Here in Virginia Beach youll see the orange light on the APX start to flash when anyone talks so even if it is used they are probably programmed with an AES key for the federal chaps.
When I heard them testing on the listed frequencies for this area, they did switch to encrypted mode for a bit but came back in the clear pretty fast with one of the users saying he could hardly understand the fella he was talking with.
I always wondered what qualifies a city to be a part of this system.
They say it is for cities with a higher probability of terror activity but what is that based on? Possibly manufacturing and certainly cities with a large amount of federal activity.
St. Louis does not have much federal government activity but we do have manufacturers here like Boeing or Monsanto which both do government work and research. I doubt they picked St. Louis because we have an Arch!
We also have Scott AFB not far away which used to be the main command and control for the Air Force but I'm not sure if it is still classified that way.
The government records center is also here but I would not think that would create much in the way of terror concerns. I would think government records are archived all over the country myself so if that was lost, the data would still exist.
It must be Anheuser Busch that got us on the list.
Seriously, I don't know why St. Louis is on the list but probably something I'm not thinking of. It would be interesting to know what rules they use to determine the 25 cities.
And why only 25 cities? Did they run out of money or perhaps this whole thing is a dead project and they are just maintaining it.
Of the 25 cities, I could think of several not on the list that have a much greater federal presence than we have here and the same for some of the others on the list.
AFAIK, the original 25 cities have never changed since its inception.
I did not find much about this system other than the fact they claim it is for 25 cities with a higher probability of terror activity.
Who knows, it could have been based on simple chatter the NSA captured when they came up with the project.
Priority-One's questions are valid and I don't know the answer but wonder the same. Someone on here probably knows more about this so called project.
I also wonder what type of event would trigger the need for this system to become active in one of the cities.
It sounds like it is active in VA if you notice the light on the APX flashing but that does not surprise me with the amount of federal activity in VA.
edit: one of the frequencies listed for this area is spitting out tons of short bursts of data. No voice and no E indication but I do see the 653 NAC code light up. It's the one listed as the Call channel but I don't think anyone is answering!
It just shows a UID and TG of 1.
The PDF file links I found from the Monitoring Times days are all dead but I'd imagine the articles are still out there somewhere.