OT: What can you "do" with your radio?

Renamon · Post by **Renamon** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:35 pm

I was at my local arcade earlier today with my brother and I discovered somthing (sorta) awsome: I can "turn on" or insert credits into some of the games by keying my radio, lol.

For instance, if I key the radio 3 times, I get 3 credits...

XTS5K on 151.76 using Pre-MDC...

What have you discovered that you can do with your radio (besides the obvious...)

mr.syntrx · Post by **mr.syntrx** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:43 pm

Not my radio, but one of my mates can set off EAS systems in some stores with his Vertex VX-900 on 163MHz.

Threeshot223 · Post by **Threeshot223** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 12:22 am

Computer monitors make wavy lines if I key up my XTS3K in the same room.

AEC · Post by **AEC** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:17 am

I can make ATMs spit out paper receipts with my Saber III on 15x.xxxx.
Thanks to the lone machine at a Denny's in ..............., AZ.

Also video games love to reset under any high level of RF close to the processor boards.

Too many things are easily reset....can't delve into all of them now, can I?

RF is FUN!

*Go ahead, make my fluorescent light go on*

Enterprize, ....One to beam up!

Post by **akardam** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:10 am

I remember once upon a time when I was in a server room working on a Dell 2U rackmounted server. I had it out of the rack sitting on the bench, and my work bag was sitting next to it. I reached over and keyed up my MT2000 to kerchunk the local repeater, and the server immediately rebooted itself. The funny thing is the server chassis wasn't even open... guess it got just a little too much RF in a sensitive spot. Oh well :)

Amongst other things, my 110w lowband in the truck will set off car alarms, and my base in the house will make my speakers buzz if I set it to high power.

N4KVE · Post by **N4KVE** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:58 am

Here in Florida we have SUNPASS for the toll roads. Put it on the windshield & it debits your account when you go through the toll plaza. No coins to toss. If I key up my 900 MHZ MTX 8000 as I was passing through the plaza no $ would be deducted from my account. No warning letters either. GARY N4KVE

sbkeith · Post by **sbkeith** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 8:54 am

Now this interests me... What freq? Trunking? Conventional?

Post by **alex** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:44 am

McDonalds drive throughs that have LCD's screens - 110w on VHF.... That'll send most of the order window's terminals completly out of wack...

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:07 am

alex wrote:McDonalds drive throughs that have LCD's screens - 110w on VHF.... That'll send most of the order window's terminals completly out of wack...

HAHA! Hardee's too here. They have that order screen on the squak box. I was sitting there one day waiting for the total when a friend gave me a shout on 2m, 100w with the X9000 and the screen was dancing.

VA3XDJ · Post by **VA3XDJ** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:37 pm

Using my GP300 while on patrol, I could set off IR motion sensor lighting equipment several feet outside of the zone.

Also, I used to keep my AMPS phone near my walkman/discman as the RF would alert me to a call without disturbing anyone else. In the case of the walkman, it would actual bring the pitch down.

The worse, however, has to be when I'm using an HT with a few watts near my subwoofer...

Mike

jmr3865 · Post by **jmr3865** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 2:39 pm

my radio will buzz a few seconds before my cell phone rings. I love it when i go to pick it up before it rings in front of people. they think I'm nuts!

JAYMZ · Post by **JAYMZ** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 7:03 pm

Way back when... I was working on the road for an Ambulance company.. there was one hospital that had a few nurses that would go out of their way to piss in our wheaties. So we would wait for the coldest day of winter and key the 110 watt Maratrac in the rig and open the doors to the ER. From 25 feet away. The nice thing about it was... the nurse's station was right inside the door, but the main patient area was far enough away that it wouldn't affect them.

2nd one... Key the lowband radio on the tanker truck for my fire department while inside and with the door closed and it trips the plectron for the siren on the firehouse.

wa2zdy · Post by **wa2zdy** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:39 am

Oh yeah, opening "automatic" doors and setting off the whole parking lot of car alarms as you drive through slowly . . . those are the best!

wazzzzzzzzup · Post by **wazzzzzzzzup** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 5:49 am

10 years ago i had numerous opportunities to ride some small monorails at a major airport, on several occasions they would shut down mid route, while i was riding them...then maint. would get involved quick to get the monorail moving again or help ppl to exit. what it was...was my UHF HT600 keyed near the control box would shut it down. the odd thing was, for a while the airport had maint. guys stationed on each monorail and they sat next to the control box with 800Meg radios, and the 800Meg keyed up never shut it down hmm.

thats my story.

wazz

jim · Post by **jim** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 8:59 pm

Try the quarter car washes. Each time you key up my 70W lowband radio, it puts $0.25 on the clock. Key it up about 15 times and you get over 10 minutes of wash time. I even went as far as programming a "car wash frequency" in the radio. Key up while in the wash bay, but use one toward the end as if you do it too close to the utility building, you can set off the alarm!

Renamon · Post by **Renamon** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 11:30 pm

LOL - ROFL, these are awsome...

I tried the McDonalds thing, but I guess I dont have enough power, even from 2 inches away from the screen...

GP-38 · Post by **GP-38** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 1:44 am

Our crew van has a Kenwood mobile in it, not sure which model or how many watts, but transmitting in the parking lot on any channel (railroad band) makes the customer detector at 7-Eleven go ding, ding, ding with each click of the mic. They've said Winston PD likes to do that, too.

You know those new solid-state electronic crossing "bells" that are showing up on grade crossings? I discovered that keying the locomotive radio (AAR Spectra) while stopped near the crossing silences them for the duration of transmitting.

In the dispatch office is a CPI MCR320 tone remote for the tower on Mt. Rose. Holding the antenna on our issue HT1000's over the speaker and keying up changes the channel on the dispatch radio. Keying up my Systems Saber III over the thing makes it generate speedcall DTMF!

One trick that's really funny but bends the rules is transmitting over defect detectors, particularly two of them. Once makes the voice sound like Sylvester, you wait for the spit to fly. Twice makes it all fuzzy and barely audible. Do it a bunch of times and it will quit talking altogether. Nice for the ones that repeat the full deal, milepost, train speed, defects, total axles, train length, ambient temperature, and safety message...twice.

This is all in the 160-161 range.

Rayjk110 · Post by **Rayjk110** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:40 pm

Heh, sorry for bringing up an old thread, but...

While at the mall earilier today with an HT1000 of mine, when I was talking on the local 440 repeater in RadioShack (some guy on the radio heard I was there, and wanted me to check a sale price on something) the radio would set off the alarms at the front of the store, as if someone had took something. Also it would set off the little bell that would go off in the back of the store where the stocking room door is if an employee enters it.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:31 pm

Since this is back up and I didn't see it previously....

My currently 22+ year old Sampo television set at home (has a push on/off/ volume knob) with 5 watts on VHF near the controls will shut off, and then turn back on when the radio transmits again... typically on 16x.xxxx frequencies.....

back in the summer of 2001, I was up north at my aunt's friend's house for a visit and was showing off how my radio could turn tv's off and on again to her son, next to his newer model tv set untilizing on/off momentary buttons... well, the tv turned off, but it NEVER came back on again.... even after trying every troubleshooting measure we could think of. Neither me nor my aunt's friend's son told his mom that it was my radio that ruined that fairly new, nice television set.... oops!!

-josh

ffexpCP · Post by **ffexpCP** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:08 am

I fried my tv too. I was inside watching the picture while a buddy of mine was outside changing splitters to find out where the problem was. We were using my MURS radios and I keyed up next to the tv and it just quit. It was dead. I tore it apart to look for a fuse or somthing else- nothing. I put it back together and it still didn't work. I came back a few hours later to try it again and it worked like new. Weird.

My MURS on 154.600 make my Minitor II 154.37 alert as well.

M1225 · Post by **M1225** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:55 am

I have some old GE Hts and they do light a fluorescent tube up no problem

Rayjk110 · Post by **Rayjk110** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:25 pm

Eh, a couple weeks ago I hooked up a CB in the house to a horizontal HF antenna in the attic tuned to the band, more for SSB/DX work, keyed up on 19 at 4watts and all the lights downstairs dimmed and the voice was heard from the TV and Compuer speakers......

Post by **Grog** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:28 pm

On my old fire dept, I could hold the HT next to the shinwa pagers (that actually worked very well), key the mic, the make it go off. It was fun for walking behind another FF in the store and making him check his pager for a call

Radio_Cowboy · Post by **Radio_Cowboy** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:44 pm

I work at a large semiconductor facility, and if we key up our 1/2 watt TK-480's or HTX-582's near some of the toolsets inside the fab, the tools abort and shut themselves off. Not so good when there is product running!

-RC-

radiokid · Post by **radiokid** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:46 am

Yesterday, I was programing a 100 watt AS 3. I key it up on low power(41 watts) and the UPS in the other room acutally resets and acts like it has no AC power. It does that until you unkey. Bad RF filtering aparenlty. The same radio also shut down the programming computer in the same room.

Power=Fun.

Radio Kid

Rayjk110 · Post by **Rayjk110** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:33 am

A 100Watt AS3??

radiokid · Post by **radiokid** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:41 am

Astro Spectra W3, sorry for confusion

Radio Kid

mmtstc · Post by **mmtstc** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:46 am

Our 110w spectras and mcs2k's are excellent at making garage doors spontaneously break, but that it typically because they come down on top of our ambulances when new employees key the mic while exting the garages at fire stations.

George · Post by **George** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:31 pm

I used to visit the Mobil station in Hershey, PA, down the street from the chocolate plant and key up with my VHF X9000 in the parking lot. It would shut down their gas pumps until a manager came in and reset the system. It got to the point where they were looking for me to be doing that and finally I started using my portable throught the VRS to do that. They didn't see me, so they couldn't blame me.

Also, in my old building, I could key my low band X9000 on 29.600 and make the parking ramp access gates go up and stay up. Normally it was card access but I was too lazy to use my access card.

George

Renamon · Post by **Renamon** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:43 am

Lol, I can't believe this topic is still here. Yay — I needed a laugh before work.

mmckenna · Post by **mmckenna** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 10:43 am

This is so wrong...

We were recently having public hearings regarding a micro cell network that was being installed at the university I work for. There was this one lady that loved to come and cause problems. She would bring all these strange "studies" linking RF to health hazzards (really?).

Anyway, she had this little box she would carry with her that would make beeping noises when in the presence of RF. She would use it to show that we were all being nuked. She would freak out every time it beeped. (she was a real nut case).

Anyway, one meeting, my co-worker and I found ourselves sitting a few rows behind her. We would randomly key up our 800meg MTS-2000s to make her box go nuts.
She would dang near jump out of her seat every time and start yelling.

We had our fun, then stopped before we were figured out....

Like I said, so wrong.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:10 am

This is a fun thread, i like reading through stuff like this, makes me wonder how poorly shielded most of the newer electronics being sold are.

I come across one the other day that was a bit odd, i was standing in the local corner mart/gas station with the HT, Yaesu VX7R, and i said hi to a friend of mine on VHF, only 5w high power, and the display mounted on the Powerball machine went nuts. It's the scrolling LED display that shows the jackpot and previous winning numbers. Must have been the rf getting into the controller because it started spitting out random characters and garbling the intended message. Then as suddenly as it happened it stopped as i moved forward in line. I had to stand in just the right spot to affect it. It appears that this small display has a cable that goes to the main unit, my guess is varying cable length based on where the store puts it will change its behavior with strong rf nearby.

Bruce1807 · Post by **Bruce1807** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:02 pm

Sort of on topic
One of my bosses was a addicted to gambling on the horses.
I used to put the service monitor on the radio station he was listening to.
And there comming round the corner and her come big horse,
big horse is passing every one, he might win
Hisssssssssssssssssssssssss!

man that was fun watching him bang and try and tune his radio but boy it was hard to keep a straight face when he looked into the shop.
I'd keep it going for 5 minutes so he would completely miss the result.
and get ready for the next race.

RADIOMAN2002 · Post by **RADIOMAN2002** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:37 am

I think this thread is hilarious. Now some of my fun things, back when some cars were getting the first generation of Power Control Computers, we found that a 110w low band radio would kill every Cadillac we went by. Your cruising at 65 on the thruway and all of a sudden your car goes dead, you have to pull off to the side of the road, and then restart your car. We also found that Ford's early versions of their electronic ignition also would die when you transmitted, not very good for a Police cruiser to die when calling HQ. Now the one that cost me about $150.00 was when at home for meal, watching the 6 0'clock news, my dispatch called. and I answered with my 470 MX portable, and blew out the TV, They had to replace the entire circuit board.
While stationed in Miss with the Air Force, for fun on Saturday nights we would hang flourescent tubes in the trees outside our Commo shack. At about midnight we would start using some of the HF stuff and watch them blink on and off. It's hyerstrical to watch the drunks walk back to their barracks, and see the trees light up. Oh BTW our shack was accross the street from the NCO club. We were also prohibited from using the HF on Sunday's untill after noon time since they could hear us on the PA system of the Church 3 blocks away!

kj7xe · Post by **kj7xe** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:38 am

Yeah these comments are great! Showed the thread to a couple other guys here in the shop and it's a hit

The worst encounter I had was in a prior job when I was working as a mot contractor for a rural police dept/911 PSAP and was installing a lowband radio for an EAS system. The equipment room was only about 20 feet away from where the antennas were located, and it also included some UPS equipment for the PSAP.

Once everything was installed, I keyed the radio for a VSWR check - everything went well. A couple minutes later I went downstairs into the console room and heard talk about the 911 equipment having just gone down for no known reason. I walked back upstairs and noticed that the UPS was turned off. Turned it back on, then everything started working again. Keyed the radio again, off went the UPS again. What was weird is that the UPS appeared to be turned off (no beeping as if it was on battery power, etc.), must've freaked out the soft on/off power button.

We ended up reworking the antenna configuration which cleared up the problem, but it was a VERY embarrasing situation...

bayfire300 · Post by **bayfire300** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:40 am

one day my 8y/o daughter and i were going to lunch at mcdonalds as we went into the parking lot i turned the radio to vhf buisnees band 154.XXX and said to my daughter "watch this" no sooner i said that all you heard was " welcome to mcdonalds may i take you order" we both started cracking up. so i set my ft-8900 to do a pl scan and found the pl ,,pulled up to the ordering sign and keyed up and hit the dtmf tones on low power the tones came through the speaker and my daughter once again laughed her but off.
ever since that day everytime we pass any mcdonalds she says "dad turn the radio to the mcdonalds channel"......

otto

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:05 pm

LOL...

The McD's in Marshall, MN is on one of the MURS channels, 154.600 for the frequency from the inside headsets to the outside squak box. They don't run simplex though, the squak box outside transmits back on another frequency which i haven't taken the time to find yet. I could easily do so with the spectrum analyzer display on my VX7R while someone outside it ordering.

Anyway, all the kids using MURS radios in Marshall whine and cry about McD's on channel five. They have a seperate transmit and receive tone, of which i also haven't taken the time to find but someday will. I figure it's only a matter of time before someone using a rat shack MURS HT on channel five ends up using the same tone and gets heard on the squak box at McD's.

Post by **Grog** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:16 pm

I know when my local McCrappys were on VHF, they used the same VHF freq to talk to the box, and to each other. A friend actually stood in several spots, and never got a hit with his freq counter. We assumed it was hard wired from the box to the speaker inside (it did not go to their headsets).

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:58 pm

I know the fast food joints here are mainly UHF now, McD's is the last one on VHF. Dairy Queen and Taco John's in Marshall have a hard wired setup to the outside. The Hardee's setup i know about since my wife used to be assistant manager there, the headsets can all talk to each other on a talkaround frequency, they have two transmit buttons on it, one goes to other headsets, the other goes to the outside speaker. They just pushed A or B on the radio sitting on the belt. The outside mic goes to the headsets also, it's not a hard wire connection. I remember a lot of the time she would work drive through and be up front at the same time, taking orders coming in from outside on the headset.

Post by **Grog** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:06 pm

The local one had the outside audio coming from a loadspeaker near the window, and they keep it turned up loud

Another was on UHF, but i think they went to a 900 freq (from something I read somewhere).

kc0qgl · Post by **kc0qgl** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:39 pm

The other day I was over at a good friends house and made him jump out of his chair.

We were sitting in his computer/smoking room, when my brother-in-law
called me on 145.565 simplex. When I keyed my HT-1000 at 5W BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. His computer speakers were left on, almost full volume! There must have been 18" of air between him and the chair

Also another time I was lying in bed next to my wife playing with my old
Santec ST-144 (2m ht). My wife was listening to fm broadcast with the head phones in and I keyed to test the radio. Oops loud buzz. She sat bolt upright in bed "What the $!@# was that." as the head phones went flying.
The only thing I could say was "sorry".

thebigphish · Post by **thebigphish** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:07 am

those are the time when you say "What? I didn't hear anything?"

motorola_otaku · Post by **motorola_otaku** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:20 am

kb0nly wrote:LOL...

The McD's in Marshall, MN is on one of the MURS channels, 154.600 for the frequency from the inside headsets to the outside squak box. They don't run simplex though, the squak box outside transmits back on another frequency which i haven't taken the time to find yet. I could easily do so with the spectrum analyzer display on my VX7R while someone outside it ordering.

Try 35.02. If not there, try 30.84, 33.16, and 33.4.

Most of these systems use dual CTCSS on one "pair", with one tone being repeated and routed to the order box, and the other being repeated but not routed to the box. The A/B PTT switch you mentioned works by transmitting one tone on the A position and the other on B. The output (lowband) side of the repeater usually repeats the tone (but ONLY when someone is at the box or someone is transmitting inside), so you can also obtain it from there.

Here are some widely-used VHF pairs:
30.84/154.57
33.16/154.515
33.4/154.54
35.02/154.6

The most widely-used UHF pair (here, at least) is 457.5125/468.4875. The UHF boxes, however, use split PLs on transmit and receive. 71.9 out/88.5 in is pretty widely used.

Have fun!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: You ARE VIOLATING THE LAW by transmitting on any commercial frequency to which you are not licensed, including drive-thru box frequencies. This post is for informational purposes only, and the poster assumes no responsibility for misuse of the information contained herein blah blah blah please don't ban me.

scvfd1204 · Post by **scvfd1204** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:13 am

When I was dating my (now) wife, I used to go by her McDonald's and mess around with her when she was working the late shift. Full power from an A9 Spectra blows those little systems out of the water. Even better when I would turn securenet on.

A friend of mine lived right behind another local McDonald's and would constantly drive them crazy on 154.600. No PL would talk to just the headsets and using a PL will put you to the outside squawk box. I never thought of this before, but when McDs was using the MURS channels, they never monitored the channel before talking, which is a violation of the MURS rules, if I'm not mistaken.

Most of the "choke and pukes" (fast food joints) around here are on the newer 3M intercom system that runs in the 900 range on really wideband. My wife works for a Wendy's and has accidentally brought a headset home now and then. I have been trying to get a programmer for one to read the settings out of it just for my "information".

I remember a few years back, my supervisor and I were messing around with the HF setup at his house. He had hired a neighborhood kid to clean out his garage. It was about dark out and the kid was carrying a large armload of 8 foot flourescent bulbs to throw in a dumpster. About the time he got within about 50 feet of the antenna, my supervisor keyed up to get a VSWR reading. Well, those bulbs lit up and that kid dropped everyone single one of them and hauled major butt. He REFUSED to help my supervisor ever again, no matter what the pay was.

Back when I was on an AMPS cell system, the phone would activate my Minitor II on low band about 2 seconds before the phone would ring. It was kinda cool, until you weren't paying attention and thought you had a fire call or something.

My personal fave of all time is having my old Syntor 9K on 31.xxx freqs when I used to work for a state agency. I would be sitting in traffic trying to listen to my music at a reasonable volume, when one of those "boom cars" would pull up with about 500 watts of bass. I could go to channel 5 on the radio, somewhere around the high end of 30.9xx, key the mic and a loud pop would come from the "boom car", but no more "boom". You could see the guy pushing buttons on his stereo liek crazy to figure out why his amp and speakers stopped working.

Of course, setting car alarms off is a good one too, especially for the people that take up two parking spaces in an already crowded mall parking lot.

In my office inside the fire station I can key a VHF portable on a freq of 153.830 with about 5 watts and activate our smoke detectors. That drives the guys nuts most of the time. I can also make the remote bell for our telephone ring with the old low band MaxTrac mobiles. Changing the channels on the digital cable box with my XTS2500 at the station is great too, especially when the day room is packed with a major sporting event on (Superbowl). The cable box is a Motorola as well.

All sorts of wierd things can be done with a little RF and some quick thinking. I have done many wild, wierd and crazy things with radios and miscellaneous electronics equipment. Way too many to continue here.

Take it easy guys!

Jeff

Surf City, NC

wa2zdy · Post by **wa2zdy** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:01 am

RADIOMAN2002 wrote: . . .We were also prohibited from using the HF on Sunday's untill after noon time since they could hear us on the PA system of the Church 3 blocks away!

You reminded me of my ham club in high school.

We were next door to a church that had electric bells in the bell tower that "rang" at noon each day. We found that getting on HF made them make all kinds of noises whenever we were on. This being in a city environment, plenty of folks heard the noises from the church without knowing what it was about.

The pastor figured it out though and I was in on the meetings with our teacher, the principal and the pastor. We did finally get the problem fixed too but it took a lot of cooperation.

Years later I was dating a girl and invited to join her family for church one day. Guess where they went to church. And yep, the pastor remembered me. Fun times to say the least . . .

Will · Post by **Will** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:36 pm

"the kid was carrying a large armload of 8 foot flourescent bulbs to throw in a dumpster. About the time he got within about 50 feet of the antenna, my supervisor keyed up to get a VSWR reading. Well, those bulbs lit up "

Reminded me of one of our lower mountian radio sites. I went inside and turned on the lights, to work on one of the many remote VHF stations. Then when I was finished getting all my test equipment out and back into my truck, went back in and turned off the lights.... The lights would NOT turn off!!!

There were also three high power, 50KW, FM stations there.. Keeps the flouresent bulbs going.

Flint Peak, Glendale, CA circa 1972.

scvfd1204 · Post by **scvfd1204** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:17 pm

I've been to a few remote sites like that.

My favorite place to take "green" techs that were assigned to me was up on a 2000 foot TV tower that nested a local ABC affiliate, a FOX affiliate, and a PBS site for UNC-TV.

There was also a few FM boradcast stations up there as well.

There are signs in various places on the tower that simply state "DO NOT GET OUT OF ELEVATOR!!" in very BIG and BOLD letters. I remember on new guy asked me about that as we passed on of those signs on the way up in the elevator. I simply stopped the elevator, opened the door (there was an RF screen in the accordion style door) and our 120 VAC flourescent trouble light lit up. That guy offered me all sorts of money to get him off that tower right then. Imagine the look on his face when I told him the quickest way down was to grab ahold of the nearest guy wire and use it as a zip line.

I still amaze guys in my firehouse with the flourescent bulb trick and a 45 and 100 watt mobile rig. They think its the collest thing they have ever seen. Heck, my lowband MT1000 can light the flourescent ring light in my kitchen with only 6 watts.

Like I said, I have done some wierd things with radios and such, and have seen many interesting things happen as a result. Becoming a Ham at age 13 boosted my curiosity about electronics and such,a nd some of my "trickery" helped me pass my high school electronics courses with flying colors, of course with some smoke and some "ether".

Later guys!!

Jeff
Surf City, NC

poser · Post by **poser** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:10 pm

Not quite radio related, but every time my mom uses her 2.4Ghz analog cordless phone, it'll kick me off the wireless network and shut off the radio

Jim1348 · Post by **Jim1348** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:52 pm

Years ago, before I became a deputy sheriff, I worked for a PD on VHF high band simplex. If I keyed up on our channel and I was near cars with car alarms I would set them off on occasion.

The same PD had 3 watt AMPS telephones and I could hear a relay or something clicking a couple of seconds before the telephone would ring. I would look at my ride along/police explorer/reserve officer and advised them that I was going to be receiving a telephone call. Sure enough, a moment or two later the telephone would begin ringing. They would usually just sort of look at me like I was psychic.

scvfd1204 · Post by **scvfd1204** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:14 pm

alex wrote:McDonalds drive throughs that have LCD's screens - 110w on VHF.... That'll send most of the order window's terminals completly out of wack...

The local McD's here (3 of them) have the newer fancy style LCD touch screens for their drive thru cameras, the "amangers control panel" and all that stuff.

50 watts on 146.535, no tone turns them off completely or changes the input setting to something different every time you key the mic. The last late night trip I made to the closest golden arches, seemed to be taking forever, so I decided to call a local buddy on 535, while I was sitting at the second window, waiting for my food. It was hilarious watching the manager trying to reset these screens.

Man, I swear there must be zero sheilding on today's electronics.....

OT: What can you "do" with your radio?

OT: What can you "do" with your radio?

Hmm

Re: OT: What can you "do" with your radio?

What can you "do" with your radio?

Re: