to an end pretty much everywhere. Here in the US, small cities would end up paying fortunes they didn't have to migrate to a digital trunking system while most of the rest of the world didn't see the need to do that. But now with LTE radios in every price range and PTT over cellular that's where everything else is going end up without the enormous infrastructure costs. And they can operate in complete secrecy without anyone listening on a scanner. And at the end of the day, that's the number one selling point for them.
were still analog here even after the Victorian government has spent millions building up the new RMR network they simply cant get the coverage digital does not work in rural environments
Enjoyed your video very new to radios I have recently got a baofeng uv5r first of all the laws is it legal for me to have this radio at all and second how can I get a license for a radio thanks again
i live in the us. where i live the city police and the sherrif are unscrambled and in the clear. i used to listen to them along time ago. bonus, when my late mom was a little girl , she lived in sanfransisco ca and at that time the police there used both radiotelephony and morse . they were on the frequencies of 1600 kc am ( uall call it medium wave ) and 1700 kc as well. calling car 54 , kids squirting seltzer water at mrs jones . during halloween time mom said it got interesting ,this was in the 1930s.
What about N.I prior to the Digital rollout? I do remember being told that the RUC in Northern Ireland operated an encrypted or scrambled network from the 1980s due to the security situation. I would love to know what they used.
