My question has to do with commercial 2-way radios like the ones they show on Reality TV.
I was watching TV the other night, flipping through the cable channels, and I came upon a TV show called “Catch A Contractor”. Essentially, the show finds the contractor who did a bad job, tricks them into going to a “sting house” and then
surprises them with 5-6 camera crews, a security team, etc et al to confront them about it.
The premise is that they threaten to follow, film and harass the contractor… possibly even helping the homeowner sue, until the contractor agrees to the producer’s terms. Granted this show opens about 10 subjects I’d love to ask about in terms
of the legality of this sort of harassment, but for the sake of brevity lets stick to just one for now: the commercial 2-way radios all their teams seem to have and use.
The show makes a big deal about having chase cars & mobile camera teams, all with these radios, following the contractor with “eyes on” and broadcasting on an arranged frequency the team is set to. Each of the 5-6 teams has a radio set to that
one frequency and is getting orders relating updates of status, position, problems, etc, via these radios. The show seems to have 2-3 outside mobile camera teams, hurdling fences, hedges, and slow moving dogs all to find cover and good camera
position while hiding in bushes. It seems to have 2-3 inside teams setting up between rooms for different camera shots and coordinating with security for the confrontation… and it seems to have 2-3 chase cars broadcasting the position of the
contractor’s car/truck. Given that its such a large group of mobile users, I guess cell phones wouldn’t work (or maybe its just better for TV).
Assuming (cue: uh-oh, I’m in trouble already) that CB only has 40 channels… what would keep a contractor with a CB radio scanner from hearing the whole thing and being scared off? Technically, wouldn’t anyone with a CB radio scanner be able to
hear everything going on and be in on the whole set up? Do they broadcast on channels other than the available 40 like police and fire bands? Lastly, are there scanners like police band scanners that technically could listen in to the teams which are
setting up the “sting”?
Be more specific about the radios. A very common form of “2 way radio” is actually just a cell phone, and when you press the button and talk, it communicates with the cellular tower, relaying what you just said as a series of digital transmission frames containing compressed data of your voice.
It depends on the era, and which codes are in use, and so on - some of those digital methods are crackable or have been cracked, so someone could theoretically listen in, but in practice they would have to have special software and equipment that almost no one has.
They are encrypted, digital, and are not communicating on the CB band. You’d need something like a software defined radio, some illegal firmware, and special GSM decryption software.
The police have this kind of equipment - a “stingray” is one of them, but it’s some high end stuff, and even admitting it exists is a big deal.
It’s also quite likely that they stage a lot of the shots, especially those that don’t include the victim. This is pretty standard for “Gotcha!” type reality shows. So they may just be driving around with scripts and yelling into the radios, with no one on the other end.
But what’s up with them hurdling hedges and fences? Whose hedges and fences? I thought they just called the contractor to get him to show up at a house to bid on a new job. Are they actually running around other people’s back yards, i.e. trespassing?
And why do they need a security team? I see that at least one contractor sued them for false imprisonment - sounds like they at least imply the contractor isn’t allowed to leave unless he agrees to be on the show?
The frequency spectrum (PDF) is a whole lot more complicated than 40 CB channels. And when you throw digital into the mix, it would be difficult for a novice to intercept specific transmissions even if you knew someone was transmitting in the area.
Partly for show, I"m sure, but I expect that they legitimately have to worry that an angry contractor might literally throw a monkey wrench into their plans.
It seems unlikely that they’d be using CB radios. Those handheld CBs have a range of maybe a mile, though in my experience it’s a lot less. Walkie talkies have that much range and can be had for $20 a pair.
Doubtful they’re using CB, and the Harris Stingray is primarily, if not entirely, a tool for intercepting cellular phones.
More likely, they’re using commercial UHF or VHF radios, many of which have digital privacy features. As one example, Motorola’s DGP8050 can use 1,000 channels and scrambling is built in. Your scanner may be able to spot a one or two second transmission, but good luck on sorting out the encryption.
For mostly secure communications on the cheap, if you’re NOT near water, use radios tuned to the marine band. Triton radios are easy to install in a vehicle, and there are handhelds you can have mb crystals installed in.
How do the laws on this work? The word “marine band” implies some kind of regulation. Otherwise, you’d think that on the high seas, mariners would use CB radios for the same reason.
A side note about all these reality shows: Absolutely everybody you see on screen MUST sign a release form to allow it to be shown. So even these guys caught in a sting and made to look horrible have given their permission for the thing to air. The sting may have been legitimately surprising, but it could have been staged, or they might have even just hired actors and scripted the entire thing (thus no reason to worry about listening in to the radios). Chances are good said contractor guy got paid one way or another for being on the show (tho don’t bet on being paid very much. I was on Blind Date and got $100 and free booze and dinner for like 6hrs of being around a snobby bitch)
You actually have to get a marine utility station license from the FCC to use a marine band radio on land, and you can only get it if you provide services for boats, like if you’re drawbridge operator or marina). On the high seas, an FM marine band radio is far superior to a CB radio.
Scanning for radio broadcasts is one of the most legitimate kinds of ‘hacking’ you can do (even if you can call it that) and it is usually legal, easy and cheap. I got a $100 broad band scanner from Radio Shack so that I could listen to aviation frequencies as part of flight training but I was amazed at what it would pick up when I took it home and hit the scan button in my apartment building at the time. It not only picked up police, fire, CB and some odd frequencies like taxi dispatchers and government frequencies, it also picked up cordless phone conversations quite well from within the building. The first time it picked up one of those, it took me a few seconds to realize what I was hearing but it wasn’t something they wanted people to be listening to casually (it was a neighbor having a fight with her lover about their affair). I quickly hit the scan button to move on and stayed away from that band by programming it to skip that band but the capability is (or at least was) there for anyone.
The short answer to your question is usually nothing stops other people from listening other than the fact that there are so many frequencies that people that have a specific need for scanners only program them to scan a small band of them and most people don’t have either the scanner or the interest. They are popular among volunteer firefighters and EMT’s in small towns that use them to get real-time information about unfolding events.
Doubtful they use CBs. There’s a lot of commercial radios of various ranges and frequencies, ranging from “across Walmart” to “across town”. Everyone from Walmart to the Utility company uses them, as well as the police and dogcatcher. In my area the police are (mostly) non-encrypted, but on a digital trunking system so it takes an expensive scanner and some knowledge, but most business radios are just plain analog so anything can pick it up. If the TV show is really paranoid they can use digital encryption or cell phones, but as another poster pointed out, contractors, bad or otherwise, typically don’t sit around listening to scanners. If they use radios it’s programmed to the specific frequencies they’re licensed for.
It’s exactly what you asked and what I was thinking the whole time I was reading the OP. Think about it, if you were bad at your job or scamming people, would you carry abound a CB/walkie talkie/police scanner set up to intercept cell phone signals just to see if people were trying to set you up to be on a TV show catching you doing shoddy work? I wouldn’t.
Think about it. There must be a few times in your life that you’ve been driving somewhere that you didn’t want someone else to know about. As innocent as picking up a gift for someone or as guilty as cheating on your SO. Did it ever cross your mind that you should go buy a CB radio because there might be camera crews in the bushes…no, you didn’t even consider that there would be people watching you, in all likelihood they’re not.
[QUOTE=Tom Tildrum]
Partly for show, I"m sure, but I expect that they legitimately have to worry that an angry contractor might literally throw a monkey wrench into their plans.
[/QUOTE]
Probably not literally. Its the plumbers that have wrenches; contractors are more likely to throw their hammer.