zlacker

I'm surprised they didn't mention that someone in Chicago seems to have stolen a police radio and has been trolling them for days.

>>empath+(OP)
I'm pretty sure any $30 Baofeng will let you broadcast on these frequencies.

>>swebs+p6
Any trunked radio system hops between frequencies enough that this wouldn't work.

Individual radios get "paged" on a control channel and told where to receive. Eg, "Radios tuned to the police talk group, go to frequency X now." The speaker, when transmitting, gets assigned a frequency on the fly.

A baofeng could stomp on a transmission, but nobody would follow it otherwise.

>>oasisb+E9
Chicago uses a straight analog repeater system

>>blanto+Sa
Analog repeaters still use trunking protocols.

Edit: Whoops, I didn't realize CPD still had so many assigned frequencies in-use with just a code to activate. That could be done with a Baofeng.

>>empath+(OP)
Interesting, on any radio enthusiast forum there are countless warnings about how if you do something like this the feds will be knocking on your door almost immediately. I guess that’s just urban legend to discourage lazy bad guys?

>>oasisb+E9
True, but not everybody is on trunked systems with channel-hopping. Especially in rural areas, you'll find plenty of systems that are just straight up analog on some VHF or UHF frequency. Generally, if you know the repeater offset and PL tone, you could - in principle - transmit on their system. Now doing so is a pretty Bad Idea for many reasons, but it's definitely technically possible in those places.