[USNBandit]

I do land mobile radio for a government agency and even if these repeaters weren't hooked into a network it would still give cartel operatives a lot of capability on a local level.

For those of you not familiar. A repeater is a radio device that takes in comms from one radio and then rebroadcasts it out for other radios to receive. Each repeater channel on your radio transmits on one frequency and then receives on another. What this means is that instead of having to have line of sight with each guy holding a radio, you just have to have line of sight with the repeater, which is normally positioned on the top of a mountain, building, or antenna.

It gets a lot more complex, but you can use some type of connectivity to hook repeaters together as well. This would be something your local and state police would have.

[USNBandit]

One comment I would make is that the number of repeater systems seized is quite amazing, especially if that was just along the Texas border. I would be surprised if DHS has that many repeaters along that stretch of the border.

[Calamari]

It gets a lot more complex, but you can use some type of connectivity to hook repeaters together as well. This would be something your local and state police would have.

And your local HAMS (Federally Licensed Amateur Radio Operators)

[Lurker]

We sell an application that can turn a particular brand of digital radio into an extension on a PBX complete with SMS capability, all with 256 bit encryption. And it works over repeater networks.

If you weren’t specifically looking for that kind of signal you’d never find it.