how much is encrypted?

[gord21]

I was wondering how much of the military, especially aircraft, and federal law enforcement/security is digital and encrypted. Thank you

[brandon]

Customs voice traffic on COTHEN is often encrypted and USCG and USN may go green on their tactical nets, but there is still plenty of HF voice that can be heard in the clear.

[ab3a]

A lot of the time, it's not the encryption that confuses, it's the coding. I think it's high time for most radios to start offering In-Phase and Quadrature outputs so that those with sound-card software can start working on decoding routines for the stuff we find on the air.

[brandon]

I also forgot to mention that some fishermen may use speech scrambling such as Harris Analogue Voice Security and Sailorcrypt.

For data, I believe more is encrypted but I don't have much interest in that side of things.

[nickcarr]

Originally Posted by gord21

I was wondering how much of the military, especially aircraft, and federal law enforcement/security is digital and encrypted. Thank you

I think Gord was referring to scanner frequencies and not shortwave. Is that correct Gord?

[gord21]

Originally Posted by nickcarr

I think Gord was referring to scanner frequencies and not shortwave. Is that correct Gord?

Mainly scanner yes but shortwave too.

[nickcarr]

Okay well wrong forum but no worries. To answer your question, the scanner stuff is about 99% encrypted - and no, there's no way around that. Some military traffic is still in the clear but you need the digital scanner with P25 to monitor it. (And frankly it's not very interesting convo - janitorial, tech services, etc.)

Law Enforcement is on digital P25 now as well. Some are not using encryption for various technical reasons, but most are encrypting the "action" channels, such as the TAC channels. My area is still using the standard analog trunking - but will likely go to some kind of digital format in the next few years.

SW military is mostly in the clear except for the scrambled comms but it's hard to say how frequent these are heard. Every now and then you'll hear the data mode which is scrambled voice comms - but it could be just about anyone - not necessarily military.

I don't know of any LE activity on shortwave these days. All civilian AERO HF comms are in the clear.

You can always listen to fishing boats but you'll need a healthly spanish, vietnamese or japanese background to understand it. (A few English boats now and then.)

USCG HF traffic is mostly in the clear. Monitoring them can be quite entertaining during a hurricane or major storm.