LAPD Encryption

[spock00]

Anyone else hear encryption on the LAPD Professional Standards Bureau Ch 192 506.4325 ?

I would imagine with the new XTS 5000 & XTL 5000 they can program the new radios to use encryption much easier than when they had the astro saber IIIs. I thought they weren't going to encrypt any traffic... In the astro saber days I was told that the older equipment was not totally encryption capable...

 

[PJH]

Encyption is just as easy to use with the sabers as it is with the new radios. The "sensitive" units will have encryption available. You also have to remember that most of those sorts of units will not be on the radio anywhere near the level as typical field patrol units.

In any case - the radio can be programmed to go secure with the flip of a switch or programmed that if they select that channel that it will automatically select encyption on transmission.

 

[spock00]

Encyption is just as easy to use with the sabers as it is with the new radios. The "sensitive" units will have encryption available. You also have to remember that most of those sorts of units will not be on the radio anywhere near the level as typical field patrol units.

In any case - the radio can be programmed to go secure with the flip of a switch or programmed that if they select that channel that it will automatically select encyption on transmission.

Yeah I'm aware of the switch on the top of the radios and the ease of programming them since I owned a xts 3000 but I never had heard any encryption before on their channels. I've also heard little to no traffic on this channel before...

 

[PJH]

Yeah I'm aware of the switch on the top of the radios and the ease of programming them since I owned a xts 3000

I wrote the tidbit due to

....radios to use encryption much easier than when they had the astro saber IIIs....

Its not easier or harder. Its the same motion in the basically same place.

Either way, as I said before, these channels and the users have had that ability, however as stated they have not even 1/10th the radio traffic required as everyone else in the department has. This also holds true in most metro departments. NYPD also similar use with their OCCB, IAB and other units. They have it, but they are not heavy radio users.

 

[LAflyer]

Yes indeed have heard encryption on the mentioned channel for a couple years now.

 

[KMA367]

LAPD has used encryption of various types since at least the early 1970s, when two and maybe all three of their 453-mHz pairs had the capability, for Intelligence, Narcotics and the like. I don't remember whether they ever used it on their not-so-secret VHF surveillance-type frequencies. PSB's forerunner, Internal Affairs Division, used non-standard frequencies above and below the regular PLMR bands.

Back in those days I had access to the lists of just about every frequency to which LAPD (technically the City of L.A.) was licensed, as well as those they used without licenses, but Internal Affairs was one of the few groups whose frequencies I could never find, and in 20 years of listening I never heard a single peep from them, which I guess was their point, after all.

To my knowledge LAPD has never said that they "weren't going to encrypt any traffic." On the contrary, in March of 2006 when they were trying to get budget approval for replacing the Astro Sabers, their request included encryption in all 10,000 new radios for about $45-50 million. That price tag was too steep for the City Council, so they returned in early April, telling the council they had negotiated some more with Motorola and gotten the price down "'to $30 million for about 10,000 unencrypted radios or $35 million for encrypted radios,' $15 million less than the earlier reported cost" according to newspaper reports at the time (L.A. Daily News, 4/6/2006).

In late October of 2002, I was told by someone in ECCCS that a year earlier, shortly after 9/11, they had informally approached Motorola about adding encryption to all 9,000 Astro Sabers, but were given a quote of $300 per radio, plus "other infrastructure upgrades," so they didn't pursue it any further.

Anyone else hear encryption on the LAPD Professional Standards Bureau Ch 192 506.4325 ?

I would imagine with the new XTS 5000 & XTL 5000 they can program the new radios to use encryption much easier than when they had the astro saber IIIs. I thought they weren't going to encrypt any traffic... In the astro saber days I was told that the older equipment was not totally encryption capable...

 

[scanfan22]

Yes indeed have heard encryption on the mentioned channel for a couple years now.

It's the only new LAPD digital channel that I've heard encryption on. It's not hard to program encryption in the xts 5000s so I'm not totally surprised. I just hope they never encrypt the dispatch or local tac channels.

 

[karldotcom]

I thought internal affairs always had encryption....and didnt ATD too? (Although, I have heard ATD in the clear within the last year...)





>>>Anyone else hear encryption on the LAPD Professional Standards Bureau Ch 192 506.4325 ?

 

[KMA367]

I thought internal affairs always had encryption....and didnt ATD too? (Although, I have heard ATD in the clear within the last year...)

As I say, when I was in L.A. (I moved north in 1987), I never found any of IAD's frequencies, but even being out of the normal public-safety bands, it would have made all the sense in the world for them to use encryption.

I'm sure you're right about ATD, Karl, even going back 20 to 30 years. What became ATD around the time of the 1984 Olympics had previously been Public Disorder Intelligence Division ("5Y--" units). I think it was in 1983 after some sort of political dust-up that they changed the name, the unit IDs (to "6-Ida--") and probably a few of the faces. They shared UHF channel "26/H" with Organized Crime Intelligence ("4Y--" units), and I absolutely remember hearing encryption noise occasionally on the repeater side. They seldom were close enough to me when they were using the simplex "H" side, where they apparently did a lot of their tails, but again, considering the work those two divisions were doing, it wouldn't have been logical to NOT be encrypted.

Ad-Narcotics ("8Y") and Narcotics Investigation ("9Y") were on freq 25/G - 453/458.100 - and used encryption and simplex a LOT of the time, and talked constantly. Ad-Vice ("6Y") and Dept. Administrative ("Staff-xx") units had 21/F - 453/458.350 - but I never heard anything encrypted or simplex on that pair at all. The 6Y units were kind of unique among all the above groups, as every morning they would all call in "6Y90, 6Y90, 6Y-whoever is clear," and 6Y90 would acknowledge them. But you wouldn't hear them again until quitting time when "6Y90, 6Y90, 6Y42 is end-of watch." They must have gone to some other frequency in between, but like IAD, I never heard them in between times.

 

[spock00]

I thought internal affairs always had encryption....and didnt ATD too? (Although, I have heard ATD in the clear within the last year...)





>>>Anyone else hear encryption on the LAPD Professional Standards Bureau Ch 192 506.4325 ?

I have heard ATD in the clear numerous times. Usually tailing people to bust them.
All the detective channels have been in the clear. That is why I was surprised (kind of) to hear encryption on PSD.
Though I may have heard limited encryption on one detective channel...

 

[Radio_Lady]

I have heard ATD in the clear numerous times. Usually tailing people to bust them.
All the detective channels have been in the clear. That is why I was surprised (kind of) to hear encryption on PSD.
Though I may have heard limited encryption on one detective channel...

It's surprising and distressing how many officers still don't understand the difference between simplex and duplex, that while their simplex communications may travel only a mile or so, but when they use duplex they can be heard all over the county. The same way, many of them have only a fuzzy, if any, conception that digital doesn't equal encrypted and think it means nobody can monitor them.

Everybody's been trained in it, but like most training days and roll-call training, half the time they just sit there daydreaming, watching the clock, and looking at us with "She's just an RTO, why do they have HER telling me how to do police work" all over their faces.

On the more understandable but still troubling side, a lot of them do get the difference, but if just one guy's radio's encryption function is B/O they'll usually all go into the clear if they can't hold off until the B/O radio gets repaired or swapped out. It's quite amazing the things you hear in the clear that shouldn't be, whether for officer safety or just the success of an operation.

 

[cousinkix1953]

I hear a lot of things up north. The local County Narcotics Enforcement Team (CNET) doesn't bother with encryption or even use call signs. Everybody is on a first name basis. They were running around Santa Cruz county, from just after dinner time to about 3 AM on Friday night.

The only encryption that I ever hear on those frequencies is the Statewide Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and some of the AGs CAMP operations.

 

[Clark]

Is it really Simplex ?

It's surprising and distressing how many officers still don't understand the difference between simplex and duplex, that while their simplex communications may travel only a mile or so, but when they use duplex they can be heard all over the county. The same way, many of them have only a fuzzy, if any, conception that digital doesn't equal encrypted and think it means nobody can monitor them.

Is what the officers refer to as "simplex ", really a simplex channel ? Do their radios have a "low power" option that is more like a simplex operation ?

Clark

 

[Radio_Lady]

Sometimes it IS, and sometimes it ISN'T

Is what the officers refer to as "simplex ", really a simplex channel ? Do their radios have a "low power" option that is more like a simplex operation ?

Clark

As you probably know from listening to them, the officers always use the word "simplex" when they are really referring to the division tactical "Enhanced / Fallback" frequencies, which can be used in either simplex or duplex (repeater) mode. Their use of the name Simplex goes back to the pre-digital days when they would use real simplex on their division dispatch frequency for unit-to-unit communications. Simultaneous transmissions don't work well with digital, of course, so when the divisions were each given their own separate tac frequencies, the twenty-year-habit of calling it "simplex" just stuck with them, whether they select direct or repeater mode. Often times in a conversation one unit will be transmitting on simplex and the other on duplex, but as long as they hear one another that's all they care about, and those channels are incorrectly but universally (at LAPD) still called "simplex."

I don't know about the new portables, but if memory serves, the Astro Sabers defaulted to 2 watts on every channel except "Emergency Trigger" Channel 50, 507.2625, which bumped up to either 4 or 5 watts.

My rudimentary understanding of radio is that there's usually little difference in propagation between 2 watts and 4 or 5 watts, but if they're using a repeater it's the repeater's output power and location that sends their signals out miles and miles when all they may need is to reach around the block.

Regarding a low power option, again I have to go back to the Astro Sabers, which I once heard were going to have a menu selection option by which either a specific channel or all channels could be switched to 4 watts transmit power. Whether that was actually implemented I don't know, and if so whether anybody knew about it I don't know, because the problem as explained to me was the battery capacity if an officer was transmitting on higher power for an entire busy shift.

 

[spock00]

Someone discovered how to use it on Detective channel Blue. They're still mostly in the clear on all teh channels.

 

[mrbekhor]

wait the staff units have a frequency they use? I would love to hear staff 1A etc. and ive heard pro standards encrypted and sometimes commercial crimes but i think it isnt encryption but reception.

 

[Radio_Lady]

wait the staff units have a frequency they use? I would love to hear staff 1A etc. and ive heard pro standards encrypted and sometimes commercial crimes but i think it isnt encryption but reception.

When LAFD went to 800, one of their their Division fireground frequencies, 506.5375, was repurposed to LAPD Administrative and Staff units, who almost never use it. I've heard radio tech testing in the clear, and what were certainly encrypted messages from somebody, but only extremely rarely. When the May Day ruckus broke out at MacArthur Park a few years ago there was a bit of encrypted traffic on there, but it's anybody's guess who it might have been.

The 6th Floor people, or it's 10th Floor now, have cellphones or Nextel which are more flexible, and anyone they need to talk to would have a phone at hand, too. I'd suggest that you not hold your breath waiting for "Staff 1" to talk on the radio, but on the other hand Charlie Beck wasn't really an office pogue like many of his predecessors, so unlike them he still actually knows how to use a radio and probably wouldn't be the least bit shy if he had something to say on it.

 

[mrbekhor]

Oh I know that frequency its called the staff/command frequency and all i hear is stuff like hey jimor whatever and some traffic about how to get somewhere and thats it.

 

[Hooligan]

I spent a month working with ATD back in 1990 or '91 & they did have encryption back then as well as some special, sneaky channels that should have been very hard for even a skilled scanner-geek to find in the RF-dense LA area.

 

[vinzep491]

Hooligan, Where would they hide said freq's