GSM - A5 Strength

[Alec Muffett - SunLabs]

>If you are absolutely determined to
>hear your neighbour's cordless phones you use a scanner like the AOR8000
>with all pairs programmed in.

Actually, you don't need the 47MHz coverage for most makes of phone;
the base station (1600 KHz) typically rebroadcasts the speaker's voice
*back* to the handset to replicate the effect most people expect with
ordinary phones, viz: that you can hear your own voice through the
earpiece when you speak.

This means you *can* hear both sides of the conversation using the
MW-radio hack, and with minimal hassle.

If you were restricted to having to monitor both frequencies
separately, you would more likely only hear half the conversation,
since the base-station transmitter output is typically much higher
than can be expected of the handset (@ 47MHz) and can therefore be
heard at greater range.

It's probably worth drawing this off-topic thread to a close now, but
as an final aside, can anyone clarify for me the piece of legislation
that exempted "tuning into cordless phone base stations" from the UK
phone-tapping regulations, thus permitting police to do so without
requiring full phone-tap permission from home office, or whomever?

I believe this is the case, but I may be incorrect...

	- alec