Michigan Ham Radio Operator pleads guilty to felony, loses license

In my dealings with the public, most seem to know, or assume, that it is illegal to talk on public service bands. Of course, not all do. It does seem that, even a kid, someone so into radio should know better.

Many years ago I worked as a CAP volunteer after the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd. One of the county repeaters got drowned out and I was tasked to go survey the damage. NOT repair it, but just to see how bad the flooding was around the little building where it was housed and report back. The county fire marshal gave me a county handy talkie to report back and assigned me an 'empty' county call #. It didn't occur to him that if the repeater was drowned, I pro'bly wouldn't be able to get back to him. (I was right; there was no coverage).
CAP had an airborne repeater in the air at the time, so I simply relayed my findings back thru the air repeater (on OUR channels), who forwarded it to the EOC, The machine WAS drowned, and I and a county tech returned with a replacement soon after and set it up---on higher ground!

 

Just like about 95% of Professional burglars.

 

I was big into the whole computer hacking thing when I was his age too. The internet was brand new to the public and there were plenty of kids like me pushing the boundaries. I wound up being evicted from an apartment after I showed a fellow tenant how to hack into the landline telephone connector panel in the basement. At least I didn't wind up with any more serious punishment than that, and the rents were being jacked up beyond what I could afford anyway, so I bought an old RV and lived in that on a relative's land.

The facts of the case are pretty strange, sounds like his clone rig was pinging the central system every so often and he may not have been aware of it. Nobody seemed to notice until the cop pulled him over and realized he had an illegal clone radio in his car. If he hadn't been driving around with the rig, he may have gotten away with it.

 

I use my Baofeng to control the weather in the National Weather Service frequencies.

 

Humor is in the eyes of the beholder. There is nothing worse than someone who thinks he is funny but in reality is not the least bit funny.

 

He committed a crime...That's not a good kid...And you say his actions were not to disrupt or cause havoc/harm?....Then what do you call it?...Do you think he decided to just hack into something then key up over public safety communications just to say hi?

 

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As was stated in an earlier post he was most likely monitoring a cloned rig ( quite common) and was pinging the central system every so often and he may not have been aware of it.
But hey jump to conclusions if that's what your all about seeing how you have no more access to the actual facts than I do, makes no never-mind to me- have a nice day

 

From the link on the thread starter......
"Mr.Thurston is a 19-year old amateur radio licensee who operates under the call sign
N8CAM. According to reports that the Michigan State Police provided to the Commission, on or about
April 21, 2017, Mr. Thurston was subject to a routine traffic stop, during which, an officer of the
Michigan State Police observed that Mr. Thurston was in possession of a radio capable of operating on
the MPSCS. After confirming that Mr. Thurston was not an authorized user of the MPSCS, the officer
seized the radio under authority provided by state law. Another Michigan State Police officer specializing
in the organization’s radio equipment subsequently inspected the seized radio and determined that it was
able to connect with, and operate on, the MPSCS because the device was a “clone” of an infrequently
used radio belonging to Oscoda County, Michigan, that was authorized to operate on the MPSCS. As a
“clone,” the device in Mr. Thurston’s possession operated using the same radio identifier code as the
Oscoda County radio. Because the MPSCS recognized the code transmitted by Mr. Thurston’s radio as
belonging to the authorized Oscoda County radio, the system permitted Mr. Thurston’s radio to make and
receive transmissions on the state-wide network. According to records provided by the Michigan State
Police, between July 15, 2015, and April 21, 2017, the cloned radio in Mr. Thurston’s possession"

Not an expert on what Thurston did to violate FCC rules and Regs but apparently the FCC is convinced that he did.

Mentioned earlier in this thread that I think it's very unfortunate that this young man got himself into a jam a such a young age and hope he can turn his life around and make a success of it beyond that he must expect to pay a price for his actions.

 

As one who spent a lot of time digesting the protocol definition docs and watching a lot of 'data' fly by on a trunking control channel while doing code development on a Moto format trunking receiver, I can say that if his radio was truly a clone (I say this, because, they can be made to operate receive only) it operated exactly as any regular radio on the system, which means it:

1) Transmitted a code every time it was turned on.
2) Transmitted a code every time it was turned off
3) Transmitted a code every time the operating "channel" (talk group) was changed.
4) Transmitted a code if the red emergency button on the top was pressed.
5) Transmitted a channel request any time the PTT button was pushed.
6) Transmitted on a voice channel assignment as a result of 5) above.

ALL those different codes come across the output of the trunked radio transmitter, as well as showing up on base station console. There would have been data LOGS, as evidenced by the date of onset til the day the radio was confiscated as they authoritatively state in the article.

So, the kid was caught 'dead to rights'. The question I have, is, do the logs show any _voice transmissions_ the kid may have made? He might have, and they used the logged date and time to tie up any shenanigans that took place on the MPSCS system.

 

Add this to the mix - "High School Students Experience Trooper Training"
Kid's name seems to be in this group, and from Grayling as well:
https://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1586-390780--,00.html

Also, he looked "community minded" - he edited this newsletter:

http://k8oar.club/files/OAARS_Newsletter-Mar 15.pdf

 

The more serious issue is how these actions can create havoc with the radio that was cloned. If I have a radio with ID 123456, and I am affiliated to tower X with talkgroup Y, all is good... I have directed the system to carry traffic on talkgroup Y on tower X, and my radio is receiving this traffic.

Now, a cloned or duplicate ID on the system comes up and registers on tower Z with ANY talkgroup. IF the legit radio is listening to a talkgroup that only he/she brought to tower X, that talkgroup affiliation DISAPPEARS on tower X. The system "thinks" that the radio has moved from tower X to Z, and moves it's talkgroup affiliation along with it, leaving the legitimate radio deaf. Duplicate ID's on a P25 system are BAD, BAD, BAD.

Ask me how I know this.

I don't know if this kid understood this, and it doesn't matter. Screwing with a public safety radios system has life safety implications. Just don't.