Just throwing this out there: I'm in the central Texas area and all LEOs in my county are using an ENCRYPTED P25 Phase 1 system:
Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS) Trunking System, Austin, Texas - Scanner Frequencies
"Williamson County [service name] operates on this system, however ALL communications are encrypted and cannot be monitored."
This means there are no scanners that will let me listen (decode AND decrypt) to police transmissions. I have a friend who is a police officer and he said one of the main reasons is because of the sensitive info that is transmitted (name, DL #, etc.). I'm sure the other reason is so the bad guys don't know the good guys are coming from them.
But I was thinking for those of us with our HAM licenses (we're good guys too!), it could/would make sense if we were legally allowed to own a scanner that would decrypt the P25 signal. This is a big IF Uniden/Whistler/etc. even made scanners to decrypt the signal.
Anyway, I wanted to throw that out there in case it was a popular opinion and would maybe pick up steam and be lobbied to the FCC to make it happen (crossing fingers).
Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS) Trunking System, Austin, Texas - Scanner Frequencies
"Williamson County [service name] operates on this system, however ALL communications are encrypted and cannot be monitored."
This means there are no scanners that will let me listen (decode AND decrypt) to police transmissions. I have a friend who is a police officer and he said one of the main reasons is because of the sensitive info that is transmitted (name, DL #, etc.). I'm sure the other reason is so the bad guys don't know the good guys are coming from them.
But I was thinking for those of us with our HAM licenses (we're good guys too!), it could/would make sense if we were legally allowed to own a scanner that would decrypt the P25 signal. This is a big IF Uniden/Whistler/etc. even made scanners to decrypt the signal.
Anyway, I wanted to throw that out there in case it was a popular opinion and would maybe pick up steam and be lobbied to the FCC to make it happen (crossing fingers).