Ahhh I understand... I thought there was a disadvantage to the P25 thing other than the cost to upgrade scanners...
I misunderstood the intent, I apologize.
As for it being expensive it's really not when you look at it in depth. As long as a scanner is taken care of it can last decades. I still have the original scanner that my dad got me when I was in my early teens and I'm 42 now. It has just recently gone obsolete for my area, even though I still monitor a few things with it. So let's say that I got a good solid 25 years out of it. If you spend $450.00 on a PSR 500 and get 20 years out of it then that's about $22.50 a year (or about 6 cents a day) to monitor all the goings on around ya. My wife and I can't go to one movie a year for that and the movie and popcorn are gone after 2 hours... the scanner stays with ya for perpetual entertainment, year round , 24/7 if you want it to...
Spending money is all a matter of perspective...
Now let the encryption doom and gloom rebuttal begin...
Draf