Henderson County New P25 going encrypted

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jm32935

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You are preaching to the choir. I agree with you completely. My friend whould agree with you also. He is not the one that sold it to them. He installs the equipment at the sites. The truth of the matter is that probably not much sales skills needed to be used. I am pretty sure that the Sheriff was the one wanting the encryption.

Ha, no worries and give your friend my apologies.
I know a few local cities haven't migrated over from their old VHF systems, Gun Barrel, Seven Points but I assume that its just a matter of time.
 

tomtexan

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You are preaching to the choir. I agree with you completely. My friend whould agree with you also. He is not the one that sold it to them. He installs the equipment at the sites. The truth of the matter is that probably not much sales skills needed to be used. I am pretty sure that the Sheriff was the one wanting the encryption.

I'm curious to know why you say it was the sheriff that wanted the encryption. I'm inclined to agree with you but wanted to know your thoughts about it.
 

riverradio68

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My bro is a sergeant at Coffee City Police department, even he was surprised when Henderson came out encrypted. He stated the Sheriff is a very transparent guy and has no problem with scanner users, in fact many Police and Fire folks in east Texas use scanners to listen to other agencies on the various radio systems. This encrypt everything on Harris systems seems to be a key selling point for whoever is selling these systems. It's pretty sad too when the only way someone can sell Harris is by selling encryption. Hey, Motorola has encryption and an APX is wayyyyy cheaper than a Harris radio. Hunt County is going to be interesting if it follows Henderson Counties path.
 

wx5vhf

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I'm curious to know why you say it was the sheriff that wanted the encryption. I'm inclined to agree with you but wanted to know your thoughts about it.
From what have been told the encryption is done like a subscription. The user has to pay a fee to Harris for the transmissions that are encrypted. The VFD transmissions are not encrypted, but the Sheriff's Department transmissions are. That would lead me to believe that the Sheriff had a say in the encryption. Also, the Henderson County Sheriff is the type of law officer that tends to make use any technology that might benefit the department in any way. He has been very proative in handling the meth problem in the county while at the same time making sure that his deputies stay in line and do things by the book. Because of that the voters and the County Commissions seem to be receptive to his requests for funding and equipment. That is my take on it from what limited information I have.
 

bpckty1

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"He has been very proactive in handling the meth problem in the county"

This seems to be the motive for several agencies/counties going encrypted. The drug problems present very dangerous situations for Law Enforcement personnel. I just wonder why the Sheriff didn't get an encrypted channel for drug enforcement actions, and left the primary channel open for regular operations. But, just check out Montgomery County, TX, has done. They went 100 percent encrypted not too long ago. I wonder if it was because of a bad drug problem, or the county officials didn't want any of the public to know what is happening in the county. It started with the schools, which I can understand because of juvenile protection, and after a few years morphed into countywide encryption.
 

jm32935

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Great points regarding Henderson County.

Kaufman County's Harris system has been working well and although they had the option of going encrypted they opted not to. If these agencies are doing surveillance, Internal Affair Issues, Sensitive Operations etc... then by all means go encrypted on those special channels. If they leave the primary dispatch channels in the clear so those of us lucky enough to own a 700 dollar scanner and spend the necessary time to program these devices can be aware of critical events in their neighborhoods.

The number of nationwide incidents involving use of police scanners to commit crimes is so isolated that this rarity is hard to track and virtually non existent or it would make headlines.

Law abiding scanner enthusiasts can be a valuable resource in some cases but this expensive hobby and the necessary knowledge base to program these P25 Systems limits the audience to a dedicated few.

Hopefully these new radio systems will opt out of Encrypting Dispatch channels down the road.
 

mwjones

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I was doing some research in Van Zandt county, and was close enough to pick up the Henderson County system, and there's another site that I was just barely picking up, that I couldn't get the full bandplan.

Site 9.9, NAC=009, I was able to see it is showing neighbors to 4.4 and 5.5, and while on 4.4 and 6.6 they reported it as a neighbor. The only frequency I was able to capture was 857.0625 (but my spotty reception didn't show the alternate control channels, and I suspect there are other neighbors).

 

hiegtx

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That's an odd site #, for what is supposed to be the fifth site. But the other sites are 3.3, 4.4, 5.5, and 6.6, no 1 or 2.
 

KI5EDJ

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I make the trip from central Oklahoma to Anderson County 2-3 times a year. I have a few radios set up with Anderson County stuff. Not sure if I've run a scanner next door on the way in or out, likely so. I also made the run from central OK to Port of Brownsville and kept my SDS manually updated with GPS info. It stayed fairly active.
Here we have a mix. Occasionally local police will have something going over clear channels, like an armed escapee they chased down last night or a vehicle that crossed the center line on a feeder route to the middle loop around town. A few years back I followed a chase where dude had botched a robbery, shot his victim dead, and eluded police for several hours by swimming down the North Canadian River.
Mostly our police here are very professional. They're transparent to the point of if there's any question, body and dash cam footage go straight to YouTube.
I don't know what they still use clear voice when full encryption is available over a several county radius, but they do and there's been some high profile stuff go on where you can hear what should be tac channels being broadcast clear as a bell.
I'd be surprised if theseittle towns along US 69 and TX 19 don't leave some of their communications open.
 

ke5fgc

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I was doing some research in Van Zandt county, and was close enough to pick up the Henderson County system, and there's another site that I was just barely picking up, that I couldn't get the full bandplan.

Site 9.9, NAC=009, I was able to see it is showing neighbors to 4.4 and 5.5, and while on 4.4 and 6.6 they reported it as a neighbor. The only frequency I was able to capture was 857.0625 (but my spotty reception didn't show the alternate control channels, and I suspect there are other neighbors).

Thanks for confirming this. I am too far away to hear site 9 but have seen it advertised as a neighbor on Site 5. Have you submitted it to the DB?

I also have noticed that the audio quality on this system is not great, the dispatcher is very loud and units are all over the place. Very hard to understand what they are saying at times.
 

mwjones

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Thanks for confirming this. I am too far away to hear site 9 but have seen it advertised as a neighbor on Site 5. Have you submitted it to the DB?

I also have noticed that the audio quality on this system is not great, the dispatcher is very loud and units are all over the place. Very hard to understand what they are saying at times.

Because I was on the fringe (as I said, I was up in Van Zandt County), I only got the bare minimum data, which is below my threshold for submitting to RRDB. I will be submitting the bandplan though, since that is solid data (and is the same across all sites).

My research project will take me back to that area at a future date, just don't know when (that's the bad part about being in Grayson County, it becomes quite a trip), so if others can capture it, that would be better.

Here's what DSD+ added to its data file (Site 6.6 was received on a previous trip, so the neighbor list is out of date, since I didn't capture it this trip - Sites 3.3 and 5.5 have never been received by me, so they only show what was received as a neighbor - and when the signal is too weak, it will not write what it receives to the file, since it may be corrupted, so this is the only "verified" data I have:

Code:
  Network: 929B6.00A  ; Henderson County, Texas

  Bandplan #0:   Base=769.00625   Offset=+30     Spacing=6.25  BW=12.5
  Bandplan #1:   Base=851.01250   Offset=-45     Spacing=12.5  BW=12.5
  Bandplan #8:   Base=769.00625   Offset=+30     Spacing=6.25  BW=12.5  Slots=2
  Bandplan #9:   Base=851.01250   Offset=-45     Spacing=12.5  BW=12.5  Slots=2


    Site: 3.3               ; Larue

    Channel 0-18:     769.11875    CC


    Site: 4.4    NAC=004    ; Athens

    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-3.3      ; Larue
    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-5.5      ; Chandler
    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-6.6      ; Trinidad
    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-9.9

    Channel 0-204:    770.28125        SCC
    Channel 0-388:    771.43125    CC
    Channel 0-568:    772.55625        SCC
    Channel 0-790:    773.94375        SCC


    Site: 5.5               ; Chandler

    Channel 0-256:    770.60625    CC


    Site: 6.6    NAC=006    ; Trinidad

    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-3.3      ; Larue
    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-4.4      ; Athens
    Neighbor: 929B6.00A-5.5      ; Chandler

    Channel 0-88:     769.55625        SCC
    Channel 0-336:    771.10625    CC
    Channel 0-528:    772.30625        SCC
    Channel 0-676:    773.23125        SCC


    Site: 9.9    NAC=009

    Channel 1-484:    857.06250    CC
 
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