Negativland's TheWeatherMan Cellphone-Scanning

From Craig Baldwin's 1995 culture-jamming documentary featuring Negativland, "Sonic Outlaws".

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• documentary
• culture
• jamming
• negativland
• sonic
• outlaws
• craig
• baldwin
• scanner
• cellphone
• cell
• scanning
• hacking
• U2

[mistermetalman]

wtf was that a gay couple?

[kneel]

yes. Not too surprising, as they were scanning cellphone conversations at 2 AM (or some odd hour like that) in the early-to-mid 1990's, in San Fransisco nonetheless! :-)

[kneel]

No, this was defintely real.  Remember this was in 1995 when there were PLENTY more analog freq cellphone calls still being made all throughout the country

[ozzyscruggs1]

AOR model AR 2515 scanner. 5 - 1500 mhz, continuous,

no dropped freqs. Mine gave me endless hours of

(ahem) entertainment.

Operator's manual says if you "accidentally" pick up cell calls, you're supposed to "take an AK47 and

shoot the receiver" since such is illegal.

Weatherman seemed a bit *too* lucky to hit a call

like that on first try. I suspect he had an accomplice

upstairs faking a call on a cordless phone.

[kneel]

surely this wanst faked. in 1995 san fransisco this would have been any of 4930520520 calls like that between two "lovers" of the male persuasion, totally legit

[timbearcub]

He's so cute, I love David Wills, his voice is so beautiful.

Yes I have a crush on the Weatherman ;-)

[cryptsub]

Yeah d3p3ch3mod3, scanning the radio waves illegally is just like killing babies.

I used a Radio Shack scanner in the 80s & 90s which I modified to monitor cell calls by removing a diode that blocked those frequencies. It was a lot of fun, and I had local cell site freq sets set up as separate scanning banks. I had no problem ethically because those cell phones were basically radio tranceivers, and I considered any radio signals to be fair game.

[XL290]

another useless law, analog networks out of service after February 18, 2008

[philodrummond]

@NoelGrassy Yup, that's me. Thanks for listening!

[NoelGrassy]

@philodrummond You are correct sir! Waidaminnut,,,,Is this Sub G's Philodrummond often heard on Puzzling Evidence? I'm so grateful for the work

you and Dr Hal and Puzzling do to our Nation's airwaves while the Pink boys are sleeping. You have a delightful

wit that rounds out the program rather succinctly. Now that I've retired I have no desire to miss "the show" in

order to wake up and go to work.

[singinglawnchair]

@hobiehippo "Jolly Green Giant".

[Demendred1605]

Don't say hello

[philodrummond]

@hobiehippo I think that's a blooper reel of an Orson Welles Green Giant Peas commercial. I heard it on a compilation called "Celebrities at Their Worst".

[philodrummond]

Accept no substitutes!

[hobiehippo]

what negativland song is it that talks about a remote farm where mrs. buckley lives - then goes on to talk about peas and green giant

[Wilbur665]

AFAIC, if the signals can pass through my body w/o my permission, I can listen all I want.

[apryason]

I went to a Negativland party (Xmas, I think - '80s) where they had one TV stacked on top of another - old TVs that could pick up all of the UHF TV band in analog. By fiddling with both TV's UHF knobs you could pick up the old analog cell phones on one of the TV's audio - keep the sound turned down on the other one. It's the heterodyne principle. Now everything is digital. What a shame... My old AOR scanner picks up those frequencies but there's nothing there anymore.