Is Encryption Coming to Park/Capitol PD?

[TinEar]

I'm wondering if the US Park Police and US Capitol Police are getting ready to introduce encryption to their systems. There seems to be a lot of testing going on on both systems the past couple of days. I've only heard a couple of short attempts at encyption on one of the Park PD freqs last night. It was the type encryption that sounds like inverted voice as opposed to the "white noise" type. It didn't appear to be successful. The attempt was scratchy and seemed to fall off each time they tried it. Both systems had hours of on and off unmodulated carrier testing last night. I'd hate to lose the ability to monitor these systems - especially the US Capitol Police net but certainly understand why they'd want encryption. Isn't there some mandate that government entities have to be narrowband by the end of this year? It would be a good time to introduce encryption along with their new transmitters if that's the case.

The Capitol PD had a neat test last week that apparently was not announced to the bulk of the force or to others in the Capitol. It was rather late at night and started with an officer calling out a Mayday that her partner was "down" in a corner of the building. A "Backup Team" was dispatched and reached the downed officer in about two minutes. It was three minutes into the action before the dispatcher made an announcement to everyone that it was just an exercise.

I probably should have posted this to the DC threads but, heck, these two systems are "local" to us in Maryland anyway.

Alan

 

[ka3jjz]

I'm wondering if the US Park Police and US Capitol Police are getting ready to introduce encryption to their systems. There seems to be a lot of testing going on on both systems the past couple of days. I've only heard a couple of short attempts at encyption on one of the Park PD freqs last night. It was the type encryption that sounds like inverted voice as opposed to the "white noise" type. It didn't appear to be successful. The attempt was scratchy and seemed to fall off each time they tried it. Both systems had hours of on and off unmodulated carrier testing last night. I'd hate to lose the ability to monitor these systems - especially the US Capitol Police net but certainly understand why they'd want encryption. Isn't there some mandate that government entities have to be narrowband by the end of this year? It would be a good time to introduce encryption along with their new transmitters if that's the case.

The Capitol PD had a neat test last week that apparently was not announced to the bulk of the force or to others in the Capitol. It was rather late at night and started with an officer calling out a Mayday that her partner was "down" in a corner of the building. A "Backup Team" was dispatched and reached the downed officer in about two minutes. It was three minutes into the action before the dispatcher made an announcement to everyone that it was just an exercise.

I probably should have posted this to the DC threads but, heck, these two systems are "local" to us in Maryland anyway.

Alan

Alan, I could be wrong, but I think the deadline is 2006; but I might be mixing that up with the 700 Mhz migration plan....nonetheless, it's definitely coming. And if they add actual encryption rather than speech inversion (which is not simply listening on a sideband, as one poster wrote me one time - FM only has vestigial sidebands) that's going to be real trouble for those of us that like to monitor these services.

73s Mike

 

[Dougie]

I'm wondering if the US Park Police and US Capitol Police are getting ready to introduce encryption to their systems. There seems to be a lot of testing going on on both systems the past couple of days. I've only heard a couple of short attempts at encyption on one of the Park PD freqs last night. It was the type encryption that sounds like inverted voice as opposed to the "white noise" type. It didn't appear to be successful. The attempt was scratchy and seemed to fall off each time they tried it. Both systems had hours of on and off unmodulated carrier testing last night. I'd hate to lose the ability to monitor these systems - especially the US Capitol Police net but certainly understand why they'd want encryption. Isn't there some mandate that government entities have to be narrowband by the end of this year? It would be a good time to introduce encryption along with their new transmitters if that's the case.

The Capitol PD had a neat test last week that apparently was not announced to the bulk of the force or to others in the Capitol. It was rather late at night and started with an officer calling out a Mayday that her partner was "down" in a corner of the building. A "Backup Team" was dispatched and reached the downed officer in about two minutes. It was three minutes into the action before the dispatcher made an announcement to everyone that it was just an exercise.

I probably should have posted this to the DC threads but, heck, these two systems are "local" to us in Maryland anyway.

Alan

Just wondeing if you could list the freqs. or a link to em !!! thanx !!!

 

[Dispatcher308]

Alan I think they are brining it on board but it will not be full time encryption. I could be wrong though.

 

[TinEar]

They're testing again tonight. Once again, Park Police are testing the encryption on 166.85 and the Capitol Police just seem to be testing transmitters

Dougie, when we speak of different nets here, they can always be found in the RR Database which has a link at the top of the page. If they aren't in the database, then we'll always list the freqs. Find them here:
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&ctid=315

Mike, this is real encryption - not inverted voice. I just use that term for lack of something better to call it. It's the one where you can tell it's voice, not like, say, NSA Police which just sounds like noise.

 

[maus92]

I was in DC last week and heard a P25 radio transmit on the USPP primary tac channel. If you are using a analog radio, you might mistake that for encryption.

CA
Annapolis