Getting Up Close and Personal – A Job Interview Allowed for Some Close Radio Monitoring
Some radio users are easy to figure out. Others sit there for years, listed in databases, hinted at in licence records, but never quite revealing themselves on air. This one fell firmly into the second category.
The target was a large manufacturing company. According to ACMA database entries, they were licensed for radio use, yet despite occasional monitoring, nothing had ever been positively logged. That suggested low-power usage, tight coverage, or simply that you needed to be very close to hear anything meaningful. The problem was geography: the site was in a remote area, with nearly three kilometres of private road leading in, no safe or sensible place to pull over, and nowhere you could sit with a radio without looking very out of place.
Then an opportunity appeared. The company advertised a job, one I could genuinely do. I applied, and before long, I was offered an interview at their head office and factory. Suddenly, “getting close” had a perfectly legitimate reason.
So, on the day of the interview, I might have packed a few radios along with my paperwork. I was told to drive to the security gate and ask for the IT contact. As I rolled up, I might have had my Uniden UBC126AT running in Close Call temporary store mode. And it might have caught a hit at exactly the moment the security guard keyed up their radio to check where I was supposed to park.
I might have arrived about twenty minutes early and politely asked if it was okay to wait in my car while I made a quick phone call. No issues. The car was parked, engine off. I might have had my radio go-case sitting on the passenger seat, casually disguised under a jumper.
While I was inside the interview, I might have left the UBC126AT still running in Close Call temporary store mode. Alongside it, I might have had my UBCD436PT doing a wide UHF search, with the recording feature enabled, quietly listening while I talked about skills, experience, and team fit.
After the interview, on the way out, I might have stopped at the security station and asked a harmless question, just long enough to glance around and see if any radios were sitting in plain sight. Nothing obvious, but it was worth the look.
A few kilometres down the road, safely clear of the site, I stopped briefly. I might have checked what had been logged and made a few quick notes before heading home. That’s when the real picture came together.
Back home, reviewing both the Close Call hits and the recorded UHF search audio, four active channels stood out clearly:
Security on 471 MHz, using a specific CTCSS tone
Deliveries also on 471 MHz, but with a different CTCSS tone
Electrical on 474 MHz, with no CTCSS logged
Automated alerting on 475 MHz, carrying recorded voice messages about alarms and production numbers.
Security on 471 MHz, using a specific CTCSS tone
Deliveries also on 471 MHz, but with a different CTCSS tone
Electrical on 474 MHz, with no CTCSS logged
Automated alerting on 475 MHz, carrying recorded voice messages about alarms and production numbers.
After years of uncertainty, the mystery finally made sense. Low power, tightly managed, multiple functions split by tone and frequency, exactly why they’d been so hard to pin down from a distance.
Overall, it was deeply satisfying to finally nut out this user and understand how their radio system actually worked. I wasn’t sure how strict their security would be, and I was quietly relieved that my radio gear came and went without a single question.
Sometimes, the best monitoring sessions don’t happen in a paddock or on a hilltop. Sometimes, they happen in a suit, with a resume in hand, parked quietly just inside the front gate.
