WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Heard a few times on the scanner over the last couple of nights police talking about "triangulating" to pinpoint where a mobile call was made from. Must get authorisation from the duty inspector first. Is this new or am I slow? Didnt know we had that sort of technology in lil ol' Perth.

sound like something out of star trek

The technology is not new. I have heard them do it before, but never heard them have to ask for authorisation to do it. The times I have heard it VKI has organised it in the background....
I can remember a short while back the story of a teenage boy who went bushwalking (in the eastern states somewhere) and got himself lost. They used this technology to pinpoint his location. And it has been in the movies and police tv shows for years.............
I dont know that they can get an exact location, because I think they rely on the mobile phone towers which gives them an area. I am willing to be corrected on this though.

This type of tracking is usually only used when there is a major threat to life.

Unlike covert survailance operations which require authorisation from, correct me if Im wrong, the state Ombudsman.

I just googled 'triangulation mobile phone' in australia, and found heaps of info....
Strangely enough there was a news article just week about police not using it to rescue a kidnapped lady sooner - http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... 62,00.html

I would hope that someone other than the ombudsman would have the authority to allow a triangulation if i were ever kidnapped......

The ombudsman is apparently needed only for phone taps so I would not worry yourself Bobby..

Triangulation has been done for years - the Germans and the Allies did it in WW2 to find the location of covert transmitters. Pilots do it (now not so often as GPS is about and even that is a version of triangulation) to work out their location using non-directional beacons (NDBs) in the 200-450kHz range. (Listen for morse code beacons such as Southern Cross - SCR - on 200kHz and Perth - PH - on 272kHz.)

i think i saw this on discovery

but there is a method that phone company's can use

to make your phone transmit audio without you knowing

like a bug

WPXZBP wrote:Triangulation has been done for years - the Germans and the Allies did it in WW2 to find the location of covert transmitters. Pilots do it (now not so often as GPS is about and even that is a version of triangulation) to work out their location using non-directional beacons (NDBs) in the 200-450kHz range.

Another form of triangulation, called a 'fox hunt', has been around for ages and would be known to many CB radio users. The 'fox' goes off and hides and then chats and transmits clues to their location, as other CBers drive around using their signal meters to triangulate the 'fox's' location.

Spent MANY hours playing 'fox hunt' during my mispent youth in Kalgoorlie. EVERYONE had CBs in their cars and most Friday and Saturday nights were spent 'fox hunting' around the goldfields. Met my first true love on a hunt, behind the wheel of her Holden HZ ute. Ahh the memories.

auntys_eyes wrote:Another form of triangulation, called a 'fox hunt', has been around for ages and would be known to many CB radio users.

Yep - been on an amateur radio fox hunt before. Same principle but different set-up.

Bout 3 months ago i heard this bieng done on the scanner, was on channel 50. They were tracking a lady who was going to commit suicide. They were getting uptodate information from vodafone on the whereabouts of the lady, as she was driving and moving between phone towers. Had polair up in the sky beaming the light down around areas where she might have been. She eventally got found at a friends house safe and sound. Was interesting to hear on the radio for a change.

The phone companies do it for ses on occasion, A guy went missing in Glen Forrest a while back we had a 3km squared search area, all we knew was he was sat on a big rock and he could see powerlines, this of course narrowed it down. Because his battery was dead all the phonwe company could do was tell us which 3 towers the mobile phone connected to last and hence you get your triangle, they did say if it was switched on they could still only go down to the 100m2 but in the middle of the bush that canb be freaking huge.

Funny thing though the guy got off his rock and went for a walk came across a ses cruiser that was doing a track search, the ses team had stopped and walked 50m into the bush to shout out see if hhe could hear in the meantime the guy walked out and found the ses cruiser, decided to walk back into the bush looking for the team that was looking for him. By this time the ses team ahd come back to theier cruiser found the backpack and had to go back into the busH AGAIN to find him.....


So Phone triangleation is possible but it does take time and in my experiance they cant only get a rought area not a direct point of origin.

Working for Telstra...I know that CDMA mobiles (being digital and all) when calling 000 the op can see your location almost instantly....greatness of the digital era people!....

GSM however is different all together....that takes time and effort but is possible...

Useless very late interesting info: the LPATS system (Lightning Positioning And Tracking System) works in a similar manner. It's pretty cool and pretty simple(the principle anyway).

http://www.gpats.com.au/php/repository/Perth.html

If Perth isn't showing any strikes, try another city.
Bookmark it for the next time there's a storm

back in the late 90s in the old analogue phone days, they had to get assistance from the DSD (defence signals directorate) to triangulate.

they used this to catch three "phreakers" in Perth who had reprogrammed an old motorola brick phone with the phone number of a gentlemen who lived in Adelaide and were racking up large bills on his mobile phone.

Once they had tracked down the general area, they then used a fancy looking TV aerial with other bits of equipment attached to it to pinpoint the location within a building.

Very interesting stuff