UHF help - Blocking out nonsense

[Wapiti]

To the radio jockies out there -
Is there a product available that can be used to drive UHF abusers who harass others (mainly farmers) so much on the channels they use for organisation and safety in the paddocks between each other - that can either torch these f+++wits radios or screech the living hell out of them so they just find another channel that farms aren't using?
There's bloody 80 of them after all, and half-channels as well too now for years.

It's got so bad for people now that they cannot use their radios when mustering or working away from the farmhouses and sheds that they just have to turn their radios off. This is especially pathetic when so many of us have no mobile service and never will, because Telstra shareholders are the most important thing after all.
At all times of the day and night, these juvenile interlopers are describing to us all in great detail the pathetic behaviour and disrespect they have for the animals they are torturing, and the people who have to live out here.

[Damo300]

G'day Wapiti.

I know the frustration. Try going over the gateway bridge at any given time of the day. I can't believe I share the roads with them.

Mate the only real way I know of is for you all to get compatible radios with quiet mode.

I have a GME XRS in the car and it has quiet mode.
You all set yourselves as a group, and you can only hear your group.
Haven't done it personally because noone I know has one, but a company I worked for a while ago had silent mode on their Uniden, and it worked as advertised.

[deye243]

We used to slide in between 2 frequencies but now you can't do it because of the 12.5 kilohertz step between frequencies that's how they got the extra 40 get together with your neighbors get your own frequency from the acma it's not as expensive as you think and you can even get your own repeater frequencies outside the wanker band

[Die Judicii]

Wapiti,,,
The way our world is going of late, it won't be long before we all will be forced back into the simple and basic forms of communication.

Smoke signals and Message sticks.

[Jorlcrin]

The problem is the UHF freqs being public use channels, and unfortunately that makes any sort of jamming or discouragement of the waste-of-space channel-hogs, a crime in itself.
Most of the brands of UHF radios have option for additional channels, but the freqs need to be registered with the communications authority.
Good thing is you'd have a channel that is private, while still being able to access the other 80-channels.
Bad thing is that you'd need the additional channel programmed into each UHF set that might use it.
I know Icom have this option on the IC-400 series models, and pretty sure both Uniden and GME have same.
But it doesnt stop the yapping on the public channels.

It is frustrating when these people continue to waste oxygen over the air-waves, and we are ever so lucky that UHF usage in this part of the world, has scaled back dramatically the past 15 years, so we dont get it very often.

There used to be quite pro-active policing of the public freqs 30-odd years back, but it seems the authorities are mostly tied up chasing illegal boosters for mobiles, these days.

Honestly; humanity would be vastly improved by a nice big dino-killer asteroid.
Obviously, it's going to be unpleasant for us all for a goodly while, but at least we'd thin the herd a good amount..

[Blr243]

I would have thought that uhf traffic in the bush was minimal , but sounds like there are deadbeats in big numbers everywhere

[deye243]

I would have thought that uhf traffic in the bush was minimal , but sounds like there are deadbeats in big numbers everywhere

Yep mainly in patrols and land cruisers

[Fester]

The best way to monitor outbreaks during a bushfire approaching used to be to listen to the local police.
The initial response call would be on the open channel, then they would change channels for further coms.

They went digital and did the encryption thing or whatever they do, and we lost that means of listening.
Sunday nights were interesting with domestic incidents going off all over the Sydney suburbs.

The firies were not as straightforward for just hearing the locations of initial outbreaks in real-time.

Before I binned the scanner, I listened in on those home hobby UHF turkeys feuding and crap.
Talk about low-IQ simpletons.

We sometimes heckled the Sydney road warrior units in their patrols and cruisers as we were driving home from work near Sydney to the mountains. One day, they were tracking us down and one had us IDed.

[deye243]

We used to track them down with Doppler tracking equipment that stuff is so accurate I can tell you which end of the house the signal is coming from and which car in Freeway traffic

[Wapiti]

I would have thought that uhf traffic in the bush was minimal , but sounds like there are deadbeats in big numbers everywhere

Yep mainly in patrols and land cruisers

These blokes are in a 4-door white Hilux "Rogue", with a alloy dog cage on the back...
Which just buy buying one tells me everything I need to know mate.

[Wapiti]

Guys, thanks for your support and suggestions.

We do have some new GME XRS handhelds, but the vehicle mounted radios are not and to upgrade to these may come in time, but not anytime soon.
Neither do any visitors, most opt for the cheaper Uniden or Repco type brands.

Problem with getting registered and/or private channels on UHF, or use the "Quiet" features is that most of our traffic outside of ourselves trying to communicate is from neighbours or casual deliveries, truck drivers, and visitors. We always give out the channel we picked, in this case 14, because we have no mobile service outside of the wifi area around the house and where I could stick another Starlink repeater, like close by sheds. outside of that, it's UHF and it's been incredibly useful.

Also, every neighbour knows your channel, and particularly when there's a fire, we all need to be able to get on a channel we all have equipment for and it's a potential life and property saving feature, so private channels are not going to help, they will be a hindrance.
Also, when out and about without satellite comms, you break your leg when by yourself, you need to try and broadcast out to channels you know others have on their base stations. Again, no mobile service out here.

Construction sites I've worked on do set up these channels, because there is a dedicated crews but it turned out too, this feature annoys the delivery drivers and principal contractors because they aren't going to do that with everyone and want instant connection with the supervisors of the different under-contractors working for them. Those extra channels certainly cause other issues.

Casual friends coming to visit don't usually have all these features, nether do delivery drivers or neighbours. It would keep the mongoloids from bothering us though.

So it's an ongoing problem, and one of complete disrespect.
If I get on a channel we are using and ask that the people using it please find another as we are using this one and have forever, getting abused by "visitors" who hide behind a mike and insulted is quite insulting.

There is no need for others who come from outside our area and get upset when they are called interlopers of "weekend warriors" by farmers, abuse and insult us for being polite. Then deliberately bombard our channel at 12pm, 2am, you name it, threatening us. So we just have to turn our radios off.
Guys, This happens so often now that you probably wouldn't believe it it unless you were here to listen to it yourselves.

And then you see on forums, like I have personally been accused of even here in the past, as being anti outside-"hunter" when I point out that most of our dramas are from visitors from way east, on weekenders, who complain that we don't support them when they are being picked on by the govt and police with gun laws.
If it wasn't for the fact that they had legal firearms, they wouldn't be out here deliberately abusing us on air.
I do support them, because it's a mutual respect thing, but when will it be returned? Unfortunately, this is another reason these knuckleheads don't understand when we just want to see less of them, because they just will not respect us back.
Apologies to those that do, problem is we only remember the things that threaten us or make life hard for us.

[Die Judicii]

Hey Wapiti,
I'm not up to speed on what is currently being used or not used, but I think I would be correct in saying that the vast majority of these
"cowboys" (meant in a derogatory sense) would be using UHF.

My thoughts would go back to what a lot of businesses used to use.
Was it VHF ?

Is that still happening these days ?

Those sets were fairly big physically but they worked well.
Being a totally different frequency to the everyday use of UHF by wankers, that could be a possible solution.

If all of you in that area went back to them, the wankers on UHF would be totally unaware.
And,,,,,,,, get together as a group to purchase eg: 15 or 20 sets to get a bargain price.

[Wapiti]

It's a thought mate, but there's no way I'll get others to chip in, and nobody else coming in will have VHF either.
Appreciate the thought though.
For example, today we had a semi drop off a full load of stuff, and old mate driver called us up to find out where the yards gate was.
A few weeks ago, we had a B double drop off two trailers of cottonseed for drought feed, and he got stuck on the chopped up powdery road in a tight steep gully. He had our channel and called us up, and we had to give him a tug with a 140hp 4wd tractor.
Without UHF that everyone has, we'd be stuffed.
Unfortunately, it's also available for wankers to hide behind and get some sort of joy from that they would never do to your face. Like the abuse some of us get from behind keyboards 100's of km away.

I wish there was some kind of evil device that i could buy on Amazon that would fry someone using a channel and abusing others within range.

[markg]

Has anyone here gamefished out of Sydney ???? The radio is a disgrace, all day everyday it's rubbish from fools. God help anyone if they needed help, sure you have channel 16 for marine rescue but sometimes it's better for a boat in trouble just to hail anyone who is listening for a bit of help as is often the case. I turn it off unless I need to talk to friends , and then it is as brief as possible.

[Lorgar]

Is there a product available that can be used to drive UHF abusers who harass others (mainly farmers) so much on the channels they use for organisation and safety in the paddocks between each other - that can either torch these f+++wits radios or screech the living hell out of them so they just find another channel that farms aren't using?
There's bloody 80 of them after all, and half-channels as well too now for years.

Hey Wapiti,

Check out if your radios support CTCSS. I think it's pretty standard, I have a regularly off the shelf Uniden fixed unit in the truck that's 10 years old, and some newer basic GME handhelds, and they all have it.

To be honest, I set mine up years ago and have forgotten exactly how. I'm probably using some of the wrong terminology here, but you can Google how to do it.

CTCCS anyway, is basically sub-channels of the usual 80 available.

When you scroll / scan through the normal channels, you get 1,2,3.... 80, as you know.

Instead of just using channel 80, with CTCSS, you go to the channel, and into radio settings for CTCSS and can effectively pick 80.1, 80.2, 80.3 and so on. You can do this for any of the regular channels.

If you set your channel 80 to 80.1 CTCSS, you won't hear users on regular 80, and they won't hear you. So you need to set all the radios you want on the network to the same CTCSS.

All the other channels work exactly the same as usual, but once you get to "80" you'll be on your sort of private 80.1 CTCSS channel.

Technically these channels are still public, but honestly 99.9% of UHF users don't even know the feature exists, in my experience. Let alone use then.

I set all mine to have CTCSS for channel 15, and that's what I use in conveys on and off road when travelling with mates and not wanting the interruptions. Have done so over thousands of km, and multiple states.

In 10+ years I have never once heard an uninvited users on a CTCSS channel.

[niteowl]

Yep, and you can put scramble on the TX and the D' wits can't understand what you are saying either.

[Wapiti]

Is there a product available that can be used to drive UHF abusers who harass others (mainly farmers) so much on the channels they use for organisation and safety in the paddocks between each other - that can either torch these f+++wits radios or screech the living hell out of them so they just find another channel that farms aren't using?
There's bloody 80 of them after all, and half-channels as well too now for years.

Hey Wapiti,

Check out if your radios support CTCSS. I think it's pretty standard, I have a regularly off the shelf Uniden fixed unit in the truck that's 10 years old, and some newer basic GME handhelds, and they all have it.

To be honest, I set mine up years ago and have forgotten exactly how. I'm probably using some of the wrong terminology here, but you can Google how to do it.

CTCCS anyway, is basically sub-channels of the usual 80 available.

When you scroll / scan through the normal channels, you get 1,2,3.... 80, as you know.

Instead of just using channel 80, with CTCSS, you go to the channel, and into radio settings for CTCSS and can effectively pick 80.1, 80.2, 80.3 and so on. You can do this for any of the regular channels.

If you set your channel 80 to 80.1 CTCSS, you won't hear users on regular 80, and they won't hear you. So you need to set all the radios you want on the network to the same CTCSS.

All the other channels work exactly the same as usual, but once you get to "80" you'll be on your sort of private 80.1 CTCSS channel.

Technically these channels are still public, but honestly 99.9% of UHF users don't even know the feature exists, in my experience. Let alone use then.

I set all mine to have CTCSS for channel 15, and that's what I use in conveys on and off road when travelling with mates and not wanting the interruptions. Have done so over thousands of km, and multiple states.

In 10+ years I have never once heard an uninvited users on a CTCSS channel.

That's a great idea, I think they do have CTCSS. Appreciate the suggestion.

The only issue with that is, unless I don't get it, is that anyone else who for example, or needs us in a hurry or in an emergency, gets told "They're on UHF 14.2" will not be able to figure that out as they look to deliver something, or call out from another joint if they need help with a fire.
They'll turn the channel knob 12, 13, 14, 15, WTF and WhereTF is 14.2.

[Fester]

Has anyone here gamefished out of Sydney ???? The radio is a disgrace, all day everyday it's rubbish from fools. God help anyone if they needed help, sure you have channel 16 for marine rescue but sometimes it's better for a boat in trouble just to hail anyone who is listening for a bit of help as is often the case. I turn it off unless I need to talk to friends , and then it is as brief as possible.

I fished off Sydney for most of my life, and just had the 27 meg marine GME.
Most small boats just ran the 1 radio and no VHF.

On the main call channel, it was just boats checking in with the coast guard, the odd radio check.
If you wanted to talk, you just changed the channel and talk.
It was fine and not cluttered, but I gave it away 15 years ago or more.
The toll roads were still cheap, but pay-and-display parking had started at the ramp.
Had to launch, then park just outside on the street because over 3 or 4 hours cost a big all-day fee, and the fine was huge if you were late

[Wapiti]

So it seems there is nothing any of us can do, and block others out that are deliberately abusing others and hiding behind a mic?

I guess it's just yet another bit of proof that society for awhile has two faces, the one it shows when it wants something and puts on the fake polite face, and when nobody can see becomes a self-absorbed child that gets jollies disrespecting people anonymously.

That's a shame. I'm sure I remember a device on the market that could target radios of others abusing the privilege on a particular channel.
Maybe it was something available in the US and I am mistaken.

[No1_49er]

Has anyone here gamefished out of Sydney ???? The radio is a disgrace, all day everyday it's rubbish from fools.
God help anyone if they needed help, sure you have channel 16 for marine rescue but sometimes it's better for a boat in trouble just to hail anyone who is listening for a bit of help as is often the case.
I turn it off unless I need to talk to friends , and then it is as brief as possible.

That's a great bi of advice, Mark.
Perhaps you didn't really mean what you wrote? You turn OFF unless you need to talk to friends, but God help anyone if they needed help. Because YOU sure wouldn't hear them!

[Wapiti]

There's only so much ridiculous behaviour a person can take, and the only way legally available is to turn your radio off unfortunately.
So there's another downside then, those in need of help won't be heard.

[Lorgar]

That's a great idea, I think they do have CTCSS. Appreciate the suggestion.

The only issue with that is, unless I don't get it, is that anyone else who for example, or needs us in a hurry or in an emergency, gets told "They're on UHF 14.2" will not be able to figure that out as they look to deliver something, or call out from another joint if they need help with a fire.
They'll turn the channel knob 12, 13, 14, 15, WTF and WhereTF is 14.2.

Yep, you're correct.

It's not a "hey guys, pop over to channel 14.2" feature.

It's something you set for a regular team.

If farmer bob and his family are all constantly roaming around the properly they could setup a CTCSS channel for uninterrupted family communication.

If randoms are popping onto the properly and need to join the conversation, it would be easiest to flick back to a standard public channel, but then of course you're at the mercy of whatever idiots are in range.

[Fester]

I tried to leave the boat radio on but what a shock when laid back relaxing doing some bottom bashing for snapper, and that radio yells at me.

The home hobby UHF geeks play games with their big units, sort of drowning out a pest with far less power.
Their games seemed like a waste of life to me.

I carry a decent 5w handheld, but like the EPERB, you sort of hope to never need it.

[Jorlcrin]

Is there a product available that can be used to drive UHF abusers who harass others (mainly farmers) so much on the channels they use for organisation and safety in the paddocks between each other - that can either torch these f+++wits radios or screech the living hell out of them so they just find another channel that farms aren't using?
There's bloody 80 of them after all, and half-channels as well too now for years.

Hey Wapiti,

Check out if your radios support CTCSS. I think it's pretty standard, I have a regularly off the shelf Uniden fixed unit in the truck that's 10 years old, and some newer basic GME handhelds, and they all have it.

To be honest, I set mine up years ago and have forgotten exactly how. I'm probably using some of the wrong terminology here, but you can Google how to do it.

CTCCS anyway, is basically sub-channels of the usual 80 available.

When you scroll / scan through the normal channels, you get 1,2,3.... 80, as you know.

Instead of just using channel 80, with CTCSS, you go to the channel, and into radio settings for CTCSS and can effectively pick 80.1, 80.2, 80.3 and so on. You can do this for any of the regular channels.

If you set your channel 80 to 80.1 CTCSS, you won't hear users on regular 80, and they won't hear you. So you need to set all the radios you want on the network to the same CTCSS.

All the other channels work exactly the same as usual, but once you get to "80" you'll be on your sort of private 80.1 CTCSS channel.

Technically these channels are still public, but honestly 99.9% of UHF users don't even know the feature exists, in my experience. Let alone use then.

I set all mine to have CTCSS for channel 15, and that's what I use in conveys on and off road when travelling with mates and not wanting the interruptions. Have done so over thousands of km, and multiple states.

In 10+ years I have never once heard an uninvited users on a CTCSS channel.

I dont think this is correct about how CTCSS works.
"Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System" works by the sender having a (mostly inaudible) sub-tone included in each transmission.
The receiver thats been set up for the same CTCSS code(and most makes/models of UHF radio will do it), will unlock the 'Squelch' on the receiver when it hears the correct sub-tone code being received, so you get to hear that transmission.
If a transmission is received that doesnt have the correct CTCSS code(ie from all the Bogans..), then the squelch wont un-lock, so the radio stays silent.

It effectively gives you a clear channel between parties, regardless of what other radio traffic is on the channels.
But note that all your transmissions between CTCSS-enabled radios, are still heard by all parties on that channel.
So, all it might do, is allow you to ignore any incoming transmissions that arent coded with your CTCSS code, so cut down on the chatter you hear.
It will also mean your receiver wont un-lock for anyone trying to call you, that doesnt have the same CTCSS code set up on their radio.
This means that IF you enable CTCSS, then you wont be hearing/receiving calls from people that dont know your CTCSS code.

I dont use the CTCSS system myself(not enough traffic to need it), so not sure if the CTCSS coding is set per channel, or for the radio as a whole.
I would've thought per channel would make more sense, but radio manufacturers do some weird stuff at times.

I dont think CTCSS is a perfect solution for the problem the OP described, but I cant think of an alternative that would work any better, either.

Given the village idiots are using a public-use channel(albeit for nothing useful), there isnt much that can be done.
Options:-
1). Convince the authorities to police the use of the frequency more proactively(Good luck with that).
2). Buy a licence for a separate 'private' channel, but I suspect this will incur licensing fees for each user, and has the problem of all radios using that channel needing to be able to be programmed for it. Many modern radios are capable of the programming to take extra channels (Icom IC-400 series can take another 40-odd channels), and I know a couple of the other brand names do same, but they would need programming by someone who knows what they are doing, and this isnt a solution beyond a smallish group.

Neither option is all that good.

50 years ago, any sort of 2-way radio (mostly VHF at the time) required license fees being paid for the use of the freqs.
Many of us in this area used the fire-band radios for day-to-day comms, which was pushing the boundaries of the law at the time.
At it's peak, it was even more crowded than you see on UHF these days, as the VHF sets transmitted a lot further, and there was only a handful of freqs in use.
Along came UHF(first got ours in 1981) with public-use licensing, and the option for 40 channels, and a much shorter transmission distance, which everyone took to like ducks to water.
Repeaters were installed for areas where distance needed extending, and we eventually moved to 80 channel, which allowed even more 'room'.

BUT, at the end of the day, the birth of UHF radios meant people stopped having to pay for the use of the radio freqs.
[Which was about when we lost being able to restrict whom can use our channel.]

The great, unwashed public can be a royal pain in the arse some times.
[I'd probably re-phrase the 'some' to 'most', myself..]

[Wapiti]

Thanks Jorlcrin, That's a great explanation of how that works, and it doesn't work for my application where others randomly come to use the channel.
Appreciate the detailed explanation as well.