I can remember when I could listen in to cordless phones a couple of miles away, Id forgotten that the frequency was near top band. I also remember going into an electronics shop in Tenerife in the 80s where the guy was claiming his cordless phones were high power and would work 20 or 30 miles away from the base unit.

Spooky . I was watching an old episode of Minder and Arthur Daley was selling car phones that were picked up on the police radios

I remember rotary phones, pulse, and my dad's brick of a cordless phone.

Those old phones take me back hiss hiss crackle crackle lol

The pager call from the binatone sounds exactly like the binatone Roger beep!

My cousin bought a Panasonic cordless phone at the flea market in the early 90's. He was using it for years, when neighbors noticed that they could listen his conversations on their TV sets. The reason was, in Budapest, till the 2000's, the local TV broadcast was using the OIRT channel 1 which was around 47 MHz. Then, all TV broadcasts were moved to the UHF band, and later, they stopped the analogue transmission, but the modern TV sets are still able to tune the legacy 47 MHz channel...

In 1999 Mum bought a Panasonic cordless phone which was analogue and I believe it transmitted on the 900Mhz frequency, (I live in Australia). I can remember the cordless phone would interfere with FM radio reception, my radio would make a 50 Hz buzzing noise whenever the cordless phone was used. In 2000 I received a cordless radio headset who's transmitter I would connect to my stereo system. The headset had a tuning knob on it, and if I tuned the headset to a certain frequency, I could hear Mum speaking on the cordless phone, though I couldn't hear the other party. The cordless phone became quite susceptible to RF interference, I remember one day I was on the phone to a friend and the cordless phone picked up interference from the printer.

I got a 900 MHz analog phone at the thrift store back in 2017. They're harder to find because they aren't on all the time but I got lucky one afternoon in 2016 when I heard one I managed to track to a house far down the street from me. Lucky find. I messed around with it for a couple years before finally leaving a message on the guys answering machine letting him know. He changed the preset channel on it Asif that was going to stop anything but ultimately stopped using it 2 weeks later.

I remember as a kid using my mums Realistic am/fm radio in the kitchen and tuning to the shortwave bands on it where the cordless phone in the house was coming through the radio causing feedback when people were on the phone.

The 31/40 MHz cordless phones weren't actually introduced until 1997. The earliest cordless phone were the 1.6/47 MHz ones.

Hi Lewis I heard a south Asian radio station the other day on WFM 48.4500, great video thanks for posting 👍

Lol that phone was very impressively loud and clear. I could copy everything you said!

Another excellent video. I must investigate my old NTL phone.

Oh how I miss listening mobile phone conversations on my AOR in the 90s, nice teenage years.

Another quality video Lewis

Nice trip down memory lane - do folks even use a “house phone” these days, we’re all glued on our mobiles. Cheers Lewis 👍

Interesting video! I remember 25 years ago with short wave listening I discovered cordless phone base stations transmitting around the 1.6mhz, I couldn't believe how open the phones were! Thank goodness for digital communications to protect everyones privacy!

yhea brotha. love this channl cool walkies n topologys

That explains what I heard way back when. Mid 2000's scanning through 10mtrs, I carried on beyond and heard a cordless phone. I didn't listen for long...it would have been one of my neighbours & am not that nosey (honest!)...but I could only hear one side of the conversation.

I worked for Radio Shack (Tandy) several different times between 1979 thru 2000. I remember the change-over on cordless phones and what a huge deal when DSS/800Mhz came out. It was (as compared to older designs) quieter and more secure. And it was very expensive for the times. 8^O lol

I remember listening to loads of calls back in the day - if you had a decent CB antenna 5/8 out in the garden 31MHz would be packed - almost unusable with multiple calls village wide. Top end of MW was always interesting too!

Another slick production, i had a white phone like that with a long antenna, call was OK if you were in the room but it turned crap very quickly just 10 foot away, I used to listen in to them all the time on my scanner, got to be a hobby of mine ha ha, all the good stuff was on cell phones at the time though, you dont generally call the mistress from your home phone ha ha cough cough, only annoying thing is that I never recorded any of them or if I did I dont know where the tapes are, i can remember listening in to the fire brigade and the police on normal fm radios in the 1970s and 1980s, first radio I ever used was a crystal set back in 1975-76, clipped it on to the fence, no batteries required, it was a Bionic Man one ha ha, I had no clue how it worked, seemed like magic at the time.

I used to hear cordless phone conversations in the CW end of the 80 Metre Ban back in the mid 1990s. I think this was the second harmonic. I was using an FT280R and a TOkyo Hi Power Transverter to get onto HF. You'd hear a steady buzzing sound when the FT290R was set to CW. Switching to FM mode would reveal the conversations clearly.

I always felt sorry for workers on ships at sea. Their method to call home was simply the open marine radio system . The problem was, the person at home wouldn't really be aware that everyone could listen on a standard marine radio (or scanner). Couples could be having an intimate conversation - and then another marine radio user would cut in on the split channel.

There were also illegal extended range phones using 48 / 70 MHz. You could often spot the optional roopftop base aerials used for these, an asymetrical H which was actually 2 dipoles with seperate feeders. The handset frequencies fell within the amateur 4m band.

It was surprisingly easy to listen in, though many users didn’t realise this at the time.

Ahhh yes! Remembering the days of having some surplus lowband VHF Motorola MAXTRAC's with a nice hot front end tuned to the 30Mhz end of the spectrum. Plug in a 10m band vertical mounted nice and high up and you could DX all sorts of neighborhood happenings. Simply set the radio to scan and wait to see what you could pick up! Although nothing could be more annoying than listening to a good call when another closer call would capture the receiver and block out the good stuff with a more mundane call!

Used to enjoy monitoring analogue '31MHz cordless phones' back in the 90s on my Yupiteru MVT-7100 and the EMS.

I’ve scanned those frequencies and I’ve heard cordless headphones being used before they went digital. Was sometimes interesting too.

I used to be able to pick up a nabours cordless phone on an FM radio. The radio also had a tape player/recorder. So used to leave the radio on record, and listen back to it later. If you pushed play and fast forward at the same time, you could listen and if you hear voices stop it and push play. By the way, I was only a child, and I shouldn't have been so noisey.

great vid, I hear some creepy stuff in that area of the rf spectrum.

I always find your videos so interesting Lewis. Do people still read books? - if so you should write one. I'd buy it.

I used to use an analogue cordless phone deliberately so I could record the phone calls with my scanner.

When I was doing my engineering degree in 1999 I used a old baby mo monitor to create a radio

Great video Lewis. What sdr software are you using Please Looks good mate?

That house phone sounds like a FRS radio walkie-talkie ☎📞

Friend had one of those "imported" cordless phones (because they were highly illegal in the Netherlands). For a laugh we cycled through his neighbourhood with the handset on, and on each street we seemed to hear a new conversation or a dialtone. He stopped using that phone immediately! There is a piece of TV from that time from a current affairs program how cordless phones in the Netherlands jammed police radio frequencies in Germany (now that's extended range!) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bcBxacdnuZbeaYU.html frequency display in the scanner car shows something around 74.1 MHz (so I guess tropo ducting was needed to get into Germany).

I got someone who has been listening in on our calls on both the cordless phone and the landline. It happens the most when I talk to my aunt, and I think it stemmed from her, so I think her phone is hacked as well, and other people have called her and reported hearing numbers pressed, etc. They can be heard pressing buttons on the phone and pressing the redial button on my phone, and can also hear their tv and music in the background when neither me nor the other person on the other end has anything on. Not sure how its possible or what they're using, or what we can do about it. Thought about changing numbers, and getting newer phones, but idk if that'll work or not.

Cool feature. When I lived with my parents back in the 90's. I use to tune in using normal FM radio. Boy did it piss my Mum off and I would get right bollockings 😂. I wonder if you could modify a analogue cordless phone to make a land line repeater for two way or even Zello.

Idk what this toy was by VTech, but somehow i was able to listen to a conversation of a older "Texan" sounding woman. I live in socal and my neighbors spoke Spanish.. and these VTech radios were literally walkie talkies

remember before 49Mhz they had them on AM broadcast band

You are really good at this. I have a question. My mom's phone while she talks on it to me (it is a corded landline) experiences a lot of touchtone beeps. Neither her nor I are hitting any keys. My phone is also landline but mine is Voip and cordless. I am not touching any keys and her phone the buttons are on the base, not the handset that she holds to her ear. So no way she is touching any buttons as well. I really want to get to the bottom of this as she experiences that so much and is 71 that she has become convinced that someone is listening to her calls and hitting buttons and even hanging up calls. I tried explaining that the one time my call was hung up there was static ahead of time. I figure her apartment building has a bad external line that when it rains effects the phones that are still using the wall plug instead of voip and when it gets a lot of static on her line it will disconnect. I know how that can be because I lived in a building once that had a bad line like that. But she will not believe me saying that she knows the beeping happens when she is talking about important things and they don't want her to talk about them and try to shut her up. She is so sure of herself she won't listen to logic. So I am hoping maybe you can shed a little light on this if you are able? Have you ever experienced this? I have heard about 'dtmf talk off' but people say that only effects mobile phones and voip. Hers is neither.

The couple next door had a baby monator on 49Mhz thati culd listen into on a walkie talkie. The next day i demonstrated this to the guy next door and he went back to his old hard wired monitor. The transmitter was so sensative i culd heer conversations taking place all over the House.

Hi Lewis. Sorry quick question. What SDR software are you using. Thanks. 73’s

You could chuck a sirio gain master on that cordless and do a range test ha all the best Outpost Matt

I'm not sure how many people even use cordless phone anymore since so many people have stopped using landline phones. How easy is it to eavesdrop on a 3G/4G/5G mobile phone voice call these days? Given how many people conduct private conversations on their mobiles, I'd like to hope it's not easy.

I have an old 900 mhz cordless phone. It's digital, though.

I wonder what the laws were for listening to people's convos back then. I can't imagine it's technically illegal since it's just an open frequency

You can use a normal radio to listen to them

I have one off them binotone one exactly same ones

It is still possible to listen to modern monitors and cordless phones. Even cellular phone conversations are ridiculously easy to receive. A cheap SDR receiver and some preparation is all you need. The digital signals just takes an extra step to be able to listen to them. Digital conversation is not as secure as everyone is led to believe.

TACS wasn't big E?

Snoop ears 128bit encryption software

new digital cordless phones you can buy

Used to listen to my neighbours years ago when i were a lad, the things i heard on my vx2 i could never unhear. Obviously now I'm a grown adult i know better and never do that stuff anymore. The sdr as very interesting to see, so are we going into 49mhz walkie talkies next? Haha 73.

you cant do it anymore havent been able to in almost 20 years