Dallas county (Carrollton Texas)

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9205missy

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My sister lives in Carrollton Texas and there was a feed for the police department and now I don't see it any longer. Does any one know if there still is a live feed for Carrollton Texas? I am in Michigan. thank you.
 

hiegtx

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My sister lives in Carrollton Texas and there was a feed for the police department and now I don't see it any longer. Does any one know if there still is a live feed for Carrollton Texas? I am in Michigan. thank you.
There is no longer an active feed,

Carrollton, along with Addison, Coppell, and Farmers Branch moved to this system: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=8207

Unfortunately, once that move was made, all four cities started encrypting their PD talkgroups. (The database only shows Coppell as encrypted, but in fact all four are.) So, neither a feed or scanner would be able to hear the law enforcement traffic. Fire and EMS, for now, is still in the clear.
 

SCPD

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There is no longer an active feed,

Carrollton, along with Addison, Coppell, and Farmers Branch moved to this system: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=8207

Unfortunately, once that move was made, all four cities started encrypting their PD talkgroups. (The database only shows Coppell as encrypted, but in fact all four are.) So, neither a feed or scanner would be able to hear the law enforcement traffic. Fire and EMS, for now, is still in the clear.

On a drive to Coppell recently I found that Carrollton was in the clear on some of their PD channels but everyone else defiantly was not. Fire was in the clear though.
 

hiegtx

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On a drive to Coppell recently I found that Carrollton was in the clear on some of their PD channels but everyone else defiantly was not. Fire was in the clear though.
Hmmm.

I had heard that fire would be unencrypted, but that all law enforcement would be. Wonder if it defaulted to "clear" because a radio not capable of using that mode was affiliated. You must have caught them at the absolute right time. While I am receiving the system, all law enforcement groups that I've seen come up are encrypted. I may "park" my 536 on the system for a while and see what pops up.
 

rmw313

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So then am I understanding that no scanner (I have a Uniden BCD325P2) is capable of listening to Carrollton Police? Not even with either the ProVoice or DMR upgrades?
 

IAmSixNine

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No scanner can decrypt encryption. It can pick it up, but it wont decrypt it.
This has nothing to do with Provice or DMR. Completely different protocols.
DMR can also have encryption enabled.

P25, ProVoice and DMR are referring to radio protocols used to handle trunking and or voice traffic.
You can then have them in the clear which is a term used to say no encryption. Or they can have encryption enabled so the scanner audio will not be intelligible.

Most P25 2-way systems that use encryption can have all the radios using it, then if a user forgets to set his to encrypt aka Clear, he can still hear the other users as his radio has the key and can listen.
The option to transmit in the clear is seelectable on a per radio and per channel basis. If a dept wants their dispatch channel to be encrypted then all the officers have to enable encryption on that channel and its usually a switch on the radio. If you happen to hear one officer in the clear he may have forgot to enable it.
 

n5ims

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So then am I understanding that no scanner (I have a Uniden BCD325P2) is capable of listening to Carrollton Police? Not even with either the ProVoice or DMR upgrades?

The simplest answer is this. If an agency's channel is encrypted than no scanner will be capable of listening to it. Period. End of story. Full stop.

For specific answers to your question, no scanner is capable of listening to the Carrollton Police (since they're encrypted - see my first answer for details). Since their system is P-25 Phase II not ProVoice, that upgrade will not help. Since their system is P-25 Phase II not DMR, that upgrade will not help. To extend the point a bit further, even if they were ProVoice or DMR where the appropriate upgrade might appear to do some good, their transmissions are encrypted so even then they wouldn't help you listen to their transmissions.

Keep repeating this until it's fully understood. Encryption = no scanner will work.

As some have indicated, there are a few transmissions in the clear (in other words not encrypted), but these are very rare. It could be that one radio isn't configured correctly (and will be fixed soon no doubt) allowing their transmissions to be heard (but not who they're talking to or the other radios so even this isn't really worth it). It could be that they have assistance from another agency for a brief time during an incident and that radio lacks encryption or doesn't have the Carrollton PD's encryption key programmed then they may have encryption disabled on a specific talkgroup during that incident to allow communication with the assisting agencies. This will only be temporary and encryption will be turned back on once the assistance is no longer required.
 

hiegtx

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So then am I understanding that no scanner (I have a Uniden BCD325P2) is capable of listening to Carrollton Police? Not even with either the ProVoice or DMR upgrades?
For talkgroups that are encrypted, no scanner will receive them. However, CoffeeHound, in a post above, mentioned that he heard at least some Carrollton PD activity that was not encrypted. I have not seen that, but I do not concentrate on that system either. If a radio that is incapable of handling encrypted transmissions was active on one of the talkgroups, I believe it might possibly default to in the clear. However, I could be wrong, in that the system administrators might be able to prevent that from happening.

If anything is being carried in the clear, then yes, you would hear that on the 325P2. The DMR/ProVoice upgrade has no effect on encrypted traffic. I did the DMR & ProVoice upgrades on one of my 436HP's so that I could start getting DFW Airport (which has been ProVoice for quite a while), and a local system that CareFlite (medevac helicopters) uses. I also did the DMR on my other 436HP, my 536HP, as well as my 325P2. For agencies that are mostly encrypted (the four on the MetroCrest system that Carrollton uses; Grand Prairie; Arlington; & Ft. Worth PD), I use a negative delay on the channels. That way, if, for whatever reason, they are in the clear, I'll hear them. But if encrypted, the scanner does not always skip them on P25 Phase II systems (it does on P25 Phase I), so the negative delay forces the encrypted transmission to end & let the radio resume scanning.
 

BenScan

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I believe there are several interop channels that are likely not encrypted, and possibly the special event channels. There's a good chance the special event channels would have been used for Addison's Kaboom Town at 4th of July. That'a huge event, and some radios that don't normally get used, probably got a workout.
 
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