I’ve read a little about how some people listen on conversations,but really,how bad of a problem is it?
How many worry about stalkers listening?
I worry more of just how stupid I sound than I do of someone trying to find me or my son while using them.
One way I thought of that would help is not to have “Scan” on them.The other is not to have channel “0”,that’s where you can hear all the conversations on the “Privacy Frequencies” of that one channel.That way it would make it harder for someone to ease drop because they would have to set each channel manually to listen.
The ones I have,got 38 sub-channels where some newer ones have over 100,if I’m reading right,that would be allot to go thru.
If you have the “privacy codes” turned off, then you can hear everything. All that is iss a squech setting… it keeps you from hearing those not on your “code” Anyone else, can just turn them off altogether, and hear youi fine, even though you can’t hear them.
‘Privacy codes’ do not have any effect at all on whether someone else can hear you. They are there to let you not hear other people on the channel. Those other people can hear you, even if you don’t hear them, if they choose.
Regardless of what the GMRS radios have or don’t have, any scanner can monitor GMRS easily, and better than the typical GMRS bubblepack, as well.
Always assume anything you say over the air is not only being monitored by someone else, but recorded as well. Because someone just might be.
The ‘scrambling’ some units have is easily defeated (just by having another radio with that feature), and is also illegal to use on GMRS anyway, as several manufacturers have ‘discovered’ the hard way with large fines and orders to remove it from the GMRS channels of FRS/GMRS radios. It’s legit on FRS, but not actually ‘secure’ in any meaningful way.
Somewhat more ‘secure’, though not absolutely so, would be the Trisquare eXrs radios, which use frequency hopping, and will be hard to monitor at any distance. Someone very close can still monitor them just fine with near field monitors, though, as they’re simple FM analog, so a close in monitor can just monitor all the ‘hopped’ channels.