llamero

I think the text should be in the telecommunications act of 1996, but I could be totally wrong - re the FBI and encoding the lat long of every cell phone sold after 2000. Correct me if I am wrong.

The technology to radio direction find was around for a long time prior to homeland security (like it was used during WWII). Almost as soon as digital microwave was approved for civilian phone use, there was people who wanted to know what people were saying and where they were located, and since those people were the government, they got what they wanted...

Its the higher microwave frequencies that carry less far than your typical analog ham signals that are maybe half or less of the frequency as a cell phone, that gives ham radios their range. [attenuation of radio signals is proportionate to the number of wavelengths from the source - twice the frequency has twice the attenuation] It is true that some digiital microwave radios lack the proper response time to wait for distant signals, however 30 miles is a typical maximum range set into the response expectations of the radios in microwave mode. Analog roaming tends to happen around 900 MHz which is a bit more flexible and far reaching than the 1800 MHz cell phone digital signal.

Jim