In the example on page 210, Bitsy is walking down the street with her commlink in hidden mode, and a Lone Star drone notices and causes her a bit of trouble. What are the mechanics behind the drone noticing her? I can think of two possibilities:

Method 1:
The drone wanders the area, continually scanning for hidden wireless nodes. Since it isn't looking for any particular node, it scans for hidden nodes in general, making an Electronics Warfare+Scan (15+) test (p.225). Assuming this is a top of the line drone, it manages to use attributes/programs/whatever of rating 6. This gives it a dice pool of 12, which means it automatically fails its attempt to detect Bitsy's commlink (p.56). In fact, it automatically fails the atempt to find any hidden node in a crowd, making the folks back at Lone Star either (a)congratulate themselves on keeping the streets free of ne'er-do-wells or (b)wonder why they spent any money on such a useless drone in the first place.

Method 2:
The drone wanders the area, and assumes that every metahuman it sees has a commlink. It scans a random sampling of people for hidden nodes with an Electronics Warfare+Scan (4) test (p.255). It takes a lot longer to do, but it's workable. If faced with a crowd of people in an area where hidden mode isn't allowed, it scrambles around, spending Simple Actions as fast as it can to scan the largest number of people possible. It's possible, in this case, that Bitsy could've avoided being singled out at all, if there were enough people around (and/or if her GM decided to have her make an Intuition+Infiltration or Edge+Infiltration roll to go unnoticed).

Regardless of method, if the drone is able to detect Bitsy, it'll probably want to throw a Matrix Perception test in her direction. This will be opposed by either her Hacking+Stealth or her Firewall+Stealth. Since she isn't actively fiddling with her commlink, Firewall+Stealth would probably be the most appropriate.

At this point, Bitsy's player realizes that getting her Firewall rating to 6 is easier than getting her Hacking skill to 6 - Bitsy was going to upgrade her computer eventually, anyway. In fact, if she can crack the program, she can provide the rest of her team (who aren't likely to buy Hacking anytime soon) with Firewall 6, Stealth 6 commlinks. There won't be any need for anyone, ever, to use Hacking to oppose a Matrix Perception test, unless they happen to be a particularly gifted hacker using a particularly sub-par commlink. Interesting.

Aren't extended tests subject to the same restrictions regarding threshholds and dice pools?

<checks>

Er.. Whoops.

Actually, it only needs to look at each person and spend a free action with no test required. If they have a commlink in active or passive mode, the drone will find it. If that test shows no result, then the drone knows that the target either has no commlink, or it has one in hidden mode. From that point on, if it needs to find the commlink, it can search for it (no real reason to search for it though) or otherwise, it can use the loudspeaker to "suggest" that she activate her commlink.

Well if you were mugged, you might be forgiven for not having one, but you can bet in those areas there will be some record of the activity, and you'd be reporting it very shortly after it happened

Or like Nightrain's most recent post describes, the drones could just go ahead and do the threshold 4 test to verify that there is a commlink on the person and it is operating in hidden mode, before going into its harrass the citizen routine, instead of going straight to the harrass the citizen mode when it finds someone who's not got an active/passive commlink, like was suggested in Nightrain's earlier post.

Turning not having a commlink at all into a serious offense should be reserved for ultra-high security government and corp facilities.

So why not carry two commlinks? One hidden to which all your running gear is slaved, and another open to which nothing gets added and carries a decent false ID?

You'll be spotted only as someone with an active commlink, unless they are doing detailed searches.

actualy, a spare commlink is a wonderfull idea. the hardware costs only 100, and you can use the same software as your better commlink. OS and programs will be limited to response, but its worth it.

and they start to do detailed searches? turn the other commlink off.

Or just do general 'search for hidden wireless node' tests. With six dice (Pilot & Program ratings of 3...?) the drone would hit 15 sucesses after about eight turns. THe drone would still need to perform a trace to connect the hidden node with a specific person, but that still doesn't give the character much time...

how would a directional antenna affect anything?

it's skinlinked. the only way for the drone to detect the node is for the node to be able to communicate it's presence back to the drone. if the node is not broadcasting, the node cannot be found other than by getting within the area that the node *is* broadcasting. now, i for one consider it unlikely that the drone will randomly shoot "skinlink bullets" or any such thing at random people, so if you have a PAN that is completely skinlinked, and no communication other than the skinlink, then i don't see how it could be detected.

a directional antenna allows for the signal to be picked up at a greater range then normal. there are some links on this forum about a person that made a bluetooth "sniper rifle". basicly he could pick up bluetooth signals from blocks away, signals that normaly are only traveling 10 meters or so...

yeah, one flaw in SR is that both items have to be in each others range in interract. that makes sense, but it should be possible for a person with a low end comlink to pick up a powful transmitter, even if they can't reply.

and it should be possible to pick up signals that might be to weak to read well, but you know they are there.

with a directional antenna you dont need a strong transmitter either.
people have buildt antennas out of old pringles cans. those antennas have made normal home wifi equipment get ranges of 1000 meter or so atleast.

and they where fully able to surf at that range from what i understand.