Not the standard encryption question...

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tipster67

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I see there are a series of talk groups Named A2 - A13 VHF Patch.. Why in the world would these all be encrypted? I know the police love to hide behind encryption. But what would the fire department be doing that would also need to be hidden? And the A Channels are carried on conventional channels. I just don't understand why the people who work for the citizens of this county feel the need to try and hide everything they do.
 

W8RMH

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I see there are a series of talk groups Named A2 - A13 VHF Patch.. Why in the world would these all be encrypted? I know the police love to hide behind encryption. But what would the fire department be doing that would also need to be hidden? And the A Channels are carried on conventional channels. I just don't understand why the people who work for the citizens of this county feel the need to try and hide everything they do.
They are taking lessons from the federal government as they do not want to be held accountable. They quickly forget who is paying for these expensive new radio systems.
 

tipster67

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I really hope I didn't sound like I was picking one them.. I just can not find any reasoning for the use of encryption in this case.
 

kma371

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I see there are a series of talk groups Named A2 - A13 VHF Patch.. Why in the world would these all be encrypted? I know the police love to hide behind encryption. But what would the fire department be doing that would also need to be hidden? And the A Channels are carried on conventional channels. I just don't understand why the people who work for the citizens of this county feel the need to try and hide everything they do.

How do the police " love" to hide behind encryption?
 

AZDon

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Hide behind encryption

I really do not believe that either law enforcement or fire department officials care if citizens listen to their radio conversations, truth be told, many of those enthusiasts go on to be recruited by those departments. Additionally, many of the spouses and families of fire fighters and law enforcement officers monitor the unencrypted transmissions at home and those departments probably prefer to keep it that way.

Public safety cant afford to compromise an investigation or worse an undercover officers life. At this juncture I also have to believe some of the fire department conversations are encrypted to protect arson investigations. We live in a different world today, disparaging remarks about what we can monitor or not is not going to help matters because at the end of the day, at a flip of a switch, it can all be encrypted. Lets be glad there is plenty to monitor.

Years ago investigations took place on clear voice channels but today, information on those channels is available on the internet and our sophisticated scanners have capabilities not even thought of years ago. Now think about it, if the police were investigating who broke into your house and assaulted your family would you mind if the crooks were listening in?
 

cellphone

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I see there are a series of talk groups Named A2 - A13 VHF Patch.. Why in the world would these all be encrypted?


I agree that it is annoying that these are encrypted. It limits the number of people that can monitor fireground transmissions. Everything on the talkgroups can be monitored on their respective VHF freqs, but you need to be very close. So there is only a handful of listeners that would be within the couple mile range of the VHF simplex transmission. These talkgroups are patched with the VHF infrastructure receivers that consists of dozens of receivers all over the valley, so you would hear what the alarm rooms hears. For those that monitored the PRWN system around 2004-2006 when it was first coming online, you got to experience the VHF patches on different talkgroups that were not encrypted, and it made monitoring fireground great for the short couple of years that the patches were online in the clear.

I agree that some things like Arsen Investigation should be encrypted. There are other talkgroups on the system that are dedicated to the investigations. The talkgroups that are mentioned in this thread can actually be monitored by anyone that purchases a very inexpensive VHF analog radio and is close enough to receive.
 
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