why can you buy police radios?
In: 1
as far as i understand those radios dont have anythnig special other than being pre tuned to be able ot link up inot those frequencies.
ni theory any capable radio should be able ot tap inot these frequencies if they actually know them.
The actual radio tech *generally* isn’t crazy(Save for some digital things but I’ll come back to those).
The basic analog radio isn’t really that advanced. The small barriers to stop just anyone from listening in are things like [Continuous Tone Squelch system.](https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Continuous_Tone-Coded_Squelch_System) In summary, the radio listens to a frequency, but only plays the audio from it if it receives a special signal, or knows what the signal is.
It’s not really encryption more like just only playing selected noise.
There’s other ways like transmitters automatically adding in white noise and then receivers being able to subtract that noise automatically but even then, not super advanced.
Plus, a lot of basic day to day police radio isn’t that interesting. For private matters they switch to cell phones, email, or other more secure forms, but on the air is basic stuff like locations or calls for service.
That’s for most analog radio.
Some users use digital since that can have actual encryption, not just “Mute everything that doesn’t play a special tone”. Those are harder to buy, may have more barriers like “for official sale only” or “not for export”, but even then having the radio doesn’t automatically mean it works. Codes get changed periodically.
a long time ago i caught my then across the street neighbor listening in on peoples wireless telephone calls, like everybody in the neighborhood was having their calls spied on
oh yea she was using the police scanner to do it
Why shouldn’t you be able to buy police radios? Airwaves are public property according to the law.
In the USA, listening in on any radio frequency is generally legal, as long as you aren’t broadcasting. This stems from the 1934 Radio Communications Act. Radio is inherently not a private medium.
If the police are communicating using non-encrypted/scrambled radios, then it is legal to listen in. Further, the radio technology traditionally used by the police or fire services is pretty similar to other kinds of radio like shortwave. It is very easy to design a radio receiver for these channels, and completely legal to make or buy one. Broadcasting on these channels on the other hand would be a crime, unless you are a first responder trained and authorized to operate the radio properly.
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