I've never interfered with any police transmissions. If I did, it was unintentional.
If he's never interfered then why make the second statement? He knows that he was transmitting on their frequency.
The interference contained audible clues that the transmissions were emanating from the Wytheville Wal-Mart.
In other words, he probably said "Wal-Mart" while he was talking on their frequency.
I had permission from management to use the Wal-Mart frequency
In other words, he modified his radio to transmit out of band and had a bunch of local frequencies stored in memory. He tried to talk to the Wal-Mart people and instead he transmitted on the PD frequency.
According to the search warrant, Alford's radio was capable of transmitting on the WPD system and thereby capable of interfering with law enforcement radio transmissions. It also states that Alford's equipment showed a transmission signature matching a signature from previous unlawful transmission recorded by the WPD.
"Transmitter fingerprinting" hasn't been around for a long time, but it works great.
The WPD and the WCSO (Wythe County Sheriff's Office) have investigated Mr. Alford's residence externally and found that radio transmissions are being emitted from the residence on the WPD and WCSO systems.
Busted!
Just listening on the frequency, he said, can cause static or squelch the signals.
Clueless non-ham for talking about static, clueless reporter for not knowing what squelch is. Yeah, receivers do emit a radio signal, but not on the receiving frequency and not powerful enough to interfere with anything beyond a few feet.
"Yeah, receivers do emit a radio signal, but not on the receiving frequency and not powerful enough to interfere with anything beyond a few feet."
Yup, back when I was a kid we used to modify our scanners so we could FM modulate the 10.7 if transmission...when you got close to a cop car they would hear what you were transmitting :-) usually we had it broadcasting what the car radio was tuned to.
Commercial FM stations use the same technique to see how many people passing by on the freeway are tuned to their station...they just listen 10.7mhz away from their frequency and if they hear a carrier that means another radio is tuned to their signal.
You can hold 2 fm radios close to one another and pick up the IF output from one on the other....just tune around and you will find it.
You can take a scanner to work and tune 10.7 away from the freq the boss's pager is at and use it as a 'Boss detector' :-) you will pick him up from 100' or so away.
Dope dealers have used pocket scanners scanning all the IF offsets the local cops use....if some plain clothes man comes near their scanner will pick up the IF output if they have a 2-way on them in recieve mode.
Is it possible that the AgencyPerson quoted about the alleged negative impact of scanners is simply trying to discourage scanner ownership?
As I remember, some of the Keystone Kops Kommunity don't want scanners in the hands of the public.
I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Very smart you are.
In fact, just to add more to that; I see information all over the net on how to convert your HTs to OOB operations -- "Freebanding" they call it. I can't for the life of me see why someone would want to do that as something like this is bound to happen sooner or later and you will end up in jail.
"Clueless non-ham for talking about static, clueless reporter for not knowing what squelch is. Yeah, receivers do emit a radio signal, but not on the receiving frequency and not powerful enough to interfere with anything beyond a few feet."
I had a neighbor accuse me of interfering with his TV by using my SWL reciever. I explained to him that it might be the guy down the street with the 1000w amp on his CB.
Shhhh.... You wanna get in trouble?!? You're not supposed to post reasonable comments on a designated JBT thread!
Guess who's names on the FCC license? Newberry the Public Safety Director LOL. I bet if skip rolled in their department would likely go all to pieces. I heard a local PD close to me with a patrolman and dispatcher on duty accuse each other of playing pranks. It was low band in the 45 MHZ range one summer afternoon. I heard on the scanner " This is a national alert. Be on the lookout for a woman 32 years of age 5'1" 125 pounds with long black hair" and then silence. Then I heard them saying did you do that? No did you? Stop playing around. They kept trying to figure it out finally I called them and said it was skip. Then they wanted to know who Skip was LOL. I thought seriously about hanging up and letting them go find him.
Yup. The reporter is clueless, but it sounds like this moron was interfering on the PD Freq, and already trying to cop a plea that it was unintentional.
Maybe, but messing around out of band is dumb. If he'd modified his radios to work for is fire work, he should have shown more caution, prudence and judgement in going near the fire channels. It must have been nasty and ongoing to motivate the cops to track him down.
Maybe the kids go hold of the radio; hard to say.