Interesting Traffic

[taco6513]

I went over to where my base station is set up. Turned on my radios and started scanning as I had a few minutes to burn.

Started hearing some unusual traffic on channel 6. The station was giving out what I thought was really personal information.

I was hearing: peoples names, dates of birth, health information, number of family members, car make and model with tag numbers.

I listened for a little bit. Scanned for the CTCSS or DCS tone. There was no tone found.

Contacted my local police department. Took my radio down to the PD and the Officer was also concerned about this type of

information being transmitted over an open channel. They began to investigate this.

I decided to key up with my call sign and try to contact the operators and get there purpose and company name.

It turned out to the the local food bank. They were IDing people to receive food. 

I advised the PD I was going down to talk to them about this. They said they were sending an officer as well.

I just told them that people as far away as 10 miles could here this information and that I was concerned about this type of 

information being sent over an open channel. They seemed a little confused on how I was listening to them.

They stopped using the radios and went to cell phones.

 

Just thought I would share this story. I guess that makes me the radio police or at least concerned enough to reach out.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

WRCW870

[marcspaz]

Wow! It's a good thing you got involved! Some people just ha e no clue how radios work. I know I would not be happy to hear potential PII of mine getting sent over the air.

[gortex2]

This happens more than people realize. 

[quarterwave]

I have heard this sort of thing a lot too, for years. People seem like don't have a clue as to how someone else would hear them on the little radios they bought at (insert store name here), even though it's a mass produced product. 

 

No one wants to read anything or ask...then they think it's "private". 

 

I have told the tale of a medical facility doing this locally where I am. It took me IDing a repeater every 15 minutes on the PL they were using to get them off of it. This was before the rules would actually allow a business on a main channel at 2 watts, which is a bad thing, now we can't tell who is legal and who is not on the mains, because if they don't ID, you can't tell if they are 2 watts or 5. Crazy world.