Henderson County Upgrade Status

[dakota91]

Encryption is here to stay

Unfortunately, more and more public safety agencies are going encrypted. It's one of the reasons why the Dept of Homeland Security handed out so many grants for local governments to upgrade their radio systems. Within 10 years, probably all police, fire, and EMS comms will be encrypted. When they buy new radios that have encryption capabilities built-in, it probably only makes sense to use it.

It would be nice if police and fire were to consider the desire of the taxpayers that paid for their new radios and only use encryption when absolutely needed for privacy, but I don't see that happening. The days of monitoring police and fire as a hobby will one day come to an end. In my opinion, once they started issuing cell phones and using in-car computers for dispatching, their radios started becoming their comm device of last resort. I live near a city of 45,000 people and their police radio can sometimes be silent for hours at a time. The cops here no longer even give their location for traffic stops anymore because it's now done automatically using GPS and tracked by their dispatcher. They seem to mostly use their radios when they're driving and their cell phones and computers for everything else.

I've been monitoring for nearly 45 years and I've seen a lot of changes over the years, but this is one hobby in which I don't see a bright future. Be thankful that you were able to enjoy it for as long as you did. At least you can still listen to Evansville police & fire and KSP (for now, anyway). On the bright side, it saves you a lot of money since you no longer have to purchase a new (and very expensive) phase II capable scanner.

 

[kd4bas]

I am still hearing Henderson County dispatch it's county fire units on their VHF channel. They seem to have dropped their other VHF links to every other channels though. I was told by mine on a VFD there that Henderson County could not find pagers that worked with their system so they had to stay on VHF for their paging.

 

[dakota91]

Digital pagers

Their days of using VHF for paging could come to an end sooner than you think. Unication (maker of G4/G5 digital P25 pagers) is about to release a new firmware update to their G4 and G5 pagers that will support phase II systems. They're pretty expensive (around $580 for a G4), but a government agency that contracts to buy a couple hundred of them would likely get a nice discount. What the pagers cost might be cheaper than maintaining an old VHF paging system and would probably pay for themselves in less than five years. It would also give the users the ability to monitor their voice channels with a simple change in the knob position.

Another nice feature of the Unication pagers is that they can be programmed with the system's encryption keys, allowing them to monitor encrypted channels. I think they can only accept one set of keys, so that may limit how many encrypted trunk groups it can monitor. That could be handy if the city or county wants a cheaper way to allow some of their trusted people to have the ability to monitor their law channels without giving them an expensive two-way radio. It could also be useful if the city and/or county one day decides to also encrypt their fire and EMS channels.

I've personally been going back and forth whether or not to buy a G4 since the area where I now live (the county directly across the river from St Louis) uses a 10-site simulcast system supporting nearly 400 trunk groups. In my house, I use a laptop running Linux 14.04 and OP-25, which monitors both Phase I and Phase II systems. It works well to allow me to monitor the trunk groups I care about, but it's not very mobile. It's legal to have a scanner in a car here in Illinois, but neither the Uniden or Whistler scanners will work in this area due to the number of simulcast sites.

 

[kd4bas]

I had an occasion to speak to a Henderson deputy a little while back and he said the department is thrilled with new system. They have much better coverage, no confirmation on a third tower yet, and his comments of the old system were that they could not talk across the road and now they can talk across the county.

I asked about mutual aid and he said that they only needed KSP any more (OK, right :roll and he mentioned that KSP is working on a new 700 MHz system with encryption and that the Henderson SO would have their radios programs for mutual aid. So just a heads up there .

 

[dakota91]

Henderson upgrade

Given the current financial condition of the State of Kentucky, it may be a long time before KSP can start building a 700-MHz system with encryption. I think their first priority for the state police is replacing their cars, many of which are way beyond their operational lives. I can't see them spending millions of dollars to replace a radio system that for the most part serves their needs when they have so many other priorities for their limited funding. It would probably be far cheaper to add voice capability (VoIP) to their current data system that serves their in-car computers. They probably made a big mistake in buying a UHF trunked system when they were replacing their old VHF radio systems since most counties and local agencies were looking at 800 MHz systems, but maybe they figured that the UHF would have much better coverage and range in the eastern part of the state versus 800 MHz, which works better in urban areas. Interoperability with local police might not even be possible since there's now a mixture of both P-25 and NexEdge systems throughout the state. It's hard to believe that with the hundreds of millions spent on new radio systems throughout this state over the past few years that they ended up with multiple incompatible systems, some of which use encryption so they may not even be able to talk to an adjoining county even though they might share the same radio technology.

Kentucky really should have looked at the way both Indiana and Illinois did their systems. Both states implemented state-wide P-25 systems (Safe-T in Indiana and Starcom-21 in Illinois) that any agency can join and have state-wide coverage and interoperability. I believe Indiana bought their system but in Illinois, Motorola owns and maintains the system and users pay Motorola a monthly lease fee. There are probably other states that did the same. Now Evansville is building their own P-25 system rather than joining Safe-T and I just read Posey County, IN is going to build their own NexEdge system, both in counties that are already fully covered by Safe-T towers. Owensboro also runs a 800 MHz P-25 Phase I system and Daviess County has applied for a grant for a new 700 MHz system (will likely be Phase II), but I'm willing to bet that Henderson City/County won't have interoperability with Owensboro/Daviess nor will Henderson likely have interoperability with Evansville or anyone else on the Safe-T system. In Illinois, Motorola is upgrading their sites to support Phase II in order to better utilize their limited frequencies for users with Phase II radios

 

[eaf1956]

Did Henderson County up the power on the P25 system? When they started it wasn't heard across the river now it is full bars on my 996P2 and my 536HP.

 

[crowe427]

Did Henderson County up the power on the P25 system? When they started it wasn't heard across the river now it is full bars on my 996P2 and my 536HP.

I don't know of a power increase... There is an additional tower that was to be added on the East Side of the county, last I heard it has not been constructed yet. I have a portable radio on the system and have had good coverage around the Evansville area. Not sure you're where scanning from.

 

[eaf1956]

I don't know of a power increase... There is an additional tower that was to be added on the East Side of the county, last I heard it has not been constructed yet. I have a portable radio on the system and have had good coverage around the Evansville area. Not sure you're where scanning from.

When the system first came online I had to drive across the river to even get a control channel. Now, it comes in full 5 bars. They had to change something.

 

[eaf1956]

P25 NAC for Henderson

OK RR has 871 for the site NAC, if I put 871 in my SDS 100 when one of the encrypted TGs show up it displays P25 NAC 871 00A. I understood that to mean that 871 was incorrect and they are using 00A. However, when I put 00A in the scanner now it displays P25 NAC 00A 871.

Weird!

 

[trido]

OK RR has 871 for the site NAC, if I put 871 in my SDS 100 when one of the encrypted TGs show up it displays P25 NAC 871 00A. I understood that to mean that 871 was incorrect and they are using 00A. However, when I put 00A in the scanner now it displays P25 NAC 00A 871.

Weird!

Is the sds silencing the ENC?
I cant hear at home even on an out side ant.
Pager hears it fine.

 

[eaf1956]

Is the sds silencing the ENC?
I cant hear at home even on an out side ant.
Pager hears it fine.

Yep it doesn't make any noise just shows the metadata


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

 

[INDY72]

Sounds like a Harris fun thing... Like how most Harris SysID is 00A, and WACN is the mix of alpha numeric, opposite of Motorola or EFJ/Kenwood...

 

[trido]

Milf, the Henderson System Eaf is talking about is Motorola.

 

[INDY72]

I know, but the way the ENC shows up on it is reversal which is how the normal stuff on Harris shows up lol.