In United States federal law mandates that scanning radios have a portion of the 800mhz band blocked so folks can’t listen in on cellular telephone conversations, which transmit at this frequency. This law doesn’t protect anyones privacy because there are several ways to get a scanner to pick up those channels, but it’s still the law.
However, I noticed that scanners from Canada have the full 800 band, no gaps. So my question is: 1)Do cell phones transmit on that band in Canada and 2)If so, is it leagal there to listen in? If it’s not legal, why does the Canadian Government allow full coverage scanners to exist?
I though we had a few dopers who were cunucks (kunucks, canucks???spelling )
Maybe I should clarify. By scanning radio, I mean a police scanner. You know, the things you use to listen to police and fire department radio transmissions on. You can buy them every where, especially radio shack.
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pk, please stop bumping this thread. If people don’t know, they don’t know. -manhattan**
Have you ever got to listen to a cell phone conversation through one of these police scanners?
I’ve heard cell phone conversations quite often, and it has aggrivated the hell out of me.
Back when I went to college, I would listen to New Haven, CT Fire Dept. on the scanner in my dorm room. NHFD is up in the 800’s, (851.3125 and 851.0125, to be precise). Its a plain ol’ repeated system, not trunked, so a “regular” scanner can pick it up (as long as it has the 800 band). All night, starting around 4pm, you’d hear cell phones as their drivers zipped up and down Rte 95 and 91. The conversations were very tough to make out, but they were strong enough to overpower NHFD. All of the NHFD radios used a PL, but the scanner I had didn’t have a PL chip, so I couldn’t block out the cell phones.
And of course, the conversations would start just as they were giving the fire location or giving an update from the scene…very aggrivating.
What’s so strange about being able to buy 800MHz capable scanners? There are many products in the world which can be used in an illegal manner, and it’s hardly realistic to ban them all. The US banned them because they are more paranoid about invasion of privacy and less willing to put up with the inconvenience of finding non-cellular phones when making sensitive phone calls.
Besides, I’ve listened to phone calls a few times on a scanner, and can’t imagine anything more boring. And if someone REALLY wanted to listen in on YOUR conversation - say the FBI or a spy from China - then making those devices illegal will not stop them.