Alaska Anchorage and what else ?

Anchorage Alaska EMS also permanant encrypted and what else ?

Hey, this morning on the news was mentioned Anchorage Alaska all radio transmissions will be encrypted and internet audio feed will be cut off permenant. We know APD was already like this and now they will encrypt all EMS traffic aswell. what a dispapointment..

marc :\

disappointment and seems wrong to do this to the citizens of Anchorage.

One would think the news media and concerned citizens would fight this craziness.

Many in the media and citizens ARE concerned. For a while now.

But between the heads of public safety departments in the past few years getting on a high horse and forgetting who they work for and who pays their salary. Overzealous equipment company salesmen wanting to squeeze more of OUR tax money out of said departments and convincing them of what they don't really need and lastly the majority of the citizens not knowing and not caring about stuff like that. We get what we get unfortunately.

Just look at some of the comments in the related news article on how complacent and almost butt-kissing of our government some people are and since THEY don't see the value and importance of keeping our officials in check, they attack the "tin-foil hat dissidents".

Police & Fire Dept. radios to be encrypted, no internet audio feeds

The public feeds provided on websites like this one doesn't help matters in that those in Public Safety use that as part of the excuse and justification to block out the public from monitoring. I know that some of the heads of the statewide radio system association along with top management in the Troopers are the biggest proponents of encryption and they have been spreading their "philosophy" to everyone they can. Ever since our area went encrypted, not a week goes by that I go by significant incidents around town where sometimes they close roads for hours and never see anything in the paper about it. And pretty soon if I say anymore on the subject of encryption and/or audio feeds, this same website who relies heavily on us for their traffic and profit, are the first ones to censor and ban people for talking about it.

That's it in a nutshell. We live in a country more and more run by a select few politicians and government officials and many in the media and some regular citizens are apparently there to help them in their "regime". Hopefully more and more people continue to wake up, including the media, as they realize they're just pawns in this game...

and then afterwards on the news 'the police wants help from the public, if anyone has seen anything that could be helpful to this case please call' hearing that insanity while the first information fresh after a crime is so more helpful that 3 days later.. this really stirs my thoughts there are most likely over at least 10.000 eyes helping out at the point of time when it wouldnt be encrypted. then this Justice Channel with cold unsolved cases 24/7 with advertisements which makes dollars of course. blah!

I can't say I am surprised.

As noted above, streaming (whether hosted by Broadcastify or not) cannot be excluded as one of the primary reasons for encryption. Steaming technology did help us out a bit for a few years, as APD gave the steam a try - but that was discontinued after abuse of information given over it.

Remember, the initial reason for APD to encrypt (whether you think it's legitimate or not) was because of a weapon on school ground incident here few years ago. Word got out, bunch of freaked out parents showed up and caused a mess apparently. APD also partially blamed the media for that, saying they released unconfirmed reports heard over the scanner. Then, multiple people got arrested with scanner apps playing over their phones or car speakers. Few people screwed it up for everyone else - most scanner hobbyists don't go out and commit crimes using information they hear over their radios.

To me, a bigger issue is social media "scanner" groups or individuals, that basically post everything that comes over the radio publicly. Anchorage has had one of those groups around for years now, and it probably didn't help the case for keeping the channels clear. That being said, I'm really disappointed they will encrypt Fire/EMS too.

The technology to encrypt is getting easier and cheaper to acquire, and with the widespread use of social media and internet streams, encryption trend will continue, and not just on public safety channels. I've been putting money away for the new TRX scanner, but I am strongly reconsidering spending 500+ dollars on something that will stay silent most of the time around where I live.

Right, what would be the point of buying a scanner if everything is encrypted?

ikarus280 said:

To me, a bigger issue is social media "scanner" groups or individuals, that basically post everything that comes over the radio publicly. Anchorage has had one of those groups around for years now, and it probably didn't help the case for keeping the channels clear.

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Yep, for almost 3 decades now I've been involved with this hobby, the golden rule and I thought about the ONLY law in the books related to scanning just about everywhere was "not to divulge what you were hearing and especially not "broadcast" it to unintended parties".

That still shouldn't be the justification to encrypt everything. They could enforce that law and make people take down their websites and broadcasting. It is never too late. Many agencies and cities have reversed their decisions about this subject and only use encryption in specific channels and sensitive ops like it's always been in places with some common sense and without the "tyrannical tendencies" I've been seeing more prevalent lately. Let me tell you this is NOT the same Alaska I came to over 2 decades ago, especially in the bigger cities.

There's many more things happening in our government at all levels that are affecting or threatening our rights and freedoms as citizens, so what I'm saying it's just not related to their decision to encrypt but that's just the icing on the top of concerns. Now the media and citizens are at the mercy of whatever these departments decide is relevant info to release to the public and that almost always ends up being the decision of a very few people within said departments or government.

That being said, I'm really disappointed they will encrypt Fire/EMS too.

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Is not just disappointing but how did they ever went along with that? It's always been known that Fire/EMS does NOT trust even the higher power Trunked analog systems of the past but to now trust Digital Trunked TDMA simulcasted encrypted systems, especially for fireground operations inside buildings? So they likely will use analog conventional frequencies while on-scene is my guess. But still, sounds to me like a lawsuit waiting to happen should anything go wrong with communications. But how will we ever know right?

There's even lawsuits still ongoing from 9/11 incidents where Public Safety couldn't communicate with each other and across different agencies, which is the whole reason the INTEROPERABILITY philosophy started. Now you have several more things to go wrong when trying to communicate with each other. Let's not even get into all the times the radios lose the encryption key and the users don't even know it and they're saying more than they should now that they think nobody can hear them.

But whatever, just like the so-called FCC narrowband mandate, the interoperability thing has been used a marketing scheme to sell departments a bunch of radio equipment they don't really need. The "narrowband mandate" AND interoperability can be achieved with conventional analog too and definitely much cheaper.

....encryption trend will continue, and not just on public safety channels.

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What others channels or services are you thinking?

I've been putting money away for the new TRX scanner, but I am strongly reconsidering spending 500+ dollars on something that will stay silent most of the time around where I live.

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There's still a lot of other cool and interesting things to listen to out there. And many useful venues to still find out what could be going on out there. Of course, not many as interesting and useful as Public Safety.

kikito said:

.... Ever since our area went encrypted, not a week goes by that I go by significant incidents around town where sometimes they close roads for hours and never see anything in the paper about it. And pretty soon if I say anymore on the subject of encryption and/or audio feeds, this same website who relies heavily on us for their traffic and profit, are the first ones to censor and ban people for talking about it.

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Consider that most often the media learns of an event because they themselves are listening. With Encryption they are also not able to listen. Now when citizens encounter incidents, like what you've described above, they should contact the media and inform them. Yeah I know it sounds backwards. The idea is that incidents are not just 'hidden'.

The internet streaming of public safety is the reason there will be more encryption to come.. Eventually there will be nothing worthwhile to scan and listen to.. and then you can kiss all of this goodbye, there will be no need for Radio Reference, Brodacastify, Uniden , Whistler etc. we did it to ourselves..

Anchorage PD obviously are trying to hide something, what is it? How does one hold public officials accountable when you can't hear what they are saying?

Criminals have had the ability to listen to police networks for years, yet I doubt much crime could be held directly accountable to a scanner listener.

Chief Tolley, Mike Abbott, and the city officials should all be voted out of office if they wont keep everything the tax payer pays for transparent. We pay for all these people to keep us in the dark? Thats crazy!

When its election time the tax payer needs to remember this!

kikito said:

What others channels or services are you thinking?






There's still a lot of other cool and interesting things to listen to out there. And many useful venues to still find out what could be going on out there. Of course, not many as interesting and useful as Public Safety.

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There are cities out there that encrypt just day to day city government stuff too - like transit, parks and rec etc. I don't think it will happen here, but who knows. And, with the release of scanners capable of DMR formats, we might see more encryption from there, since apparently it's an easy upgrade/switch.

But you're right that for now there is still some stuff to listen to. We'll see what the future holds.

gonefishn1 said:

Chief Tolley, Mike Abbott, and the city officials should all be voted out of office if they wont keep everything the tax payer pays for transparent. We pay for all these people to keep us in the dark? Thats crazy!

When its election time the tax payer needs to remember this!

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That's great and all, but in Anchorage these are appointed, not elected positions. Your vote will not help. People could start reaching out to government officials and representatives about this, but truth is that very few would take time.

We are all here on these forums because we have taken this up as a hobby, or maybe even a profession. Read through online comments on the stories posted on Facebook/social media and you'll find that most don't really care - or they have taken advantage of the stream in the past and would not know what to do with a real scanner if handed one. One article described one of the moderators of the Anchorage Scanner group sitting up for 18 hours one day posting activity to the page.

Personally, I have great respect for public safety officers, and to me it comes down to respect of not divulging everything I hear on the radio. I have a problem with news outlets replaying archived audio of officers in distress or tough situations in their evening newscasts (NBC nightly news does it). I have a problem with people who have nothing better to do than to tirelessly log every detail of a call they hear on some channel. A lot of times, a major incident is the worst (sometimes unfortunately the last) day of officers' careers. To take something you said while going through an intense adrenaline rush, a large mix of emotions and feelings, and plaster it all over the Internet and the evening news - for everyone, including your family and friends to hear is not right.

I guarantee you most police departments don't go ENC to hide something. They do it to cover their rear ends and for safety purposes to protect themselves from unprecedented worldwide exposure on the Internet. In my perfect world, the feeds would be made illegal, but at this point it probably won't change a whole lot.

Rant over. Hopefully this post won't get removed.

ikarus280 said:

That's great and all, but in Anchorage these are appointed, not elected positions. Your vote will not help. People could start reaching out to government officials and representatives about this, but truth is that very few would take time. .

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Im sure the city assembly, State House and Senate, Mayor, and Governor are elected.

This morning Anchorage has three criminal suspects on the run, and the authorities are asking the now deafened public for help. Hmmmmmm seems ironic, they want the public's help while not wanting us to know anything.

the reactions on facebook, some are really unlogical people dont think it through of course here on radio reference we have all the scanner hobbiest together, ive read post saying 'yess push that button encrypt everything!' and so on.. have people already forgotten the wildfires and how much radio traffic comes in so handy and the point of lets say just a wind change and the wildfire suddenly heads to a residential area moments of only a few mintutes can make such a difference knowing your home is treatened. what are we going to do now ... wait for the 5 o'clock news ?? while the fire is right in your backyard.

stok573 said:

the reactions on facebook, some are really unlogical people dont think it through of course here on radio reference we have all the scanner hobbiest together, ive read post saying 'yess push that button encrypt everything!' and so on.. have people already forgotten the wildfires and how much radio traffic comes in so handy and the point of lets say just a wind change and the wildfire suddenly heads to a residential area moments of only a few mintutes can make such a difference knowing your home is treatened. what are we going to do now ... wait for the 5 o'clock news ?? while the fire is right in your backyard.

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Hours later if we hear about it at all, this is so wrong!

stok573 said:

the reactions on facebook, some are really unlogical people dont think it through of course here on radio reference we have all the scanner hobbiest together, ive read post saying 'yess push that button encrypt everything!' and so on.. have people already forgotten the wildfires and how much radio traffic comes in so handy and the point of lets say just a wind change and the wildfire suddenly heads to a residential area moments of only a few mintutes can make such a difference knowing your home is treatened. what are we going to do now ... wait for the 5 o'clock news ?? while the fire is right in your backyard.

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It is the responsibility of your local Office of Emergency Management and the news media to keep its citizens and audience informed of life safety issues such as wildfires and the like and if they don't they aren't doing their job. Since most people do not possess scanners nor even have an interest in possessing them, are the scanner users going to run neighborhood to neighborhood to keep people abreast of whats going on? No mention of scanners on the "be prepared" poster either. The fact of the matter is the decisions public officials make about "flipping the switch" to encrypted radios have nothing to do with keeping anybody out of the loop and everything to do with first responder safety and mitigation of legal risk.

its just waiting for an accident to happen i guess, this decision as they say will keep them saver we will see when the first citizen gets hurt.
[edit] and yes in case of an emergency turn on your radio/tv/noaa weather band which is on all scanner. ive been listening to scanner radio for over 30 years and you be surprised how many ppl have a scanner and how quick the word can be spread. the system was not intended to be encrypted 24/7 a good example was given earlier in the posts.

When a citizen gets hurt, I can guarantee you that the radio did not play a role. I too have been listening to scanners for a little more than 40 years and can count on one hand how many people I have known personally who had one. Of course, I have run into many more in the age of internet and in buying/selling them. They are perhaps more popular in a rural environment (I wouldn't know - have been in the cities all of my life) but the systems were not intended as a means to keep citizens informed of local situations no matter what the demographic - encryption aside.