Vancouver area public safety listening question

Making another trip up to the Vancouver area from the Seattle area on Tuesday and wanted to understand the current situation for Fire & Police Services. I see two systems, E-Comm (WARS) and E-Comm NGRP.

The way I'm interpreting these systems is that LE has mostly moved over to the NGRP system and is entirely encrypted but at the moment, Fire remains on the WARS system in digital and not encrypted based on this post and what I see in the database.

Normally, I don't get the chance to do any listening when I'm up there but with a trip filled with shopping, spa treatments, and general "swanning about", I foresee some time on my own....

Understanding the layout would help me determine if I can bring along one of my trusty Pro-668's (with the Whistler DMR legacy upgrade), if I should borrow a 436hp with the ProVoice upgrade or forget all about it and find a dark bar somewhere to hang out

Any help would be appreciated.

I think most users have moved over to the E-Comm NGRP phase 2 network. Check SCANBC. Not a lot of activity, but someone has been posting updates as agencies move over. BCAS and most law enforcement agencies are on it now, and I believe some fire departments have moved over too. Yes all talkgroups are encrypted. As for RCMP east of Abbotsford, they are P25 encrypted conventional VHF.


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kayn1n32008 said:

I think most users have moved over to the E-Comm NGRP phase 2 network. (snip......)

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Thanks for an answer. Guess I'll just leave the radios at home and find that quiet place to hang out.

It's a damn shame to see that nearly everything up there in terms of public safety is encrypted. Encrypted fire operations? That's bulls***. No reason for it at all.

As liberal Canada claims to be, they really love to encrypt everything. I mean seriously why does FIRE need to be encrypted. It's unfortunately been bleeding into the states now, fire departments going encrypted.

I have spent a lot of time in Van and I enjoyed listening to all the marine and railroad traffic. Vancouver does have a lot of traffic in those areas.

David

Danny37 said:

As liberal Canada claims to be, they really love to encrypt everything. I mean seriously why does FIRE need to be encrypted. It's unfortunately been bleeding into the states now, fire departments going encrypted.

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Went into overdrive when CST. styles dying words were played by the media.

At one time there were a bunch of streams playing various fire departments in the lower mainland. NGRP fixes that.


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Hey Kinglou, forget Ecomm, completely 100 % locked down , everyone has migrated to 700 mhz and 800 PV is completely silent, all fire have switched, so yes bring DMR or NXDN as there is lots of that to listen to, If there is anything more specific fx wise you want PM me here or ask and we will get for you. Enjoy your visit. Weather has been great here lately.

Danny37 said:

As liberal Canada claims to be, they really love to encrypt everything. I mean seriously why does FIRE need to be encrypted. It's unfortunately been bleeding into the states now, fire departments going encrypted.

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Actually this all started with the RCMP and federal mandate under the conservative Harper government.

Most of the fire departments don't want encryption but E-Comm made it a system wide policy. Rumour has it, they even lied to some of the fire chiefs stating that non-enc channels are not technically possible on the new system.

Also, pretty much everything has been moved off the old EDACS system. There is the odd key up here and there but no dispatch channels remain.

I am probably missing one or two, but here are few services you can still listen to locally (at least for now);

Burnaby Fire
Maple Ridge Fire
Pitt Meadows Fire
Langley City Fire
Langley Township Fire
Abbotsford Fire
Mission Fire
Chilliwack Fire (and surrounding communities)

Cheers,

dwC

BC_Scan said:

Hey Kinglou, forget Ecomm, completely 100 % locked down , everyone has migrated to 700 mhz and 800 PV is completely silent, all fire have switched, so yes bring DMR or NXDN as there is lots of that to listen to, If there is anything more specific fx wise you want PM me here or ask and we will get for you. Enjoy your visit. Weather has been great here lately.

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Thanks. I generally get up there every 3 months or so. Getting ready to go on a road trip aka a relocation feasibility study so I thought I better get in a few more trips before possibly leaving the PNW.