During the coverage today, there was a bit on the team cars and the equipment. It was mentioned that the teams had scanners to listen in on other teams. Personally, I don’t think this is very sporting, but if that is the situation, I would think that some teams (Postal?) would get encrypted radios to protect themselves. Is there such a thing?
During the days of the Motorola sponsorship I was told by Motorola’s Chief Scientist, Don Remboski, that the Motorola Team used a verson of secure “credit card” radio that cost nearly $10,000 and was also used by the Secret Service and the U.S. Diplomatic Secret Service.
If this is correct, I can tell you that these radios function in a number of ways, including rapid changing of frequencies and other technologies to scramble the message or make it difficult to intercept. They are extremely small and thin with a small digital keypad, almost like a calculator, on them. They use throat mikes, “bone” mikes, voice activated and PTT (push-to-talk) modalities. Their range is limited but can be enhanced by relay devices and is affected by mountains, magnetic fields, etc.
I don’t know if the teams actually did, or still do, employ this technology.
In a response to a thread on 2-way radios, Fredly posted the following about a commercially available HAM radio that is relatively afordable (http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=115362#115362):
This is the unit most of the pro bike teams use. The best, period, and not much more money than the toy units you find in REI and such. It’s the size of a credit card.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0058.html
Encrypted radios are used in some auto racing series but others, like NASCAR, ban encryption so fans can listen in. NASCAR publishes the channels each team uses and probably about 25% of the fans bring scanners to the races. During this year’s Indy 500, a psycho fan actually was talking to one of the drivers during the race, which an even better argument for encryption then keeping your plans secret.
I checked out the Alinco radios http://www.alinco.com/usa.html. They looked really cool, but I didn’t see anything about encryption. I would think that with all the secrecy behind stategy and how everyone is feeling, keeping your communications confidential would be critical.
That is cool. I wonder how easy these are to use and how they would work on a group ride.
Makes you wonder if they actually use the “Mosquito Repeller”.
Maybe LA actually discovered how to use it properly 
In one of the “Ask Bob” segments on OLN he mentioned that they do not encrypt nor listen in on other teams, since there wouldn’t be much useful information anyway. Commented that mostly what you hear on Postals is rock and roll music. So I suppose T-Mobile would be mostly polka’s, etc.
There was talk last year about USPS going to more of a BlueTooth solution.
I heard that also. I was wondering if that meant that Postal ‘broadcasts’ music when they are not actually talking to try to fool the scanners. I assume scanners work by ‘locking in’ on frequencies that become active (start broadcasting), so if you are always broadcasting, the scanner won’t know that you are really talking. I guess if you have the background music going all the time, just somewhat quietly, Johan and the team would just ‘talk over’ the music, but I can’t believe that the rider’s batteries would last very long constantly receiving. Hmmm.
Tom, what kind of “group rides” are you doing these days that you need secure comms?
They all talk in code. Virenque is “sugar daddy”, Ullrich is “der Bratwurst”, Tyler was “hang ten” for his chin surfing prowess, he was “skinny puppy” prior to that , Landis is “lil boy bleu” and Lance is “Doper” so nobody suspects him.
just because it was on TV, doesn’t mean it is true. I don’t know about the Domina Vacanze team, but I’ve never seen a scanner in the Team CSC cars. And it’s true that there is very little useful stuff coming over the earphones, mostly relaying splits that they hear from race radio (so the other teams know that already) and things like calling riders back for water, pushing riders to hang in there, etc. I’ve never heard Riis tell riders ove the radio to attack, or anything like that.
Is it just me, or does the whole concept of using radios take the “sport” out of cycling?!
I think it would be much more competitive without them (and a level playing field for all teams)…