Tow Trucks

[pks]

Lets revive this topic from the old forum

I'm currently monitoring MetWide's LTR system over at Bondi.

0-02-005 Tow Trucks
0-02-010 Restaurant home delivery (somewhere at Bondi Junction).

Haven't figured out what tow truck company it is yet. Any ideas anyone?
A majority of them seem to operate over the 800mhz trunking system.

For your reference:
LCN1: 506.1750
LCN2: 506.5750

[cartman]

A couple of months ago I sat down and started to put together a list of towies for my own monitoring
And I was suprised when I had done a bit of background reading how varied the work is.

The types of towing I found:

* NRMA breakdown work - private motorist
* Private owner requests to transport vehicle from location A to location B
* Commercial Breakdown Support
* Law enforcement Towing - vehicles stored at the towies holding yard
* Insurance salbage towing
* Illegally parked towing eg clearways, shopping centres, retailers, hotels, apartments
* Commercial vehicle transport - ports and factories, to dealers, auction houses to dealers & vice versa, between dealers.
> take a look to your left when travellng over the Glebe island Bridge - a huge number of newly arrived vehciles off special vehicle-carrying ships

A couple of months I heard a motor vehicle accident just down the road (that sickening thud that happens when two cars hit each other at an intersection).
It was pretty obvious that the towies were monitoring the local ambos, because as soon as a passing patient transport vehicle pulled up and radioed in the job, within 5-10 minutes two towing firms have turned up, as it turned out, for a car each.
I knew the frequency of one of the companies and I sat patiently upstairs at the window with my radio set for close call in the hope of getting a frequency for the other .... in vain as it turned out.
One really wonders how the towies are surviving in the post encryption age..... it is probably more cut-throat that it has ever been .... and no doubt each firm is trying to monitor the opposition's radio traffic in the local area.


Grant

[pks]

The towies on the Metwide LTR system seems to be monitoring RTA and ambos but a majority of their jobs are from spotters. I think they get paid for it if the towie gets the job.

Any chance of sharing those freqs you found? Cheers~

[Chrisco]

I don't live on a main road but just around a corner. Two mva happen within a week I walked around a towie asked me if i wanted to be a spotter. there are many freqs ppl can scan and listen for mva's.

When the police went enc was fun listing to the tow truck freqs. Am I right in saying a few towing co are unscannable

[cartman]

Towies are like Security companies in that they don't advertise their frequencies as a rule
Towies are most unlike security companies in that they use simple plain language and often go to great lengths to stay ahead of the their rivals
Some towies are reported to be used voice encryption scramblers (of the rolling kind which are unscannable) and I have heard of 1 user on 800Mhz TETRA.
Spending thousands on radio systems to stay ahead of the game or listening to other companies (to get a jump on the job) is quite normal business behaviour
But I would suspect that 90-95% are using analogue in one form or another (conventional or trunking)
I can recall one time when I was approached by one truck repair company to "spot: (my employer runs a massive road fleet where there is often tows due to breakdowns) but I obviously declined due to conflict of interest / corruption etc.
For them it is business .... for government employees it's ICAC-stuff (no-go zone)
And that was before the police encypted .... actually quite a few years ago.


Grant

[BerryV]

When the police went enc was fun listing to the tow truck freqs. Am I right in saying a few towing co are unscannable

Ive installed or serviced several fleets that use 'different' methods to prevent people monitoring

Several companys have kenwood tk-370 radios using transcrypt rolling code scramblers and the other DES. Several using mts2000's/mcs2000's with des-xl. I know of another that uses plain digital P25 via motorolas.

I know of one that just changed to motorola tetra radios (was on plain motorola trunking before)

Most larger towies are all monitoring, ambos, fire, rfs, rta(grn and simplex) + other towing companys.

[cartman]

So the MCS2000's / MTS2000's can run encryption on analogue?
I heard one or two transmissions that sound like they were encrypted but not digital
It wasn't voice inversion which I use to hear on 800Mhz LTR (0-01-180 and 0-01-197)

You might not be in a position to say so but are there many on 800Mhz Tetra .... basically I have heard of a half dozen (which Motorola have highlighted on their website) but apart from the big clients in Queensland, there doesn't seem to be a huge number due cost of hand


Grant

[BerryV]

So the MCS2000's / MTS2000's can run encryption on analogue?
I heard one or two transmissions that sound like they were encrypted but not digital
It wasn't voice inversion which I use to hear on 800Mhz LTR (0-01-180 and 0-01-197)

You might not be in a position to say so but are there many on 800Mhz Tetra .... basically I have heard of a half dozen (which Motorola have highlighted on their website) but apart from the big clients in Queensland, there doesn't seem to be a huge number due cost of hand


Grant

mts/mcs can definatly use encryption on analogue, in fact, this is exactly what many govt agency's including NSWP, AFP, APS, Customs etc used before they got xts3000 and other digital radios for spec ops/trg etc etc.

des/des-xl/dvi-xl etc secure modules are easily purchased on batlabs/radioreference/ebay. they clip straight in and just wack in a key via the loader and away you go

[cartman]

NSWP, AFP, APS, Customs etc were using DVP (with the "white" hiss") up to the late 90's
I don't hear DVP any more .... actually not for the last 10 yrs.
Last time I heard DVP was Clinton's Nov 97 visit to Sydney
DVP had a problem when the batteries went flat .... it would revert back to normal voice


Grant

[BerryV]

NSWP, AFP, APS, Customs etc were using DVP (with the "white" hiss") up to the late 90's
I don't hear DVP any more .... actually not for the last 10 yrs.
Last time I heard DVP was Clinton's Nov 97 visit to Sydney
DVP had a problem when the batteries went flat .... it would revert back to normal voice


Grant

DVP was far from the only thing used, des-xl/dvp combo modules were used, i also know that the ex govt mts2000's that were purchased from an auction house in Australia several years ago still had keys loaded into them, those modules were des-xl ONLY. same that went for the secure sabers that filtered through NTN7991 modules inside(xl only)

plenty of plain DVP though, the NSWP horsley park site still had DVP traffic running through it after they started using xts3000's.

i'll leave it at that.