Can cell phone conversations be picked up by a scanner?

Answer 1

Yes and no, yes you can intercept digital cell phone calls but with the encoding they use, it's is almost impossible for the common layman to decode them. in the old days of analog phones ( some carriers still use them, hence tri-band phones) if you happen to wander into an area that is still using analog, it can be intercepted. seems like I remember it being in the 875 megahertz range. which scanners sold at radio shack can be tuned to. digital decoding takes a higher grade of eqpt to decode the signal. I wouldn't worry too much about my calls now days, not enuf good hackers out there to pull it off.

Answer 2

Depends upon the cell phone and the sophistication of the scanner.

Older cell phones used an analog signal that even the medium to low priced scanners could pick up.

Today's digital cell phones use a digitally incode signal that jumps from channel to channel to make it more difficult for this type of eaves dropping.

However, with the right equipment, almost any signal can be captured and decoded.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

maximum cellular telephones are digital recently. interior the "outdated days" while cellular telephones have been analog, you ought to %. them up with an unblocked scanner around 860-880 MHz. recently overlook it, you desire all kinds of digital deciphering stuff. And the frequencies are larger too. So in precis? No, you may not use police scanners especially to %. up cellular telephone conversations. EDIT: particular, some older cordless telephones could have the flexibility to be intercepted by making use of scanners. It relies upon on the age and for this reason the telephone's radio frequency and no count if the telephone is a digital or analog telephone. Older cordless telephones are analog and run at fairly low frequencies. those are particularly intercepted by making use of maximum scanners. digital telephone alerts by making use of themselves are lots greater good to crack, yet a clever individual ought to determine it out probable by making use of hacking a similar form of telephone and enhancing that's electronics. And particular, this is prohibited to bare despite is found out from such eavesdropping till you're working under a police/courtroom order.

Answer 4

Getting close...

Analog cellphone transmissions can be picked up with a scanner tuned to those frequencies and modulations.

However, digital cellphone transmissions utilize either TDMA (which GSM and US TDMA uses), where information is spread over the bandwidth according to timeslots, or CDMA, where the information is spread over the bandwidth according to a pseudorandom code. Both techniques utilize information only the base station and the cellphone knows, making it more difficult for all but the most sophisticated eavesdropper to pick up a conversation.

Unless you're the government, of course...

Answer 5

It should still be possible to pick up certain cell phone's, all you have to do is get a scanner that gets the correct frequency.

Answer 6

Yes they can - as long as someone has the frequency to the scanner.

They have a list of frequencies you can program into your scanner. So be very careful what you say on the phone.

Answer 7

Depends on your mobile phone system. If it is gsm, then it cannot be picked on by a normal scanner, but there are special equipment to pick them up. If your moble phone is not gsm then most likely it can be picked on and listened to more easily.

Answer 8

Absolutely! Have heard many cell phone conversations. Watch what you say!

Answer 9

Yes they can. So be careful what you say.