Secret Radio Frequencies, Police Raids & Heavy Fines For Radio Scanning

if i was to tell you that 20 government inspectors part of what was the dti spent almost 50 000 pounds investigating five radio scanner hobbyists what would you say well in 1987 they did just that and turned five british radio listeners into criminals for receiving non-government-approved radio signals and then talking about what they'd heard now this story takes some twists and turns and leads us on to some other interesting and somewhat secret radio scanner frequencies from around that time so bear with me the case against the south london 5 began in late 1987 when radio monitors working for the then department of trade and industries radio investigation service overheard group members exchanged details of interesting radio frequencies for 10 months the dti inspectors monitored and transcribed every single word the five and their friends spoke over the air the whole effort cost 48 000 pounds according to dti lawyers in court 20 officials spied on the five and their friends at all hours from early in the mornings to late at night finally in july 1988 25 police and dti officers arrested the five in a coordinated series of raids one man returned home to find the entrance had been flattened the burglar alarm disconnected and a team of men rummaging around his bedroom others were held overnight all of the group were cross-examined for hours on the basis of transcripts of their radio conversations they were questioned at some length about so-called code words they'd repeatedly used on the air such as vim but vim the dti detectives were informed had more to do with in-group speak for chicken vindaloos than with men from moscow dti lawyers claimed in court that they'd feared the group were spies the dti case nearly fell apart since at the time of the raid one of the five had actually been monitoring the dti inspector's own frequencies near 160 megahertz he'd been listening in while the dti surveillance team coordinated their activities clearly preparing for a raid but while out of the room making tea he narrowly missed a direct reference to his own neighborhood which would have alerted him he returned quickly to his room to listen in to the exciting radio action that was clearly about to start and prepared to call up friends to suggest that they listen in as well then there was a loud knock at his door five men charged upstairs and grabbed him and he realised to his horror that he was part of the plot although there were valid security grounds for wanting some transmissions to remain secret there was no solution to the problem of dangerous rather than recreational interception except to scramble the signals ira technicians kgb listening staff drug smugglers and other targets of surveillance knew perfectly well how to receive and track their opponent's radio signals just like gchq all that cases like the london 5 do is nurture a pretense that such signals could be made secure using law rather than technology even mi5's own signals have been out there in plain sight until their frequencies and systems changed in the early 1980s anyone in and for miles around london could receive mi5 top secret watcher radio network the system used to control surveillance teams watching diplomats and spy suspects all over london the watcher signal on 104.5 megahertz was about an inch along most people's radio dials from capital radio it even came from houston tower where the heavily curtained headquarters of mi5's watcher service were located 15 floors above capital's own studios the watcher radio signals were moved to a slightly higher frequency of 142 decimal 5 megahertz but they were no better concealed from scanner enthusiasts back in those days the radio spectrum in and around london was an alluring paradise of extraordinary events anyone with a radio scanner could hear stagecoach talking to his eagles on 454 decimal 075 which was the us embassy and its vip car network down the bands glass jar and proton control on the police frequencies of 147 decimal 5 and 147 decimal 85 were special branch surveillance control stations now i'm going to come back to a very interesting point regarding these frequencies and a couple of other stories at the end of this video so please stay tuned for action and drama every morning of a higher order than tv am could provide one londoner tuned his radio alarm to the custom service main magpie surveillance frequency 86 decimal 71 during many early mornings plainclothed agents with magpie call signs could be heard trailing drug suspects across london and there can be little doubt that the drug smugglers were listening in as well police regional crime squads were a favorite with real-life police soap enthusiasts who tuned in on 155 decimal 7 megahertz bank robbery gangs and more did exactly the same and if the police had put a bug on your car you could also bug your own car by listening in between 80 and 81 decimal 5 megahertz cnd activists in the south of england could monitor the movement of cruise missile convoys by tuning into greenham commons echo control on 73 decimal 6'5 and greenpeace could usefully monitor the three national nuclear spills channels at around 86 megahertz the london 5 were charged with offences against section 5 of the 1949 wireless telegraphy act which made it an offense to listen to as well as to transmit radio signals for which the government had not given them a license overall the five were fined nearly 8 000 pounds and forfeited over 10 000 pounds worth of specialist radio equipment the major offences of which they were accused were listening to stations they were not authorised to receive one member of the group was threatened with imprisonment but was eventually fined 1150 pounds instead the case of the london five was perhaps a vain attempt to pretend that the government could somehow control or curb listening on the airwaves in fact the only thing to do was to make everything of this nature encrypted which is exactly what happened now this video was supposed to end here but the mention of the magpie surveillance frequency got me thinking about the use of that call sign up here in manchester i received an interesting comment and an email regarding this topic recently which i thought i'd share with you graham said he remembers customs and excise's manchester operation that was based at salford docks not far from this teleport array the repeater was on permanent talk through and the output frequency was interesting for sensitive surveillance at roughly 76.7 megahertz so all you needed was a domestic fm radio the base operator was always female using the call magpie oscar and the field agents used magpie and two digits they tried to be cryptic when mentioning locations on the air but sometimes a team from a different area would need to rendezvous so they would need to be more specific he recalled an occasion when he nearly got arrested he realized they were watching a house not far from him which possibly involved container loads of illegal cb radios being shipped from ireland he decided to take a closer look and as soon as he pulled into the street he heard them speculate whether his car with a big antenna on was involved with the gang he drove away and they concluded that he wasn't and finally remember i mentioned the mi5's watcher frequencies on 142 decimal five well amazingly if we look at an old scanning directory from around this time you'll see a listing of frequencies which include soviet space stations us air force air to air ministry of defense paging and remington minicabs now have you noticed the frequency well if you haven't figured this out by now then don't worry i didn't twig either until john in the comments of another video figured this out remington mini cabs is named after stella remington who just happened to be the former director general of mi5 from 1992-1996 now there's no way users of this frequency went round in the guise of remington minicabs although that would have been amazing to see it's more likely that the publisher of the frequency directory didn't want a visit from the dti or even worse spooks [Music] you

Channel: Ringway Manchester

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Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 04 2022