DFW Area Mutual Aid

[NC5267]

Its interesting. For SMU football games they run all Fire/EMS on an I/O channel on GMRS for medical responses, but for Law Enforcement, SMU PD, HP, UP, Dallas County SO, and Dallas County colleges PD all operate on their own channels. lol.

• SMU PD is DMR RC4 encrypted on UHF (but on demand patched in the clear on GMRS)
• University Park PD is AES encrypted on GMRS with their own encryption key
• University Park Fire/EMS is AES encrypted on GMRS with their own separate encryption key
• Highland Park DPS (shared pd, Fire, EMS) AES encrypted on GMRS with their own separate encryption key
• GMRS Fire IO-8 is used for shared EMS units for the game.
• Dallas Colleges is in the clear on what is presumably their own event talkgroup on NTIRN (36560).

so, there are 4 separate encryption keys in use, one encrypted talkgroup patched to GMRS in the clear, and only what seems to be some interop in use for medical calls.

sigh. LOL.

Sounds like what we have down here in Bexar/San Antonio on the AARRS system. Everyone is on the same system, but SAPD has multiple encryption keys within its own agency. They have really clamped down on what other LE agencies can monitor, and of course, the media access radios, which are controlled by them and can be disabled whenever they feel like it. There are 75 Mutual Aid channels on the system, but this past year, LE has not used them for anything. The first 10 are used for brush fire mutual aid calls between the city and the county. That is about all they are used for. Even Fiesta all of the city events are now on encrypted event channels.