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A radio scanner or simply scanner is a radio receiver that can automatically Radio tuning discrete frequency, scanning over a frequency band to find a signal until the initial transmission ceases.
The term scanner generally refers to a communications receiver that is primarily intended for monitoring VHF and UHF landmobile radio systems, as opposed to, for instance, a receiver used to monitor international shortwave transmissions, although these may be classified as scanners too.
More often than not, these scanners can also tune to different types of modulation as well (AM, FM, SSB, etc.). Early scanners were slow, bulky, and expensive. Today, modern have enabled scanners to store thousands of channels and monitor hundreds of channels per second. Recent models can follow trunked radio systems and decode APCO-P25 Digital data transmissions. Both hand held and desktop models are available. Scanners are often used to monitor police, fire and emergency medical services. Radio scanning also serves an important role in the fields of journalism and crime, as well as a hobby for many people around the world.
Scanners first became popular and widely available during the popularity height of CB radio in the 1970s. The first scanners often had between four and ten channels and required the purchase of a separate crystal for each frequency received. A US patent was issued to Peter W. Pflasterer on June 1, 1976. Patent US3961261 - Crystalless scanning radio receiver patents.google.com. An early 1976 US entry was the Tennelec MCP-1, sold at the January 1976 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.
Some scanners are equipped with Fire-Tone out. Fire tone out decodes Quick Call type tones and acts as a pager when the correct sequence of tones is detected.
Modern scanners allow hundreds or thousands of frequencies to be entered via a keypad and stored in various "memory banks" and can scan at a rapid rate for activity due to modern .
Active frequencies can be found by searching the internet and frequency reference books or can be discovered through a programmable scanner's search function. Antenna modifications may be used. For example, an external antenna can be used for a desktop scanner or an extendable antenna for a hand held unit will provide greater performance than the original equipment "stock" antennas provided by manufacturers.
Many scanner clubs exist to allow members to share information about frequencies, codes, and operations. Many have internet presence, such as websites, email lists or web forums.
Until 2016, the Telekommunikationsgesetz only prohibited the act of listening to other classes of transmissions. This was broadened as a response to a decision of the Cologne Administrative Court, which in 2008 questioned whether the mere reception and decoding of aircraft transponder signals to display aircraft movements on a screen could be considered listening, as it lacks an acoustic element. This updated wording was carried over to the TTDSG in 2021.
Moreover, Section 11(2) of the Act states that "no person shall improperly divulge the purport of any message, communication, or signal sent or proposed to be sent by wireless telegraphy." The aforementioned exemption echoes this wording as a condition of use of covered receive-only apparatuses. No further information regarding the scope of this prohibition is provided.
The Airport Bye-Laws for the Cork Airport and the Dublin Airport specifically ban monitoring air traffic control or airport or airline operational frequencies with radio receiving or recording equipment.
A law passed by the Congress of the United States, under the pressure from cellular telephone interests, prohibited scanners sold after a certain date from receiving frequencies allocated to the Cellular Radio Service. The law was later amended to make it illegal to modify radios to receive those frequencies, and also to sell radios that could be easily modified to do so.FCC (1997-07-10). DA 97-1440: Manufacturing Illegal Scanners Includes Scanner Modification. Federal Communications Commission, 10 July 1997. Retrieved from http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Public_Notices/1997/da971440.txt. This law remains in effect even though no cellular subscribers still use analog signal technology. There are Canada and unblocked versions available, but these are illegal to import into the U.S. Frequencies used by early cordless phones at 43.720–44.480 MHz, 46.610–46.930 MHz, and 902.000–906.000 MHz can still be picked up by many commercially available scanners, however. The proliferation of scanners led most cordless phone manufacturers to produce cordless handsets operating on a more secure 2.4 GHz system using spread-spectrum technology. Certain states in the United States such as New York and Florida, prohibit the use of scanners in a vehicle unless the operator has a radio license issued from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (Amateur Radio, etc.) §397 Equipping motor vehicles with radio receiving sets or the operator's job requires the use of a scanner in a vehicle (e.g., police, fire, utilities). Many scanner user manuals include a warning saying that, while it is legal to listen to almost every transmission a scanner can receive, but there are some that persons should not intentionally listen to (such as telephone conversations, pager transmissions, or any scrambled or encrypted transmissions) under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and that modifications to do so are illegal.
In some parts of the United States, there are extra penalties for the possession of a scanner during a crime, and some states, such as Michigan, also prohibit the possession of a scanner by a person who has been convicted of a felony in the last five years.
It is illegal to use police scanners while driving in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, and Minnesota.
It is also illegal to use police scanners in furtherance of a crime in California, New Jersey, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Nebraska and West Virginia.
Many people including siren enthusiasts, aviation enthusiasts, and more use scanner audio or footage and post them online or live-stream them. Older people who are involved in these group (mainly siren enthusiasts) have said that putting siren activation tones in videos is either illegal or dangerous. Their reasoning is that in 2017 a very large siren system in Dallas, Texas had been hacked and all of the sirens in Dallas County went off in the middle of the night. According to some siren enthusiasts the hack was done by using a two-way radio and using a video online using activation tones from Dallas County's dispatch center. The hacker then transmitted the video with tones in it over the dispatch frequency which led to all of the sirens going off in Dallas. More of these hacks happened in places such as Cincinnati, Ohio, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and other cities. After this many siren enthusiasts stopped putting activation tones in videos so that they would not be used maliciously. A lot of arguments in the siren community have spun up after these hacks. Some enthusiasts began altering or pitch shifting tones so that they do not sound like the real activation tones and some still keep them in there, however they put a disclaimer in the description of the video saying they will not be held responsible for misuse of activation tones. The reason why activation tones are in videos in the first place is to alert the enthusiasts of when said siren is about to go off. With this being in mind, this is what some sources say about putting scanner audio in videos (including tones). Section 705 of the Communications Act States that: No person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any radio communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person. 47 U.S.C. § 605(a). The penalties for violating this section are severe: a fine of not more than $2000, imprisonment, or both or, where such violation is “willful" and for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private financial gain,” a fine of up to $50,000 and imprisonment of not more than two years for the first such conviction and up to $100,000 and five years for subsequent convictions. In addition, the statute provides for a private civil remedy to any person aggrieved by a violation of this section. The FCC regulations implementing this section more specifically provide those messages originated by “privately-owned non-broadcast stations . . . may be broadcast only upon receipt of prior permission from the non-broadcast licensee.” When people read this, they took it as putting scanner broadcasts online is illegal. This is not true because it only refers to the interception of broadcasts. This means it is still legal to put scanner audio in videos, but you cannot re-broadcast them over said frequency. Since most police, fire, EMS, and public safety frequencies are public and publicly available in the FCC Database, you can still put audio in videos no matter what the audio is.
In the United States, licensed amateur radio operators with a valid FCC license may possess amateur radio transceivers capable of reception beyond the amateur radio bands per an FCC Memorandum & Order known as FCC Docket PR91-36 (also known as FCC 93-410).FCC (1993-09-03). PR Docket 91-36: In the Matter of Federal Preemption of State and Local Laws Concerning Amateur Operator Use of Transceivers Capable of Reception Beyond Amateur Service Frequency Allocations—Memorandum Opinion and Order. Federal Communications Commission, 3 September 1993. Retrieved from http://www.arrl.org/files/file/pr91-36.pdf.A partial copy of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 can be found at http://floridalawfirm.com/privacy.html with the following disclaimer: "This document was originally published by Florida Law Firm in 1998. It is no longer current and should not be relied upon for any reason."
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