Escapees\' could be \'One The Air\'

Jerry Karlovich writes...


"Unless you have been living in a cave the past couple of weeks you have heard of the seven Texas prison escapees' that killed an Irving, Texas police officer and fellow Ham, Aubrey W. Hawkins, KC5USI, Christmas Eve. Hawkins left behind his wife and 9 year old son. The TV news reported that they also robbed a Radio Shack store in Houston earlier and made off with several types of hand held walkie talkie radios.





That gave me an idea that I shared with the TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) via their web site email http://people.txucom.net/tdcj-iad/



I just got off the telephone with an officer of the TDCJ and they like my idea and want me to pass this information along to radio amateurs in the area.



Many of us including myself own scanners that will do limit searches. I thought if we, the amateur radio community, did some extra listening to our scanners, just maybe we could hear the convicts and assist in their capture.



The radios stolen from the Radio Shack store were FRS (Family Radio Service) radios, business band radios, and amateur two meter talkies.



The FRS Band channel frequencies are:



1-462.5625,

2-462.5875,

3-462.6125,

4-462.6375,

5-462.6625,

6-462.6875,

7-462.7125,

8-467.5625,

9-467.5875,

10-467.6125,

11-467.6375,

12-467.6625,

13-467.6875,

14-467.7125.


The business band radios that were stolen come pre-programmed from the factory at 156.400 mhz. although can be programmed to operate from 150 to 160 mhz.



And we all know the amateur two meter band.



You can find names and photos of the escapees' at http://people.txucom.net/tdcj-iad


On Friday, December 29th., six of the escapees' were identified at a fast food restaurant in the city of The Colony, Texas, Denton County just north of Dallas.



If you hear what you might suspect to be the escapees', contact your local 911 and the Huntsville, Texas command center operated 24/7 at 936-437-6735. I know many of you skeptics are saying how much of a long shot this is and it might just be. Only I believe it's worth a good try. Wouldn't it be a good thing for Ham Radio if we were directly involved in assisting to capture these guys. And of course, common sense tells us DON'T PLAY WALKER RANGER AND TRY TO CAPTURE THESE GUYS YOURSELF!!!!!



73,



Jerry Karlovich, KD5OM"