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Hi there! I'm the owner and operator of Broadcastify, which is the platform that powers all the apps that provide police scanners and public safety communications online. I'm an active HN reader and would be glad to answer any questions folks have. It's an interesting business to be in these days...
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Isn't police radio usually scrambled? It is where I am in Norway. It was legal to listen to it before it was scrambled though. Not sure if it's legal to de-scramble it, if it's at all possible. AFAIK you can still listen to the ambulance channel, though, but sometimes the details are ... grisly.
In the United States, no. Police, emergency, first responder radio transmissions are generally in the clear. I don't know the precise history of it, but I have always assumed it is a combination of legacy (emergency radio in the United States is very old, and predates cheap and convenient electronic encryption standards), compatibility (first responder funding and maintenance in the United States is generally a local…
My City Encrypts 100% communications including EMS, Fire, Police and Emergency repose, it is a stupid policy but...
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Encrypted_Agencies
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Is there a way to listen to the broadcasts in a web browser without Flash Player?
We’ve abandoned flash as our default player long ago in favor of html5 audio. I’m not sure why you’d be seeing flash as a default unless you previously set flash as your default player.
The other options below it seem to correctly default to HTML5, though, so I'm able to listen to RPD's radio chatter.
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I was investigating starting a small personalized Scanner app with an AI twist but found that you're no longer granting licensees for mobile app developers - basically stopping all innovation in this area. "The broadcastify audio feed catalog API is only available to approved licensees. We are currently not issuing addtional licenses to mobile device developers at this time. " Can you explain the rational here?
Yes, it's pretty simple. There has been a proliferation of apps that all do the same thing - front end our feeds, and so we're protecting the investment that our core partners have made to write apps. We are extremely plugged in to AI efforts that are occuring around the use of our feeds, and so we have a pulse on what is going to work and not going to work in those area. You are more than welcome to use the feeds to…
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I guess if you were to build a map of static cell towers, it would be easy to see if a new one suddenly pops up.
additional temporary "towers" are sometimes added when very high but transient network loads are anticipated (such as a music festival, or county fair, etc.). not all new towers are sniffers.
Your baseband (radio) might expose neighbour cell data - iPhone field test menu shows the announced neighbour data.
Hypothesis is that a rogue tower will not have valid neighbour cells announced. They could try listen in for valid ones and advertise those.
A lot of the ways to detect will depend on the generation of network being spoofed - 4G networks will also advertise signalling for legacy 2G and 3G circuit switched networks. Rogue sites might not.
Hi there! I'm the owner and operator of Broadcastify, which is the platform that powers all the apps that provide police scanners and public safety communications online. I'm an active HN reader and would be glad to answer any questions folks have. It's an interesting business to be in these days...
I remember as a young kid my family, and a few others, had police scanners. It was fairly interesting and you got a feel for which of your neighbors were trouble. A lot of my relatives were rural fire department volunteers so the scanners were a useful warning before the actual alarm page was sent out. I do remember one of my relatives drove out to pick up a cop on a back road when his cruiser died, or the night they…
> which of your neighbors were trouble Or which of your neighbors the ruling class want to destroy/subjugate, as we have seen recently.
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Don't you need at least 2 to track trunked systems?
It is helpful, but not necessary. I am listening in on Seattle's trunked radio system with just one, and I get most of the comms. I documented my setup here: https://dantler.us/seattle-police-scanner/
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Well, this is a couple decades ago - so the play-by-play is a bit lost, one cop at a locally infamous speed trap after dark started seeing a light in the woods near the road. He reported it over the radio, and speculated it might be someone spotlighting deer. Hunting deer at night is very, very illegal as the deer freeze when the light is shined at them. He didn't hear shots, but was understandably reluctant to pursu…
> Hunting deer at night is very, very illegal as the deer freeze when the light is shined at them. Is that really the rationale? I would think risk of accidentally harming humans or property would significantly increase at night.
I haven't done the work to sign up at Broadcastify, but if you're in Durham NC and want to listen hit http://home.tinfig.com:9999 with VLC (or mplayer or whatever you like). It's an HTTP+Ogg+Opus stream from my BCD536HP. It's scanning the local P25 trunked radio system (Durham police, fire, EMS, ops, etc.). P.S. As I write this I'm hearing chatter about responding to an airplane crash... no more details yet.
Will you have a chance to write up anything further about your setup?
My radio has a WiFi interface, but it's weird and unreliable (only supports RTSP, 401s if the requested host isn't its internal IP, crashes after 12 hours, etc). So I just use a short analog audio cable instead.