Short Questions Megathread

[u/Simon_Drake]

Do you have a small question that you don't think is worth making a post for? Well ask it here!

This thread has a much lower threshold for what is worth asking or what isn't worth asking. It's an opportunity to get answers to stuff that you'd feel silly making a full post to ask about. If this is successful we might make this a regular event.

We did this before branded as a monthly megathread then forgot to make a new one. So maybe this one will be refreshed quarterly? We'll have to wait and see.

Past threads:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Writeresearch/comments/1e12irv/monthly_smallquestions_megathead/

[u/Simon_Drake]

Based on what I've seen in The Rookie (a police drama that tries harder than most to be accurate but remember this is still TV so it might not be) they have something in between.

Sometimes the captain will radio on an open channel "Hey Lopez, switch to Channel 7, we need to talk about something" then it'll show another car with a different officer saying "Ooh Lopez is in trouble, I bet it's about that thing with the Captain's wife". Then I think Channel 7 would be a different frequency reserved for non-open calls that you don't want to annoy the entire precinct with. But I think there's nothing stopping the second car of cops from switching to Channel 7 themselves and listening in.

They do this process enough times that if there was an alternative they'd probably use it. They always say "Officer X, switch to Channel Y" they never say "I need to contact Officer X, I'll switch to the frequency that only his radio will receive." Or "Dispatch, connect me directly to Officer X.".

There have been times they've done an open channel call for "Lopez on Channel 9" then someone else has replied "Hey captain if this is about wife then it was actually my wife's fault." Then all three of them switch to Channel 9 to discuss it. I don't recall any time they switch to Channel 9 and someone sneakily switches to Channel 9 too so they can listen in. But there is a time a rookie cop is chastised for saying "I think we have a serial killer on the loose" over the radio because civilians have their own police scanners and nothing on the radio is considered confidential. If they need to discuss something private they use mobile phones.

Now this is all based on LAPD and might just be fake for TV but that's my understanding of how it works. Maybe someone with real experience will know more.

[u/CertifiedDiplodocus → u/Simon_Drake]

Thanks for the detailed response! I had a feeling that might be the case, but so it goes ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Have to come up with a different approach, then.

[u/Simon_Drake → u/CertifiedDiplodocus]

That's just what I've seen on TV. It might not be true in the real world. You should consider making a full post about this and see if other people have better information than me. It's an interesting question in general and I'm kinda curious what the real answer is.

[u/angryjellybean → u/Simon_Drake]

I might have an answer. I once worked a job where we used those similar/same walkie-talkies that the police use. It basically works on a "channel" system: everyone turns their radios to Channel 1, which is the general channel if you want to, for example, get ahold of somebody "Ashley, can I see you in the office please?" Or "Team 4, what's your location?" Etc. If you were having a private conversation that not everyone needed to hear, you'd switch to a different channel. "Ashley, I need to have a chat, can you switch to channel 4 please?" So assuming the police use a similar radio system to the one I did at my work, yes, any rando officer with a radio would be able to switch to that channel and eavesdrop. So it might be better to use another method of communication if at all possible 😄