AB5ID
Member
It all happened in one fell swoop on Tuesday morning.
2023 - Kansas City Metro Area MARRS P25 Trunked Radio System
- Thread starter talkpair
- Start date
Blue Springs PD Dispatch is now 3826 (encrypted). As you previously mentioned, CJC Fire is also fully encrypted. I'm currently watching activity on Pro96com. There is another unidentified agency using 34391 (encrypted). I find it really strange CJC decided to encrypt.
bctrainers
Member
> CJC Fire is also fully encrypted.
I am more curious about this than any other change on the system right now. 🤔
AB5ID
Member
Is anyone going to be logging and looking for new talkgroups and/or encryption changes during the Chief's parade tomorrow?
I’ll be away tomorrow, but I’ll leave the logging software up. My guess is you’ll have different agencies using multiple talkgroups. KCPD will probably use their special ops talkgroups and some of the REG COM groups. I’d imagine most will be on REG COM 5 and 7.
talkpair
Member
I used to hear quite often situations where an officer would call dispatch to relay something they heard on a neighboring agency's talk group or frequency.
Are officers now losing their ability to hear traffic in neighboring jurisdictions?
Are officers now losing their ability to hear traffic in neighboring jurisdictions?
With the recent roll-out of AES encryption, most agencies should be interoperable as the encryption keys are shared. At least that's my understanding. They should be able to hear radio traffic and communicate on each other's talkgroups. All of the agencies North of the River can hear and communicate with each other with no issue. Jackson County Sheriff can communicate with KCPD and vice versa. Not sure if the Sheriff's Office can hear or communicate with Independence PD. Those two agencies didn't "play nice" for years. That has probably changed when Darryl Forte was elected as Sheriff. For years, IPD was known for being extremely selective about who they shared their encryption keys with.
nosig55
Member
I know what you mean, got a lot quieter. Just a matter of time before it does the same thing on the KS side. Wont get to hear those pesky "lane runners" at the toll booth.
bctrainers
Member
In some instances, there may be a mismatch of keys occurring. If this does happen, a simple OTAR [Over The Air Rekey] from the radio techs will fix it right up.
A few agencies on the MARRS net (prior to the AES changeover) seemed to not trust other agencies. KCKPD, KCPD (initially), IPD, and to an extent Cass County were effectively cordoning off their TG's to their own staff - with no outside agencies getting persistent access. I believe the recent AES256 updates applied began to alleviate that issue to an extent.
Within about the last week or so, I think.
I live near both the CJC and Independence Fire service areas. Within the last week, I heard the sirens from what sounded like a large fire response, so I turned on the scanner. CJC was busy on talkgroup 119, their tactical group, but it was all E.
I noticed that KCMO PD seems to be running "normal" clear dispatch on some of the Reg Com talkgroups this afternoon, 2023-02-22. I've seen them active on at least Reg Com 11 through 14.
When I first saw the activity, I thought maybe there was some large incident with several agencies responding. I listened to a couple of the talkgroups for a while and it just seemed like regular dispatch and officer traffic, responding to calls in various parts of KCMO.
Some of this would have been during the memorial service for KCPD Officer Muhlbauer and Champ, so perhaps they were using the radio system differently during that time. It seems to be continuing as of about 15:45, though.
When I first saw the activity, I thought maybe there was some large incident with several agencies responding. I listened to a couple of the talkgroups for a while and it just seemed like regular dispatch and officer traffic, responding to calls in various parts of KCMO.
Some of this would have been during the memorial service for KCPD Officer Muhlbauer and Champ, so perhaps they were using the radio system differently during that time. It seems to be continuing as of about 15:45, though.
I didn't live in the KC area during all of that time, but just looking at the way MARRS is organized, it feels like Independence sort of "did their own thing" for a while when they first switched to P25. Their talkgroups simply start at 1 and go up to about 103. Their radio IDs run from about 1 to 9000, but don't seem to be grouped in any way at all... you can have an Independence Power & Light tech, a Public Works / snowplow driver, a fireman, and a police officer all within a dozen RIDs of each other.
By contrast, the other large agencies in the metro, like KCMO PD, KCK PD, Jackson Co Sheriff, KCMO Fire, Johnson Co Sheriff, etc, seem to have a more "regular" system of talkgroup and RID numbers. It feels like it was all set up by the same person, or a small number of people following a relatively well-defined plan.
I recall hearing a news story in the Methdependence days where an IPD spokesperson said they were going to a new radio system to thwart bad guys with scanners, but I don't know if they were talking about the switch to P25, or an earlier switch to trunking. Based on when I think it was, it was probably the switch to P25.
KCPD dispatch and officers still have the ability to toggle the encryption on/off. I’ve seen a few radios in the clear while watching activity on pro96com. 99% of their daily radio traffic is encrypted. There are rare instances, though, where a dispatcher or officer will transmit unencrypted.
I was at the parade, so I didn't have time to push buttons and turn knobs.
I did leave OP25 running at home, logging the talkgroups I have already programmed into it. Looking at the data from 08:00 to 18:59 on 2023-02-15, some of the most popular talkgroups that aren't "normally" active included...
Code:
hits tg name
1 33500 KCMO Police: Calling
2 34071 Regional Common 16
2 34083 Regional Common 28 (encrypted)
16 34006 Regional Common 3
23 34010 Regional Common 7
26 34007 Regional Common 4
70 34011 Regional Common 8
100 34009 Regional Common 6
111 34008 Regional Common 5
182 34017 Regional Common 14
185 34005 Regional Calling
216 34014 Regional Common 11
299 34013 Regional Common 10
344 34015 Regional Common 12
465 34012 Regional Common 9
473 34016 Regional Common 13The "hits" column shouldn't be taken as gospel... my logging setup needs some more debouncing, which I have not done. It's probably true that (say) Reg Com 13 had a lot more traffic than Reg Com 6, but the difference of 8 hits between Reg Com 9 and 13 is probably not significant.
I wasn't looking for any "new" talkgroups or other changes during that time.
This was based on monitoring the central and eastern Jackson County towers.
Back in 2020, I noted a similar list of talkgroups being used. A couple of posts below that, PVPD730 posted the "official" talkgroup list for that day, so I would guess that they used something similar in 2023.
mgolden2
Member
You were hearing funeral operations as well as KCPD dispatch sending units from outside agencies to calls for service within Kansas City, Missouri so that KCPD officers could attend the funeral. Also, reg coms up thru 14 are still in the clear.
I noticed that KCMO PD seems to be running "normal" clear dispatch on some of the Reg Com talkgroups this afternoon, 2023-02-22. I've seen them active on at least Reg Com 11 through 14.
When I first saw the activity, I thought maybe there was some large incident with several agencies responding. I listened to a couple of the talkgroups for a while and it just seemed like regular dispatch and officer traffic, responding to calls in various parts of KCMO.
Some of this would have been during the memorial service for KCPD Officer Muhlbauer and Champ, so perhaps they were using the radio system differently during that time. It seems to be continuing as of about 15:45, though.
I noticed that KCMO PD seems to be running "normal" clear dispatch on some of the Reg Com talkgroups this afternoon, 2023-02-22. I've seen them active on at least Reg Com 11 through 14.
When I first saw the activity, I thought maybe there was some large incident with several agencies responding. I listened to a couple of the talkgroups for a while and it just seemed like regular dispatch and officer traffic, responding to calls in various parts of KCMO.
Some of this would have been during the memorial service for KCPD Officer Muhlbauer and Champ, so perhaps they were using the radio system differently during that time. It seems to be continuing as of about 15:45, though.
50 years ago as a teenager I started scanning and over the years had a very good time with the hobby! Had a few unblocked radios before they were outlawed, and the joy has been diminishing bit by bit ever since! I'm glad I got to live in the fun times of scanning and I'm sad to live in todays realm! Young kids today will never live in such times of good clean fun hobby! Its a sad time!
bctrainers
Member
Checking with my local TrunkRecorder instance, 35750 looks predominately E indeed. Around the end of March 2023, I saw a notable logged increase in encrypted transmissions.
edit; To be precise, I see 2023-03-23 17:30:38 as the first date where encryption began getting used in bits and pieces. Then from 2023-03-24 10:27:14 onward, encryption ramped up on that particular talk group.
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