Secure radio system?

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LincolnMan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:49 pm

Secure radio system?

Post by LincolnMan »

I'm relatively new to radio programming, the question I have is if its possible to have a secure conventional repeater that someone cant come along with a ham ht and tamper with our repeater? We currently use a commercial repeater service and have a fleet of all types of radios, for mobiles we have:

2 Motorola Spectra's
1 Motorola Maxtrac
1 Motorola Maratrac

and these for portables:

a whole bunch of GE MPA-Scan's
a couple Motorola HT1000's
a couple Motorola Visar's

the problem we are having is for the past 4 years or so we have had this one mischivous ham operator who has programmed our repeater into his ham ht and yells profanities and racial slurs for hours at a time in the middle of the night.

All our radios are UHF. I have heard about some of the radios having encryption or things like that. Without moving to an LTR trunked system and changing all of our radios is there anything we can do with what we have to prevent people from tampering? We might be possibly replacing all the mobiles with Kenwood TK-880's soon if that makes a difference.
963Expert
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2002 4:13 am
Location: Metro area Arizona

Post by 963Expert »

How about using DPL on your repeater? Most ham rigs won't do the DPL and it's much harder for the novice to figure out. Especially if you have the repeater receive and transmit different DPLs, that makes it MUCH harder for them to figure out.

As I look at your radio list, most of them (if not all) are capable of DPL.

Just a thought, it would be much cheaper than a new system! Of course if a "True" hacker wanted into your system, then even going trunked wouldn't slow them down. Fully encrypted is expensive and provides a whole new bag of worms to your daily operations.

63Expert
Raymond156
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2003 3:51 pm

It CAn Be Done

Post by Raymond156 »

It it can be done.
All the radios you list are not up to
spec for what you want.

The city police spent 4 million to
get private.But as you may
have seen on other sites you
can still hear and READ what
is going on with most expensive
private system anyway.

IT COST BIG DOLLARS
TO KEEP OTHERS FROM
TRANSMITTING ON YOUR
CHANNEL.

.
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phrawg
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:55 pm
Location: Houston Tx.

Post by phrawg »

How do you KNOW it is a "mischiveous ham" ? could be a
employee. Do they take a radio at home ? Cheap way is to have
some form of ani put in all company radios. Then you can ID
inside your own company and if it is an outsider even if they
put an MDC or ani burst on to make it sound like yours, the chances
if the ID number being set to one of yours is nill and you will
be able to tell if it is employee or outsider. Dont tell employees
you are installing them Just "have the radios brought in for
some "service" or "updates", and have it done then.
Dont blame the hams yet. There are some rouges, but the
chances of it being inside are higher. Phrawg
BbBbzzZzzzzz..... ZAP! Gulp GOOOD Fly !
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