astro saber digital 111

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BRIAN99

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Hello:
The radio that I hoped could receive Trenton PD on is a 800mhz digital radio (Astro saber 111). The owner is asking for $299 and he knows very little about the radio exept that it is digital. He does not know what VSELP means. Also I have no idea how to program it. I'm not shore what to do. Is there anyone who has more information as to how I could tell if it is VSELP and how to program it.

Thank You,
Brian
 

SCANdal

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I'd like to see the answer to my question...

BRIAN99 said:
The radio that I hoped could receive Trenton PD on is a 800mhz digital radio (Astro saber 111). The owner is asking for $299 and he knows very little about the radio exept that it is digital. He does not know what VSELP means. Also I have no idea how to program it. I'm not shore what to do. Is there anyone who has more information as to how I could tell if it is VSELP and how to program it.
Brian,

Knows very little? How did he get one of these in the first place then? He does know that it's digital though. What does that mean to him? That is can do DPLs? And $299? Is that a Buy-it-Now price? For an Astro Saber? Hmmm.

Look, it seems to me that you're hot to get your hands on one of these things - regardless of the fact that you have no means lined up of how you're going to get this thing programmed (basically leaving it an expensive paperweight in the mean time). Let me boil it down to this...how much have you budgeted to spend on this project? Protect yourself by making sure that you don't go over that dollar amount when the bidding war gets underway - has they tend to do in the closing hour of the eBay process.

SCANdal
 
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RocketNJ

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Also, how will you get it programmed without

a) programming cable and software (another $500 investment)
b) system key (Trenton won't give it to you)
c) knowledge on how to program it

You cannot walk into your local shop and ask them to program it. They won't (if they want to stay in business).

With the rebanding process underway I wonder if this will be the final push for Trenton to do their forklift upgrade, thus rendering the VSELP radios useless.

I'd hold off and see what comes out of rebanding.


George
 

mondaro

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I learned a very long time ago that anything is possible when it comes to radio communications. We remember the NJSP said scanner listeners will never hear us now that where on a trucked radio system. Long before trunked tracker scanners where out on the market I recall MANY people walking around with bootleg / black market radios with NJSP programmed in them and if you where nice enough to the person programming the radio for you, you could even transmit on a system. So it just goes to show that some departments will have someone on the inside willing to hack a radio for a price.

Tony
 

jaymatt1978

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Yeah but Tony this is different unlike trunktrackers which do have a standard way to track the systems, ethere isn't a rhyme or reason behind VSLEP. Let alone the fact VSLEP IS all ENCRYPTED! Secondly they will NEVER make aa scanner capable of decoding the encrypted. Despite what everyone says monitoring encrypted communication is indeed ILLEGAL!
 

exkalibur

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RocketNJ said:
You cannot walk into your local shop and ask them to program it. They won't (if they want to stay in business).

Tell that to some of the shops up this way. If you bring them an MTX8000, 300 bucks later, you're on your way with a fully loaded radio ready to RX on several PS systems in the area.
 

FuelForFire

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jaymatt1978 said:
Yeah but Tony this is different unlike trunktrackers which do have a standard way to track the systems, ethere isn't a rhyme or reason behind VSLEP. Let alone the fact VSLEP IS all ENCRYPTED! Secondly they will NEVER make aa scanner capable of decoding the encrypted. Despite what everyone says monitoring encrypted communication is indeed ILLEGAL!


VSELP is a proprietary standard not a form of encryption – encryption may be run over top of it – but just because they are running VSELP does not mean they are using encryption.

Furthermore, Trenton's VSELP system is a normal Motorola Type II system. How is there no rhyme or reason to it?
 

Joseph11

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Trenton PD doesn't use encryption, either. They're running unencrypted VSELP.
 

ctrabs74

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FuelForFire said:
VSELP is a proprietary standard not a form of encryption – encryption may be run over top of it – but just because they are running VSELP does not mean they are using encryption.

The concept behind VSLEP is basically similar to ProVoice, in that even though it's technically non-encrypted, you can't pick it up on a conventional scanner (I hope I explained that correctly). Just because there are some ProVoice groups on an EDACS system, that doesn't mean they're encrypted, so if you were an AUTHORIZED user of a ProVoice system or you were issued a radio for said system (ie. accredited member of the press), you could hear transmissions without repoercussions. I'd imagine that it's the same deal with VSLEP. I hope I explained that correctly...
 

BRIAN99

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Frustrated

I would like to thank everyone fo their input. I do not think I should take a chance with this radio. I think I am becomming a little desperate since I was told that Trenton PD would have to cange and become APCO 25 compliant by 2006. It just disturbs me that I cannot monitor my own Police Dept. Right now I have a $ 500 Uniden and a $500 Radio Shack digital scanner and the only digital tranmissions I can listen to are from Bucks County--I am not interested in Bucks County.
Brian
 

RocketNJ

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What about Ewing Twp? Oh yeah, they're encrypted.

I heard that possibly Ewing may join with Trenton post-rebanding and Mercer County on a county wide TRS. Only time will tell...
 

jaymatt1978

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OK VSLEP doesn't mean encryption but I bet you more times than not VSLEP and encryption will go hand in hand. I really need to start proofreading my posts! My point is trunk systems and digital frequencies have a number of set parameters that can't be changed easily, i.e. number of frequencies, type of modulation, etc..That's why they could make scanners that could follow and decode them. From what I understand, and I know I could be wrong, on a VSLEP system enough of the parameters could be changed on the fly (without going back to the radio shop) that it will be impossible to have a scanner to decode that kind of a system. There's no way to "track" or decode it.
 

FuelForFire

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jaymatt1978 said:
OK VSLEP doesn't mean encryption but I bet you more times than not VSLEP and encryption will go hand in hand. I really need to start proofreading my posts! My point is trunk systems and digital frequencies have a number of set parameters that can't be changed easily, i.e. number of frequencies, type of modulation, etc..That's why they could make scanners that could follow and decode them. From what I understand, and I know I could be wrong, on a VSLEP system enough of the parameters could be changed on the fly (without going back to the radio shop) that it will be impossible to have a scanner to decode that kind of a system. There's no way to "track" or decode it.

The local VSELP syustem is nothing more than a Type II system with VSELP voice. A trunktacking scanner will follow the VSELP tallkgroups with no problems - it just will not decode the voice data.
 

Joseph11

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The only reason that VSELP capable scanners are not being made is because of the scanner companies not seeing enough demand from their customers to get a license from Motorola for it.
 

elk2370bruce

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The only reason we're not seeing a demand for VSELP is cause damned near nobody is still using it. Even Motorola has stopped supporting their own product cause it's "OLDE"! And the circle doth continue.
 
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