the words that he used were that " for those who scan the county it wont be able to do so anymore" another classmate asked why. he them said; " that the system that they will be going to is a P25 digital fully encrypted trunking system meaning that its digital and all traffic will be private"
......
Now he is the LT. that takes care of buying the equipment for the sheriff's dept. He's the one that places the orders and all that stuff. Now he did mention that he used to have a scanner a long time ago but it broke and was not able to scan any longer so I am assuming that he knows what he is taking about.
That's your best hope right there. Scanning has changed a lot over the years, and if he hasn't used one in the past 5-10 years, then he may not be aware of what the latest models are capable of. And though I'm not trying to suggest that the LT isn't fully informed on exactly how the system will exactly work, I am saying that there has often times been confusion in the media and even within law enforcement that P25 digital is unmonitorable, usually because of a failure to stay abreast of the latest scanning equipment available(though you wouldn't expect anyone outside of this hobby to really do that, so they're hardly at fault there). About a year ago, my friend (who is also an active member on here) was sitting in the passenger seat of a Gillespie County Sheriff's(who use the LCRA 900 MHz EDACS system) patrol car was chatting it up with the deputy about his radio, who told him "Yeah, we used to be on VHF for a long time and there were a number of people that they knew that lived around there had scanners, but now we're on this new 900 MHz radio system and nobody can hear us." Obviously this is not true as me and my friend on here are streaming LCRA public safety feeds. That's just an example that misinformation is out there. Now I'm not trying to denigrate what sounds like the Supply Services Division Lt; he may have a real keen sense of what's happening in regards to the radio system and purchasing of the specific equipment and their features. For the sake of being able to continue scanning, you'd better hope that's not the case.
I then asked him if he had a time frame on when its going to be up and running. He was not able to give me a date on that but did say that he is looking from 1 yr to 2 yrs tops.
.... I dont know how all the purchase thing works (radio's) but can they still be thinking on what sytem to go to? Is it something that they should already know by now? Can't they just change it later?
1-2 years tops, and they haven't even gotten the grant yet? This amount of time means that the system is largely in place and they would have to be buying, programming, installing mobiles and distributing portables which might take a good full 2 years easy, and even then they may not be ready to switch. You may have a few years yet to listen. And hopefully even more if it turns out they don't encrypt system wide.