Batboard

just letting my mind wander and i was wondering if there was a way to use MDC signalling and a CDM series radio to equip a car with a remotely activated ignition kill. let's say one of the vehicles gets stolen... you can just notify dispatch to kill the engine and it's all over. is it possible to have one of the pins on the accessory connector trip a relay upon receiving the proper MDC signal or something like that? has anyone ever done anything like this?

Sure. That's that's approximately how you would do it. It's very similar to people using MDC, QCII, or DTMF paging to open garage doors, turn lights on, start their car, or lock/unlock their car doors.

Similar things have been discussed here, and there have been a LOT of good ideas thrown out there. Take some time and run a search.

Here are 2 links for some topics that discussed this. Mainly with remote starters.

http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=27404

http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11532


Also in the future as Bob had mentioned. Use the search feature.

http://batboard.batlabs.com/search.php

Our users have posted a total of 121874 articles

With as many articles that there are on this board I'm sure someone has covered the topic you are looking for at some point in time.

Can it be done easily with the CDMs? Sure, just use the auxiliary outputs, which can be individually addressed, and can have a different target ID from the radio's PTT ID.

The big problem? Any idiot with an MDC capable radio who knows the deal can send a wildcard Call Alert that will shut down your entire fleet simultaneously.

Could get pretty ugly on the highway at 65MPH...

i did do a search for a few keywords but i got the phonebook in return. i didn't see those two previous posts, sorry. and thanks for the links.

Here's a consideration though. Talk with a lawyer before installing this feature in any vehicle. If, say, you were to kill the ignition while the thief is driving down the road and he loses control of the vehicle (power steering and brakes require the engine to be running). In the process of losing control of the vehicle, he hits an innocent and injures or kills them. Your department (Or you, as the radio shop) could be held liable if anyone (and you know they will) decides to sue. Just food for thought.

that's a good point chuck but i figure if used properly it can't be much worse than executing a PIT maneuver or spike strips, etc. The suspect almost always crashes as a result of those...

i suppose you'd have to have a vehicle in pursuit or following to say exactly when it's safest to kill the engine. otherwise yeah, you never know what's going to happen.

HumHead wrote:The big problem? Any idiot with an MDC capable radio who knows the deal can send a wildcard Call Alert that will shut down your entire fleet simultaneously.

That would be kinda "oops" like.

yeah, that'd be a helluva oops, eh? lol

lol. I can imagine the mayhem that could ensure if the police force was equipped with that capability...bank robberies, looting, etc.

nmfire10 wrote: That would be kinda "oops" like.

I was thinking it'd be kinda funny like!

Hey, I know this reply is kind of late but I couldn't resist putting in my two cents.

I know it is very rare, but we are finding crooks who are getting pretty smart. They have even been watching this and other websites learning how to program scanners and radios to listen to the police. Ebay is also become a great source for them to get actual police equipment to monitor and even at times interfere with our operations. Sometimes this is just for their fun while othertimes it is malicious.

I would certainly not want to be driving a vechicle which someone could figure out how to disable remotely, intentionally or inadvertently.

Even Astro Spectra radios for 800 trunked systems are showing up on Ebay with the encryption keys and programming still active.

Sort of like a movie I saw (can't recall which) in which the bad guy or guys had astro saber 2 or 3 radio strapped to his chest with a ski patrol chest harness sort of thing and was monitoring the pd's response to the heist or whatever...
I think from the look of the antenna it was either UHF or 800.

You gotta admit, better than seeing a bad guy robbing a bank in LA, using a frs radio or a gool ole' maxxon cp or whatever those crappy grey things were.

Or how about hearing modat tones at the END of a transmission??!!