My father is a radio lover, a DXer, and sometimes nearly contemplated a ham license. So I grew up with him listening to shortwave and other bands, he explained all the concepts, WWV would be on for two hours at a time (you could literally count every minute). Another fixture was the police/fire scanner that would be on most evenings, especially when we heard sirens. Dad put up a nice rotary Yagi VHF/UHF tower for the television set, so we would play with the rotary control to dial in better reception, whatever channel we watched.
So then I found channel 70-83 on the TV, and discovered that AMPS cell phone conversations would drift in and out on those channels if I just let them sit for long enough. So Dad strictly enjoined me not to reveal what I learned from those conversations. And I lost interest, because not much interesting was being said, and the broadcasts were partial, probably because the typical use of AMPS was for car phones, not people walking by on the sidewalk.
I guess you're in the UK? The UK has this really weird law where it's legal to listen to anything but you may not repeat what you heard. I don't know of any other country that has that stipulation.
In most of Europe you can listen all you want and talk about it. I think in the US some frequencies were forbidden to listen to and to this day these are blocked on scanners. Not sure why as analog cellphones are long obsolete.
Even listening is in a grey area in the UK; it’s a separate offence to “use wireless telegraphy apparatus with intent to obtain information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any message” where you aren’t an intended recipient. But the intent bit is probably hard to prove in practice.
Of course listening to ham radio bands is allowed since they are meant to be public. But unlike in other countries the UK does mind if you speak about what you heard on the bands. I've heard several people getting berated for this on the bands.
I suppose for stuff that's actually meant to be prive it's even illegal to intercept it, I don't know. Personally I think such laws are just theater. Just like the cell band blocking on scanners in the US. Spend 2 minutes on mods.dk and a soldering iron and problem solved.
So then I found channel 70-83 on the TV, and discovered that AMPS cell phone conversations would drift in and out on those channels if I just let them sit for long enough. So Dad strictly enjoined me not to reveal what I learned from those conversations. And I lost interest, because not much interesting was being said, and the broadcasts were partial, probably because the typical use of AMPS was for car phones, not people walking by on the sidewalk.