Iowa County Encryption?!?

[MADScan]

I could be completely wrong on this and i may just have mis heard but as i was monitoring the ICSO on 155.595 i noticed there were what seemed to sound like open mics occurring off and on quite often, and then after one of these seemingly dead air periods dispatch came on with a regular transmission acknowledging a previous transmission, which i did not hear. There is no sort of emergency traffic or surveillance going on that i know of and i came to the conclusion that they might be encrypting normal traffic, any insight?

 

[R8000]

Iowa County used to be stand alone repeaters spread around the county. However 2 years ago or so they bought a all new system from another vendor. The spec called for voted receive sites and microwave.

I wont spend 3 pages explaining "status tone" on a voted receiver system, but from what you described, sounds like the voter lost status tone from a receive site. If all voted channels keyed up at the same time, microwave may have went down.

I never worked for their new vendor, so I can't tell you details about their system now.

This kinda goes the way of all the stuff behind the scenes y'all don't get to see too much. Microwave, T1 multiplexers, voters, e/m...etc.

 

[MADScan]

Alright, i didn't want another good old clear analog system to bite the dust the way say, Vilas county has