San Bernardino System 08

[pepsima1]

I am so happy for Radio Reference.com's website. It is the best website out there for breaking news and being able to listen to the audio feeds and to be responsible by doing it the legal way.

I am glad CNN and FOX news gave out props for this website.

In some sick way I am glad it all went down in Big Bear because San Bernardino County Sheriffs trunking system is not ENCRYPTED which was a good thing since there were a lot of citizens that live up in The Big Bear area that have digital scanners that monitor their own community. Thanks to San Bernardino County for being TRANSPARENT and keeping their communications open in the clear.

I would never want some nut job running around in my town causing murders and taking people hostage and not being able to protect my family. This all goes back to why we talk over and over again about ENCRYPTION all the time. Debate after Debate after Debate on this issue and this is why ENCRYPTION is bad for communities.

I bet there were a lot of citizens tuned into the SB Trunking System 08 24hrs a day while this whole incident was going on. What a great way to stay tuned and be informed to stay in your house and keep your kids safe. When you have that nut job taking hostages and car jacking’s at least hearing communications in the clear would give you notice that there is a monster on the loose and to stay in your house and stay off the roads and also hear about certain road closures and so on and so on.

Since I live in The County of Orange I will never get to know if some nut job is running around in my town since Orange County Police and Sheriff is all ENCRYPTED......

I honestly believe that there are so many good people that want to know what is going on in their communities and towns and also to protect their beautiful surroundings... New Orleans decided to stay in the clear and be TRANSPARENT. Good Job Chief

Also, I love Chief Charlie Beck with The LAPD. He has risen thru the ranks and is an honest man and wants his department to learn and also to grow through these tough times and also be TRANSPARENT. Also LAPD has kept their communications in digital and in the clear so far.

We are owed that since we pay for services and also pay their pensions and paychecks. As long as you are open and honest and always strive to do the right thing you will never FAIL...........

I think with the cost of encryption which is about 400 bucks a radio you have to way the good with the bad with relation to good people and bad people in the world and there are def.. more good than bad and to stay informed in our community is a good thing. There were lives probably spared because of SB 08 system being in the clear.

Please chime in to hear others and their opinions. Thanks

[Spitfire8520]

If you want people to be completely honest in response to your comment, I think the incident will hurt the scanning community more then showing what good it is to be transparent. If lurking around in these forums tells me anything, it is that San Bernardino County's goal isn't to be transparent, but failure of understanding how their radio system works.

The fact that it was being rebroadcasted on live news makes it even worse. I would not be surprised if we didn't see a new forum post in the new few months following Orange County's exact move and citing this exact incident. It wouldn't be a long shot for some Motorola representative to call up these agencies and basically say, "Remember San Bernardino and how thousands of people could hear the officers get shot on live radio and see it on TV? Well you should buy some encryption to solve that!" When it gets to the point where agencies are pretty much begging news agencies and the public in general from talking about police movement, you know the repercussions are going to be bad. Encryption will go ahead and make sure you will never have to beg for people to stop talking about an incident live and wait for a new agency to file for the recorded dispatches in a few months. I'm going to go ahead and stop my response here before it becomes a rant.

[pepsima1]

Well you make some good points. Maybe live feeds of communications over the internet might be a bad thing. If there was no live scanner feeds then that probably would of not happened and live communications over CNN or FOX news would of not happened.

Keep open lines of communications in the clear for your own communities I think is a good thing.

Look at DTRS System and its a statewide P25 Phase 1 system and this sytem is about 90 % and above in the clear. There were probably late night discussions with statewide officals over this ENCRYTION things and some counties bought farm and most of them did not.

Interesting

[brandon]

I'd be surprised if they don't go encrypted (on their new P25 system) after all of this. But who knows....

[Confuzzled]

There have already been at least two threads about this event shut down and probably a dozen others shut down over the last few months that went into the same territory topic-wise.

Do we need another?

Meanwhile, there is one in the Rants area.

[pepsima1]

I think the reason why there is so much about the "big word" is because alot of us take this hobby serious and we don't want to keep losing to where we won't have anything to listen too in the next few years. We just enjoy the hobby and also like seeing the technology grow and its just plain scary to think we will loose the battle of this hobby

Thats it. Very Simple

[karldotcom]

I don't see how all the Tweets and YouTube videos containing feed audio is going to help "open communications" in the future...

edit: Also the KCAL reporter showing up in the middle of the gunbattle.....

[jlanfn]

Originally Posted by Confuzzled

Meanwhile, there is one in the Rants area.

We don't need another thread about what happened in the incident itself. That's what is being discussed in the Rants Tavern. We also don't need yet another thread pushing back against the adoption of encryption in general, as has been done countless other times. Perhaps if the discussion can steer clear of both those areas and instead focus on the possibility/probability of specifically San Bernardino County adopting encryption the thread won't get closed.

I have to admit I was very surprised when San Bernardino County started building its 700 MHz P25 Phase I system that it was not encrypted. None of the surveillance and SWAT channels have ever used encryption on this system to my knowledge, which is good for identifying the talkgroups but probably is not the way it should be.

In the meantime, San Bernardino County is on the verge of designing/constructing a countywide P25 system to replace its Smartnet systems with Motorola as the sole source vendor (for better or worse). See this thread for more information:
Forums « ScanBernardino.com • View topic - Plans for P25 Trunking Upgrade

If you look carefully at the documents linked in that post you will see a brief mention of encryption.

I would be surprised if this incident does not cause San Bernardino County to take a closer look at encryption if they haven't already. Unfortunately it seems San Bernardino County attempts in many ways to emulate its neighbors in Orange and Riverside counties, and we know where they are going or have gone with encryption. All these things lead me to believe wide use of encryption in San Bernardino County is a relatively high probability with the new system. Perhaps we will know more when ISD comes to the board of supervisors with a finalized contract with Motorola.

[karldotcom]

[Starman918]

I agree.......I bet they go encrypted as a result of this incident. I monitored the event and I noticed that at the news conferences with the Sheriff, reporters were asking questions (i.e. Did you burn the house down on purpose? Did the Deputy get shot in the face?) about events that they could only know from listening to the radio transmissions. The Sheriff clearly looked uncomfortable.

[Code20Photog]

Originally Posted by karldotcom

Also the KCAL reporter showing up in the middle of the gunbattle.....

Carter just didn't "show up" in the middle of the gun battle. They got a tip that Dorner was spotted in that area, and was actually following the caravan of cars to that location.

[Code20Photog]

Originally Posted by Starman918

I agree.......I bet they go encrypted as a result of this incident. I monitored the event and I noticed that at the news conferences with the Sheriff, reporters were asking questions (i.e. Did you burn the house down on purpose? Did the Deputy get shot in the face?) about events that they could only know from listening to the radio transmissions. The Sheriff clearly looked uncomfortable.

The question about burning the house down, is a legitimate question. We were watching it live from LAPD headquarters where all of us were camped out for the press conferences from them. As this all started going down, one of the other news photographers I was with, said half jokingly, "Dear cabin owner, sorry for burning your cabin down, here's a blank check, sincerely the Sheriff" And lo and behold 20 minutes later...

The scanner is a source of information for us, and at times, a source of conflicting information. We were listening to the scanner the whole time we were up in Big Bear. We heard a lot of information that they were not telling us, and a lot of information that they were flat out contradicting in their statements.

We talked about it in the other thread about encryption, that without public accountability, it's easy for a law enforcement agency to hide behind their encryption.

[marcotor]

I can say from first-hand experience during visits with friends who work for an Orange County costal LE agency, that the traffic on the OC system, especially the "task force" channels, is anything but constrained. Most are aware they cannot be monitored, so an inappropriate comment or profanity happens much more often than you would hear on "open" agencies.

SBSO traffic, and comments by LEO on scene - regardless of intent - are being used to incite and inflame the aftermath. No doubt, the result of this will be the P25 System having encryption 24/7 for any LEO agency, in the name of officer safety. It will be a card well played, but the loss of transparency is very unsettling. The powers that be need only to point to uncomfortable questions from the press and citizenry about radio transmissions during a stressful situation.

If a situation were to arise in the future, you can be sure tactical operations will be conducted on a channel not provisioned for "authorized news agency" radios.

[pepsima1]

Companies that manufacture scanners are going to be done soon within the next couple of years. Who is going to buy a scanner for 500 to 600 bucks to listen to taxi cabs and public works. Nobody will.

P25 is being released in all 50 states and the majority are all going Encrypted. Also, Canada is big on Encryption too. I can really see why these companies are not releasing any new scanners since there is no way to design a radio to receive these signals. Its a done deal. Thats why GRE bowed out and will probably not coming back. No reason too. Uniden who knows about them. They might release one more model maybe or just keep trying to tweek their firmware to keep the general public happy.

Makes sense. Everyone of those companies listed above are in complete limbo. They are all scared in their shorts because there is no door to run threw. I bet they are lost for words at corporate going what do we do boss. We can't beat encryption.

[WayneH]

Originally Posted by pepsima1

Companies that manufacture scanners are going to be done soon within the next couple of years. Who is going to buy a scanner for 500 to 600 bucks to listen to taxi cabs and public works. Nobody will.

I'd like to shut down the encryption negativity since this thread's heading that direction. It's the same thing over and over and over again.

The only thing that will affect scanner manufacturers is the economy. It will not be encryption of Law Enforcement traffic. Near me a regional communications system is being built and they are intentionally not encrypting normal LE traffic. So I find you narrow view flawed. What happens in a 100 mile radius to someone does not reflect the rest of the world. I own several modern "P25 scanners" and the last time I listened to my local P25 agency was months ago. There's much more than listening to the cops on your scanner.

Some Police Chiefs and government officials feel they work for the officers (rather than taxpayers) and see encryption as protection for mismanagement of their agency. Orange County is a good example of this.

[Confuzzled]

Originally Posted by marcotor

I can say from first-hand experience...

I'll respond in the thread in 'Rants"....

Continuing from the Dorner thread.....

[Markb]

Originally Posted by WayneH

So I find you narrow view flawed. What happens in a 100 mile radius to someone does not reflect the rest of the world. There's much more than listening to the cops on your scanner.

Exactly. I have been a scanner listener/radio user for 30 years. I listened to OC when they were in the clear and I personally found it to be very boring 98% of the time. Nowadays, the "good stuff" in OC is mostly broadcast in the clear anyway.
Besides, there are MANY other things to listen to and/or decode over RF and my interests have definitely broadened and/or shifted throughout the years.

My other point is this:
If this incident in San Berdoo happened before encryption became affordable (assuming they were not trying to torch the house as they claim), a memo likely would have come out the next day stating that the term "burner" shall not be used to describe pyrotechnic irritant dispersal devices. Problem solved. Learning point for LE. Instead, they can now just encrypt. Kinda like when the Fire Service used to refer to structures threatened by a wildland fire as "winners" or "losers" based upon the quality of their yard work, upkeep and overall defendability. Didn't fly too well with the public, but they just changed terminology, as encryption isn't really an option for the Fire Service.

Mark

[Justaguy]

Originally Posted by Code20Photog

...one of the other news photographers I was with, said half jokingly, "Dear cabin owner, sorry for burning your cabin down, here's a blank check, sincerely the Sheriff" And lo and behold 20 minutes later...

I know the owner of the cabin.
Oh, if only it were that simple...