TV lets you listen to local police?

This is off topic so beware...

For a couple of years now Ive noticed cable TV's doing strange things. Strange because I dont' know how cable TV works. For instance when a cordless phone rings, certain channels flicker. And today while I was sitting in my dorm room, it sounded like I was intercepting CB radio from the local Police department. On channel 13 i held the coaxial cable half way off of the plug, just enough to blur the channel. I then listened to all sorts of things. "A white truck with a license place XXX-XXX seems to have a stolen trailer"

Now why are TV's doing this and where can I read more about it?

cheers

Interesting.

<Off topic too>

I know with this "racing" scanner I have that I can pick up telephone calls all throught my neighborhood because it has the capability to pick up the 900 mhz ranges. Makes me wanna go back out and buy an old style corded phone; I believe they operate at a much lower frequency like 30's and 40's (don't quote me on that). Maybe this is why the President never uses cordless phones?

Yes, this is a very fun way to play pranks and also get yourself arrested if caught. TVs work on channels, kinda like your cordless phone does. Well, when you get just the right channels mixed together, you can listen to the phone calls. I used to listen in on convorsations when I was bored by tuning the TV to one channel, and hop around other channels on the phone untill I could hear people. You can also use police scanners to pick up cell phone calls, and cordless phone calls. Now this can be bad:

Whenever you are talking to someone, for example a credit card company, or entering in your credit card numbers or social security numbers, DO NOT use a cordless phone, or cell phone. Also, if you can, use a rotary phone for these things. Radio shack cells a device that will alow you to basically hook up to a phone, or use with a phone, and when it hears the tones the phone makes with the buttons you push, it will reveal the numbers.

Also, know that they dont need this to listen in, or get numbers. I myself can pick out the tones. I got really good at that. I can usually tell what someone is dialing into a phone just by hearing the tones. *heh and they say phreaking is dead, bitches.*

Anyway, let this experiance be a lesson in security, and privacy; You CAN be listened too. Also you can usually set up a tape recorder and record what people say on phones. I'm NOT going to sit and explain to you how to do it, but if you can figure it out, super for you, go work at the phone company.

Also, playing with certain tones made by...I think the silver box or green box, will also open lines up on your house. DO NOT do this unless its an emergency, at least then the cop showing up to arrest you can help you with the problem. Also, payphones can be used against you too. Dont ever say something you dont want someone hearing over a pay phone. Taking the mouth peice apart and addingg a small recorder is fairly easy. Also, BEFORE you use a payphone, check the coin slot.

I'v had no money before too and needed some, and stuffing up the coin return slot so people cant get money back, while you go back and empty it nightly gets you a pack of smokes, a mountain dew, and a meal at Burger King :) lol Just playing, dont do that.

Also, check your phone bill every month. Look for strange calls you didnt make, especially if you work in a business, those pay phones outside your office are easy as hell to rip off. Also check around your phone lines and see if anyone has tried tampering with them. A lineman's handset is easy to make, steal and or buy, it also can make YOU pay for someone's phone calls.

That is some very good advice Gore and a good way to get something to eat when you are flat broke :D

...and if you've ever played electric guitar, and the cord gets frayed or loose, or you just
touch the tip of the connector to the amp, you can hear all sorts of unpredictable stuff.

Cheap thrills can be had with any unshielded electronic device.

http://www.funhouse.com/jfw/rfi.html
:cool:

**** yea@!!@!$@!#$

Me and my best friend used to hook up his half stack and **** around. Man we were trashed one day, and started hearing like, Italian radio or something. Lol.

I fidn that Cordless phones operate between 850-950 mhz. I can listen into all sorts of calls on my scanner.

The police band I think is somewhere from 20-60 mhz.

i used to have an old cordless phone that could do this as well. I would just umplug the phone cord from the phone, and turn on the phone. After a few secs of silence, it would get staticy and you could then hit the channel button and scan all the different channels and listen to any one around that might be using that particular channel. Pretty scary stuff in terms of privacy, sometimes I could even speak to the people I was listening to, othertimes I could just hear one side of the convo.

Honestly guys... I heard some phone sex on my scanner one time. Pretty scary stuff.

Even people ordering products disclosing credit card numbers and everything. I would take gores advice and not do those sorts of activities via a cordless phone.

Just to add to the tech info Gore posted..

All televisions recieve their information via Radio Signals.. aka Radio Frequencies - RF.. Police radio uses Radio frequency transmissions .. Normal "Free to Air" televisions are locked into prescribed Band limits ie in Aussi.. ch0 - 2 (46Mhz-69Mhz) Ch5a-11 (138Mhz-220Mhz) Ch 28-69 (527Mhz-820Mhz).. With other Radio services slotted inbetween the TV Band assignments. Now Cable TV (the Common USA Type) uses a Coaxial Cable to Ship the whole box and dice.. the channels are renumbered but the RF channels used span the whole 46Mhz- 900mhz..

So with a little careful tuning of the Cable decoder bingo direct hit on one or two active radio channels... with out the ability to finetune the reciever a trick would be to use some other radio device to "mix" with the incomming signal to bring it into range of the reciever.. pow the use of cordless phones etc ..

And as for privacy.. Any method of communication is not 100% private.. it is the level of dificulty of retrieving the information that varies...

Cheers

So Gore you know lots about phone phreaking. thats cool, i always wanted to try it. ive never got the time to though. i admire people like you, keep up the good work

Thanks. Yea I'm into phreaking, not as much as I was but I still have that urge with the phone company, lol. It's fun :)

I live in a dorm too, and we can get some cool stuff through our TVs sometimes. The guys in the room next to me hate me because we get like 50 channels and they get *one* radio station and that's it.....you get a decent picture of the news guy but you hear a rock station. One day a guy was messin with the antenna and I don't remember what station the TV was on but we picked up some kind of conversation.....don't know if it was a phone or CB radio or what, but I thought it was cool. I just wish I had enough time and freedom to play around with stuff like that.....maybe when I have a car and less school. (I'm taking 17 hours and work 12 hours a week....not too bad but the homework sux.)