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radios cannot be permitted to listen on frequencies reserved for cell phones Is this true ? I've never heard of the FCC restricting receivers before. You don'

by tgflynn 11y ago

radios cannot be permitted to listen on frequencies reserved for cell phones Is this true ? I've never heard of the FCC restricting receivers before. You don't need a license to buy or operate a HAM receiver.

la_fig_fontaine 11y ago
> You don't need a license to buy or operate a HAM receiver. Why have you capitalised ham? What are you under the impression it stands for? Are you also one of those people that capitalises JAVA? What goes through the heads of people like you?
- mtrpcic 11y ago
  It's not crazy to assume that "ham" from "ham radio" would be an acronym for something. You're being needlessly confrontational because of a misunderstanding on the internet.
- huehehue 11y ago
  Many people capitalize HAM. Probably comes from a number of proposed origins [0]. No need to make a big deal of it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio
- tgflynn 11y ago
  Honestly I don't know what was "going through my head". I think most letter case decisions are handled by my brain below the threshold of conscious awareness. I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over trivialities in my online comments that are completely irrelevant to my question or point.
  - Chlorus 11y ago
    Perhaps you have Amiga on the brain :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    This is needlessly abusive.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  It's a reasonably-common capitalization.
lexicalscope 11y ago
Depends on the licensing/certification of the device - for consumer equipment (particularly scanners) it's required, for certain experimental and test equipment it is not. EDIT: I think this happened in 1994 - google "cell blocked" scanner and you'll find stuff on it. Edit Again: Here's a QRZ thread on it: http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/why-are-ham-radios-scanners-cellular-blocked.225767/ http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/why-are-ham-radios-s...
aqwwe 11y ago
I don't know if it is true, but I think that many commercial receivers that you can buy nowadays don't allow you to listen to those frequencies
JoshTriplett 11y ago
This is ancient, dating back to when cell phones didn't use encryption. As opposed to today, when many of them still use fundamentally broken encryption like A5/1 and A5/2, other than the ones doing something vaguely sensible like VoLTE. (Though I haven't heard anything about the ban on such devices being lifted.) But in general, "you can't listen to this frequency" is completely crazy; "listen all you like but you won't get anything useful" makes more sense (along with "don't broadcast on this frequency above this power without a license").
ThinkingGuy 11y ago
Listening to the the cell frequencies, selling a device capabable of listening to them, or modifying a device to enable listening to them, has been illegal in the US for years: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/xml/CFR-2010-title47-vol1-sec15-121.xml http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/xml/CFR-2... The law dates back to the days when cell phone tranmissions were analog and could be picked up with a consumer-grade police scanner. As I recall, it was passed soon after an incident where a congressman's conversation with his mistress was picked up and publicized, but I don't have a authoritative source for that. Even with modern phones being digital and encrypted, the law remains in effect.
- tgflynn 11y ago
  The regulation you linked to appears to date to 2010, long after analog phones had been replaced. 18 U.S.C. 2512 may be older but I wonder why such a regulation would have been issued so recently. Also if this regulation is intended to implement 18 U.S.C. 2512 it appears to be broader in scope than that law. The law only prohibits devices that are "primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications". The regulation on the other hand restricts scanners that are capable of receiving such communications. I don't see how a broadband scanner that includes cell phone frequencies along with other bands could be considered to be "primarily useful" for intercepting cell phone communications.

by tgflynn 11y ago

la_fig_fontaine 11y ago

> You don't need a license to buy or operate a HAM receiver. Why have you capitalised ham? What are you under the impression it stands for? Are you also one of those people that capitalises JAVA? What goes through the heads of people like you?

mtrpcic 11y ago
It's not crazy to assume that "ham" from "ham radio" would be an acronym for something. You're being needlessly confrontational because of a misunderstanding on the internet.
huehehue 11y ago
Many people capitalize HAM. Probably comes from a number of proposed origins [0]. No need to make a big deal of it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio
tgflynn 11y ago
Honestly I don't know what was "going through my head". I think most letter case decisions are handled by my brain below the threshold of conscious awareness. I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over trivialities in my online comments that are completely irrelevant to my question or point.
- Chlorus 11y ago
  Perhaps you have Amiga on the brain :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify
- cbd1984 11y ago
  This is needlessly abusive.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
It's a reasonably-common capitalization.

lexicalscope 11y ago

Depends on the licensing/certification of the device - for consumer equipment (particularly scanners) it's required, for certain experimental and test equipment it is not. EDIT: I think this happened in 1994 - google "cell blocked" scanner and you'll find stuff on it. Edit Again: Here's a QRZ thread on it: http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/why-are-ham-radios-scanners-cellular-blocked.225767/ http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/why-are-ham-radios-s...

aqwwe 11y ago

I don't know if it is true, but I think that many commercial receivers that you can buy nowadays don't allow you to listen to those frequencies

JoshTriplett 11y ago

This is ancient, dating back to when cell phones didn't use encryption. As opposed to today, when many of them still use fundamentally broken encryption like A5/1 and A5/2, other than the ones doing something vaguely sensible like VoLTE. (Though I haven't heard anything about the ban on such devices being lifted.) But in general, "you can't listen to this frequency" is completely crazy; "listen all you like but you won't get anything useful" makes more sense (along with "don't broadcast on this frequency above this power without a license").

ThinkingGuy 11y ago

Listening to the the cell frequencies, selling a device capabable of listening to them, or modifying a device to enable listening to them, has been illegal in the US for years: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/xml/CFR-2010-title47-vol1-sec15-121.xml http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/xml/CFR-2... The law dates back to the days when cell phone tranmissions were analog and could be picked up with a consumer-grade police scanner. As I recall, it was passed soon after an incident where a congressman's conversation with his mistress was picked up and publicized, but I don't have a authoritative source for that. Even with modern phones being digital and encrypted, the law remains in effect.

tgflynn 11y ago
The regulation you linked to appears to date to 2010, long after analog phones had been replaced. 18 U.S.C. 2512 may be older but I wonder why such a regulation would have been issued so recently. Also if this regulation is intended to implement 18 U.S.C. 2512 it appears to be broader in scope than that law. The law only prohibits devices that are "primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications". The regulation on the other hand restricts scanners that are capable of receiving such communications. I don't see how a broadband scanner that includes cell phone frequencies along with other bands could be considered to be "primarily useful" for intercepting cell phone communications.