00:00 Intro with Purple PLA
05:45 Spessa calls in
08:00 MUSIC: Mexican Wine by Fountains of Wayne
08:45 Microphone issues
09:10 MUSIC: Car Phone
10:06 Microphone issues are fixed and Flamoot calls in
13:23 MUSIC: As by Har Mar Superstar
13:37 Someone calls in about a Craigslist ad
15:40 John calls in
18:51 A lady calls in about a free car
20:15 PLARADIONUMBERONEFAN calls in to ask about VoIP and to plug Hooter and Greenway
25:20 We call a crazy lady
28:34 linear tries to collect a debt
40:47 MUSIC: Macarron Chacarrom by El Mudo

I’m entirely too lazy to put any show notes up this week. You’ll just have to figure everything out yourself.

Do you hate that The Phone Show is on the PLA Radio feed? Do you love it? Have you ever had an opinion in your life? You can vote about this issue in the PLA Forums and let us know what you think. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to put the Phone Show on this feed or not, so give me some advice.

Visit Party 934 for other shows that are absolutely nothing like The Phone Show!

Since I’ve never had a need for TWO microphones in the studio, I was a little unprepared for the issues that would cause so you’ll notice some issues with the sound quality at times. Sorry about that. Below is a buttload of shownotes:

0:00:00 Intro
0:01:16 MUSIC: Pennsylvania by The Bloodhound Gang
0:01:30 Kikeburner calls in with a loving message for all. (Sorry, about our microphones here.)
0:02:19 MUSIC: Sometimes I Wonder by Throwing Toasters
0:05:05 Brad’s microphone sucks for some reason
0:05:57 MUSIC: Rap To World by Ill Mitch
0:08:44 RBCP attempts to discover Spessa’s PLA origins
0:09:40 Spessa unwraps a piece of gum right in front of the goddamn condenser microphone
0:10:34 Spessa, Mr. Spessa and RBCP answer the phone at a hotel (click here for more of these calls)
0:16:06 Mister Magoo/Anderson/Dave calls in to tell us the stream sucks
0:19:10 MUSIC: Holland, 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel
0:19:22 MUSIC: Drunken Lament by Ludo
0:19:41 Flamoot assaults us with crazy PBX stuff (visit his Google group!)
0:22:38 Eljefe calls about a motorcycle
0:23:18 Joe calls to request nerdcore
0:26:54 MUSIC: Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo by The Bloodhound Gang
0:28:58 Chatting with Spessa
0:30:50 www.phonelosers.org/tannest/ for the Tannest page
0:30:58 Boulder News Frenzy
0:31:25 Richard Cardo’s murder accusations
0:31:52 Prank call to directory assistance
0:33:03 Alex Carbon didn’t order a calling card
0:34:32 MUSIC: In The Garage by Weezer
0:35:44 Some pizza prank calls by Spessa (click here for lots more of these calls)
0:38:20 MUSIC: Hurt Feelings by The Flight of the Conchords
0:40:00 Rob T. Firefly
0:41:33 Listen to Deter at www.phonelosers.org/songs/
0:41:48 View RTF’s contest entry
0:43:55 www.phonelosers.org/community/
0:45:54 MUSIC: Get Back by Zebrahead
0:46:48 Go to Defcon!
0:47:19 Eljefe tries to sell Alex Carbon a calling card
0:47:31 MUSIC: Mah Na Mah Na by The Muppet Show
0:48:11 Visit Sign Hacker to see some of Spessa’s craaaazy antics.

I’m considering putting all episodes of The Phone Show on the PLA Radio feed and just combining it into one single feed. How do you feel about this? Click here to voice your opinion on it. If you want to listen to older Phone Show episodes, view the archive.

00:00 Fading in with Ants by Dr. Octagon
00:10 Introducing your wacky morning DJs, one which is distorted because he’s yelling too loud.
02:30 Music: linear by rbcp
09:00 Tombstone calls in to plug the forums at pla.comoj.com/forum
10:58 Brad gets a call from a Sheriff
12:35 Twitter is popular with old people now
13:19 Music: Blackalicious - Deception
14:22 Are we really on FM radio?
16:00 Godot calls in and we find out the T is silent and that he really was at Shmoocon
20:10 Brad promotes The Phone Show to Hudson Valley listeners
24:00 Music for Rushpwnsx: The Trees by Rush
24:15 Music: The Vandals - My Girlfriend’s Dead
26:48 yeti7 calls in fucked up on vicodin
29:00 Live calls to potential Hudson Valley listeners
31:50 Brad epically fails at Skype
32:00 Music: Still Alive by Jonathan Coulton (robot version)
32:56 Music: Tunak Tunak by Daler Mehndi
37:08 Tanner calls in to suggestion PLA Radio ideas
39:12 linear manages to get a plug in for www.phonelosers.net
40:21 Music dedicated to Mildred Monday: It Is Pitch Dark by MC Frontalot
44:35 Mildred Mondady calls in
47:28 Angelina, a hooker from Florida calls us
51:00 Big Love by Fleetwood Mac

For more information on The Phone Show, visit www.phonelosers.org/phoneshow. You can listen live each Tuesday morning at 2am EST on Party934.com.

00:00 The Word on the street (click it, there’s a whole cactus-themed video! Thanks CerealKiller!)
00:25 Intro
01:06 www.youtube.com/prankycallz
01:25 The Phone Show on Party 934
01:46 I Got No Iphone by Perry Grip
02:19 New phone mob
13:08 PLA Forums
13:11 prehack.org
13:15 Voicemails - 505-796-4020
16:58 Pay phone stuffing (pics are here and here)
21:30 www.youtube.com/phonelosersofamerica
21:48 I’ve Got Some Falling To Do - by Lemon Demon.

I searched all over Google for some good pay phone stuffing (also known as pay phone jamming, apparently) stories or information and could find pretty much nothing on the topic. I’ve always seen it mentioned in passing in history books on telephone companies and in underground ezines, but it seems like there hasn’t been a really good writeup on the topic anywhere. Am I missing it somewhere? If you know of a website (or a book or video or anything else) on the topic of pay phone stuffing, post it in the comments!

00:00 Cactus Flight 1529
00:46 Intro
01:19 Hi Richard
01:50 ShmooCon Happened
02:29 Cold War Kids - Something Is Not Right With Me
02:40 PLA Radio Episode #17 - Voice Authentication
03:15 Bell Canada assurances
05:22 Enrolling in voice authentication
09:57 Richard Cardo interpretive music and dance, based on Colleen Card’s poetry.
10:33 Rob T. Firefly
10:42 Extreme cases of phone pranking
10:58 El Jefe prank call stolen from hektik.com without permission
12:30 Upgrading keyboards at Wal-Mart
14:22 Upgrading keyboards at Motel 6
14:42 KFC hoax call
27:35 Richard Cardo’s YouTube
27:50 Molly Lewis - My Hope
30:38 I don’t speak a word of English

Thanks, Veruca, for pointing us to Generation Zel!, which is where the KFC sound file was located. You can read posts on that site related to the KFC incident here, here, here and here.

Pre-order Richard Cardo’s new book or buy his old one from Amazon.com!

AND

1, 2, 3, 4,
A phreak is knocking at my door.
5, 6, 7, 8,
His lineman’s belt is on him straight.
9, 10, 11, 12,
He’s putting phone wires under my shelf
5, 6, 7, 8,
I do not wish to be harassed by the PLA.
PLA ROCKS!

On the last 2 episodes, I’ve run a little short on time (I really prefer to keep shows under 30 minutes) so I didn’t play any voicemails. I still listen to all the voicemails and will play the least suckiest of them on future shows. So call in your comments to (505) 796-4020 or leave a comment on our contact page.

This episode of PLA Radio features nothing but an interview with one of the 976-GIRLS prank callers, named Erika. Even if you don’t know who the 976-GIRLS are, you might find the techniques and their very businesslike approach to prank calls interesting. D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. Records is also known for bringing us The Ball Busters and Telephone Head.

If you want to learn more about the 976-GIRLS and their one CD called Phonephuct, you can take a look at PLA’s 976-GIRLS page. Or if you want to buy a new 976-GIRLS CD from Amazon, they only cost $165! A complete bargain! Click here to get that. (Or used copies for a much more reasonable amount.)

00:00 Texting your way to love
00:32 Intro by Trevelyn
01:31 Shmoocon - Click here for our planning page.
02:02 New UPL issue
02:20 I Shop At Walmart - by CacaMan
04:00 Answering calls
08:50 We Go To Wal-Mart Every Day - Katie and Alyssa
09:30 Olympus Telephone Recorder
10:04 More calls
17:07 Take it Back - Steve Goodie
21:00 www.phonelosers.org/wal-mart
26:19 I Shop At Walmart - by CacaMan
30:31 Bonus material - RBCP getting busted by a Wal-Mart employee

Something I forgot to mention in this episode is that it’s easy to locate Wal-Mart store phones by looking at the support poles up near the ceiling. Poles that have phones on them are wrapped with blue tape. Poles that have fire extinguishers on them are wrapped with red tape. And to get on the all-store page, you need to dial #96.

There’s a whole page on having fun with store phones located at www.phonelosers.com/article/storephones/. It covers fun things to do in stores and things to dial on all kinds of different store phones. And then there’s our Wal-Mart page, which has even more answered calls and other Wal-Marty funness.

I made a video version of this episode a few days after it was released. As of this writing, it’s been watched 10,000 times on YouTube and over 105,000 times on Ebaums. It’s also been linked from dozens of blogs and forums. Not bad for just a week. Thanks again, Black Friday shoppers!

If you’ve ended up here from the video, be sure to listen to the podcast too since it’s got more calls, longer calls, and explains things slightly better than on the video.

00:00 Prayer, courtesy of handl3r
00:56 Intro
01:48 PLA Voice Bridge - 218-339-8070
02:05 Sidepocket’s Bluebox Demonstration
02:15 PLA at Defcon
02:47 murd0c and RBCP’s Phreaknic prank
02:55 i-hacked.com
03:05 PLA at Shmoocon
03:30 Telephone Rock
04:53 Prayer line calls
11:38 Voicemails - leave your own messasge at 505-796-4020
15:52 Trevelyn’s ode to the PLA Forums
18:18 More prayer line calls
2248 PLA Wiki
22:52 PLA stickers
22:55 Nominate PLA for a podcast award
23:23 Hand of the Almighty by John R. Butler
25:21 A few more prayer clips

00:00 “Tits are greater than PLA” - Stankdawg, 2006
00:05 Intro by Trevelyn
01:10 Prank call contest winners
01:30 PLA Voice bridge - I was wrong about the number in the show. The new number is actually 218-339-8070.
01:58 HOPE PLA Panel
02:51 Altalp’s Craigslist prank
06:15 Musical interlude
06:42 Answering Machines
07:18 Movie theater answering machines
12:38 Picture Me portrait studio - www.pictureme.com
15:37 Voicemails - Call (505) 796-4020 to leave your own or click here for other options..
18:50 Cell phone voicemails (Click here for a caller ID spoofing account.)
21:30 More answering machine info
21:04 PLA/UPL Twitter (twitter.com/phonelosers)
22:10 PLA Facebook (facebook.com/group.php?gid=18720141339)
22:15 PLA Radio Myspace (www.myspace.com/plaradio and groups.myspace.com/phonelosers)
22:25 Ben Bernanke by Lemon Demon (based on this)

linear here. you were expecting someone else? The United Phone Losers have hacked into the PLA mainframe gibson, and taken control of the beloved PLA Radio. Listen in as we give a brief UPL history lesson, hack rbcp’s voicemail, and mess with people on Craigslist.

OMG HAX.

Show Notes:

00:00 Mitch Hedberg
00:20 Intro
00:47 Brief UPL History
02:35 Call to Renita
03:10 Call to Bertha
04:25 Call to linear’s Mom
05:25 Call to American Airlines
06:58 Hacking Brad’s Voicemail Box (Music: Los Gatos Negros “We Shall Bring A Darkness”)
07:15 Voicemails - (505) 796-4020 or phonelosers.org on Skype
11:15 Free Kittens
12:35 Black Changing Table
13:33 Wild Animal Park Sting Operation
15:40 Sell Me That Fucking Ford part 1
16:51 Sell Me That Fucking Ford part 2
17:36 Sell Me That Fucking Ford part 3
19:10 Confidential Carpet Cleaning
20:57 visit http://www.phonelosers.net
21:02 Wham! “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”

00:00 Gilligan’s Island
01:12 Intro by Trevelyn
02:08 April Fools!
03:35 Richard Cardo
04:30 Website issues
04:55 Voice Authentication
07:33 Call to Leslie
11:50 The Test
13:29 Voicemails - (505) 796-4020 or phonelosers.org on Skype

Finally we decided to capture a bit of our FCC violations on video. But instead of capturing actual customers being harassed by us as they placed an order, I drove through the Taco Bell drive-thru myself with a video camera sitting on the dashboard. As I attempted to place my order, RijilV informed me of some crazy new Taco Bell policies and a manager immediately rushed out to explain to me that I wasn’t actually talking to an employee. Here is that video:

After spending several years on Google Video and YouTube, it’s been watched approximately 20,000 times. And of those 20,000 people who have viewed it, approximately all of them have emailed me and asked me what kind of radio we used and how can they use a radio to do the same thing. So in the spirit of April 1st and in order to quell the number of emails sent to me and posts on the PLA Forums asking the same thing, I’ve decided to write this tutorial to help those people out.

But I’m not going to explain how to modify a Yaesu VX5 or a Yaesu VX7. A simple Google search will show you how to modify these ham radios. The problem with these mods is that, even though they’re fairly simple, you have to buy the radios which could cost you anywhere from $200 - $400. Then, after removing a couple solder points, you have to learn how to use it, you have to look up fast food frequency lists, you have to understand the difference between the transmit frequencies and the receive frequencies and you have to scroll through PL tones using trial and error to find the correct one.

Or how about we do this a different way. A way that uses a couple items that you might already have in your home. You can easily modify most old CB radios in a way that will allow them to transmit directly to drive-thru frequencies. You won’t have to scroll through hundreds of possible drive-thru frequencies, because a CB radio’s channels line up in exactly the same way as most drive-thru’s channels, only at a higher frequency. How do you get your CB radio to run at a higher frequency? A simple replacement of the crystal inside, with a 6.5536 MHz crystal. This triples the megahertz that are broadcast on and there is no learning required. You just take the modified CB radio to a fast food restaurant and start broadcasting to the customers.

“But RBCP, I don’t have a 6.5536 MHz crystal lying around my house,” you might be whining at this point. But this isn’t true. Just about any house has several 6.5536 MHz crystals in them if you know where to look. This just happens to be the exact same crystal that you can find in electric heaters, hair dryers, electric stoves, curling irons, electric hot water heaters, irons, and toasters. These crystals are in just about any item that has heated coils and are used to control the frequency of the heating elements so that they don’t burn your house down.

So for this modification you need…

• 1 CB radio. It has to be a 40 channel CB radio with a digital display, which includes just about any CB radio manufactured after the mid 1980’s. The old 23 channel CBs from the 1970’s will not work. It can even be a walkie talkie CB radio. If you don’t have one, you can find one at Goodwill or a yard sale for probably less than $10.
  
• 1 toaster. (Or other item with heating elements inside.) A toaster is the most ideal to use, because it’s almost guaranteed to have the crystal inside of it. It’s more common to find curling irons and hair dryers that don’t. Again, it should be a toaster manufactured within the past 20 years or so. Before that they didn’t have crystal requirements for toaster manufacturers. (And incidentally, there were a lot more electrical house fires back then.) Goodwill will probably have a toaster for less than $10.
  
• 1 soldering iron and solder. Don’t worry if you don’t have soldering experience. It’s actually pretty easy. Click here for a soldering tutorial. You can purchase a soldering iron at Radio Shack or Sears for about $10.
  
• A few screwdrivers

Even if you have to buy all these materials, you’re only out $30. That’s a lot better than the $300 you might end up spending on a Yaesu radio. And some of you might already have all these items so you don’t have to pay anything. Ask a friend or a relative if they’ve got an old toaster or CB radio lying around that they don’t need.

First you’ll want to take apart your toaster. This isn’t too hard. Just flip it upside down and start removing the screws. You’ll probably need to pull off the plastic lever and knobs before you remove the top of the toaster. Once you have the top off, you’ll see a green or brown circuit board inside.

Flip the circuit board down and you’ll see all the components on the other side, including the 6.5536 MHz crystal. The crystal is silver and will have 6.5 stamped on the side of it. In the picture below, I’ve used an arrow to show you where it’s located.

The crystal is likely in a different spot in other toasters, but it’s hard to mistake for any other electronic component. The crystal will have some form of 6.5 stamped on the side of it. In my toaster, it showed 6.55-12. While the official frequency needed is 6.5536 MHz, anything within 1.6 megahertz will work. So don’t worry if your crystal just says 6.5 or 6.50 - it’s all the same for our purposes.

It’s kind of hard to see what I’m doing in the picture above, but I’m heating up the leads on the crystal from underneath with my soldering iron to melt the solder, and I’m pulling on the crystal from above with a pair of needle nose pliers. It only takes a few seconds to get the crystal out of the toaster.

Now that the crystal is out of your toaster, throw your toaster away! Do not attempt to use it once the crystal is removed. Remember, the crystal is in there for safety and using your toaster without the crystal could burn your toast and/or start a kitchen fire. It’s likely your toaster won’t even turn on with the missing crystal, but please don’t even try. Just throw it away.

As I mentioned before, just about any brand and model of CB radio will work, as long as it has the digital display on it. Which means, just about any CB radio manufactured after the mid 1980’s. These are the kinds of CB radios whose frequencies are controlled by a single crystal inside of them. For my mod, I used a Radio Shack TRC-207 walkie talkie CB radio, which is pictured above. I prefer using a walkie talkie CB radio because it doesn’t requiring sticking a huge CB antenna on the roof of my car which might be noticed if a fast food employee starts looking around the parking lot for the culprits.

Taking apart your CB radio is just as easy as taking apart the toaster. Remove the screws and pop it open. You may or may not have to lift up the circuit board inside to find the crystal inside. In my particular model, the crystal actually plugged into a socket so I didn’t need to even desolder the old crystal. I just pulled it out with my fingers and then plugged in the new 6.55 MHz crystal. I don’t know how common this is, because in other CB radios that I’ve modified the crystal was soldered to the circuit board, just like in the toaster.

Put your CB back together and test it to make sure it’s working. You’re finished! Obviously, you won’t be able to talk on normal CB channels anymore since your CB is transmitting and receiving at a much higher frequency now. But who cares, CB channels are lame anyway. Let’s hop in the car and drive to our nearest fast food establishment to test it out.

Sit near the drive-thru and wait for a customer to pull up. While the customer is talking to the drive-thru speaker, start flipping through your channels until you hear them talking. I’ve found that most drive thrus end up being somewhere in the 16 - 25 channel range. I’ve never found one above channel 30 and only a few on channels 1 through 15. It all depends on how their drive-thru is set up and what frequencies they’re using. Anyway, push down your talk button and start talking to the customer.

The cool thing about using a CB radio to transmit on drive-thru frequencies is that a CB is designed to work for several miles. The headsets that those fast food people wear are only designed to work for about 100 feet. So you can easily overpower the employees, even if you’re several parking lots away. In fact, you may be inadvertently screwing with several other drive-thrus in town without even knowing it. This is more likely when you’re using the kind of CB radio that’s supposed to be installed in a car. Those usually run on 5 watts and can cover an entire city. This is another reason I like to use my walkie talkie. It’s lucky if it will work for even a mile, so I’m only harassing one restaurant at a time.

If you found this tutorial useful, you might also enjoy the video I’ve made on the same subject. It includes much of the same information in this tutorial, but also includes actual footage of us messing with a drive-thru with this CB mod. Enjoy!

You might also enjoy our original Taco Bell Takeover video, our Happy Birthday drive-thru video and our Drive-Thru Shenanigans video.

This short video is barely enough to even be considered a PLA TV, but since when have I ever had standards. Watch as I attempt to mess with some missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints via some security cameras and a two-way intercom. This happened in 2003 and 2004, but I don’t think I ever posted it on phonelosers.org. So here it is.

Show Notes:
00:00 Bitch
00:43 Intro
01:45 New Phone Mobs
04:40 S1acker’s Mass Calling
07:23 Corporate Terrorism
09:16 Voicemails - (505) 796-4020
10:15 How to record phone calls
11:24 Ride Home?
14:14 Mildred Monday
18:50 Blackhat Life

Show Notes:
00:00: My BFF Rose
00:23: Intro song by Trevelyn (visit his website or his Myspace for more music)
01:09: Hi PLAers
03:11: Legend’s 1999 cordless phone pranks with Missy and Dena - Listen to the full phone calls on YouTube (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) - Also, visit Legend’s YouTube page, his Dailymotion page, his Myspace page, and his Megavideo page.
11:02: Voicemails - call 505-796-4020 to leave your own
14:20: Messing with my neighbors in Ohio
15:25: Old man’s jacket
18:00: The Dino Allsman story - Visit the official Dino Allsman page.
21:50: Bye - for more cordless phone stuff, click here.

This PLA Radio episode contains an update on the old social enginnering episode, a bit about sendmeavoicemail.com and then some sound clips from a wacky morning DJ that I prank called a long time ago. This podcast is 22 minutes long and is about 19.8 megs.

• 00:00 Sgt. Tackleberry shoots a pay phone - from Police Academy 3
  
• 00:26 Welcome to episode #14
  
• 00:51 New social engineering laws (read this article on it or search for HR4709.)
  
• 01:38 Call to Verizon Wireless
  
• 04:28 Send Me A Voicemail - www.sendmeavoicemail.com
  
• 06:37 Wacky Morning DJ - background music by Trevelyn (visit his website or his Myspace for more phone tracks)
  
• 17:30 A few updates. Buy a shirt. Visit the forums.
  
• 18:15 Suicide Hotline by Insane Clown Posse (dedicated to Eric and Taylor, from The Mediocre Show)

Visit www.phonelosers.org/phonemob for more phone mobbing sound files. If you like the episode, take a minute to Vote for PLA Radio on Podcast Alley and then go Digg PLA Radio on Digg.com.