As a Grand Rapids resident who knows quite well how to use a SDR, I'm going to choose a positive interpretation of this comment and assume you're referring to the phenomena of "West Michigan nice", where hacking a public system for lulz would be absolutely unconscionable.
That being said, I'm actually rather tempted to at least figure out what the air interface is. The article mentions a 1200 baud modem - does a standard UHF/VHF voice channel have enough bandwidth to run PSK/FSK V.22 or V.23? That'd be quite a hack.
Very likely it's Bell 202 AFSK. This is specifically designed to run at audio frequencies with 1200 Hz and 2200 Hz tones. You'd have to figure out how the higher protocol levels are implemented but it's probably going to fall within the realm of what is done with AX.25.
I meant that its far the heck away from everywhere and the population is low. Thus, a low incidence of griefers of any kind. But your take is good too.
