Uniden has tried to follow the FCC’s rulings on how to handle encryption. According to the FCC’s latest amended Communications Act of 1934, a scanner manufacturer must (reasonably) exclude reception of encrypted transmissions. That means the scanner must be able to first identify an encrypted signal, and then ignore it by continuing to scan. I say “reasonable” because while some of the most common forms of encryption can be identified and therefore ignored, there are some forms the scanner manufacturers haven’t been able to identify. (That may be due to the design of the scanner where the ability to identify would require major design changes, or other reasons I haven’t thought of here… Uniden and the other manufacturers probably submitted requests for waivers where they show a concerted effort to abide by the ruling but came up short.)
I write this because the newer Uniden scanners have this ability to ignore some encrypted signals and continue scanning. I do not know if it’s incorporated in the BCD396P2 or the BCD996P2 but I believe it’s included in the SDS100 & SDS200.
I agree with the pervious reply, namely to program the system as a DMR system and then check for encryption, but with the following caveat… if it’s the ONLY DMR system you want to monitor, first check with the agency and get a definitive answer to the question “Is the system encrypted? Is it full time encryption? Are all channels or TG’s encrypted?” Sometimes a state/county/town/city/ will fully encrypt all police channels/TG’s, or all but dispatch, and leave the FD channels/TG’s in the clear. If the answer you get tells you the stuff you want to monitor is encrypted, you can save yourself the expense of subscribing to the DMR add-on.
