Is Pulaski County SO Encrypted

[jtrellan]

I’ve been trying to get setup to monitor Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office on DMR. I’m able to decode the signal but the audio that comes through is distorted and I'm wondering if it's due to the transmission being encrypted.

RadioReference doesn’t show the Sheriff channel as encrypted, and I haven’t seen anything official confirming it one way or the other. Just wondering if anyone who’s been listening to Pulaski County for a while can confirm whether SO is running full-time encryption or if something else might be going on with the signal.

 

[K9KLC]

What scanner are you trying to use? Does it have the DMR upgrade or perhaps built in?

 

[jtrellan]

What scanner are you trying to use? Does it have the DMR upgrade or perhaps built in?

I’m not using a traditional scanner. I’ve got an RTL-SDR setup running on a RaspberryPi. I've tried running a few SDR apps that decode DMR (SDRAngel and TrunkRecorder) but I here the same distorted output for both.

I wanted to double-check whether Pulaski SO is known to be encrypted before assuming it’s a decoding issue.

 

[K9KLC]

I’m not using a traditional scanner. I’ve got an RTL-SDR setup running on a RaspberryPi. I've tried running a few SDR apps that decode DMR (SDRAngel and TrunkRecorder) but I here the same distorted output for both.

I wanted to double-check whether Pulaski SO is known to be encrypted before assuming it’s a decoding issue.

Gotcha. Hopefully someone from that area might check in. According to the DB here it's not but you know how things can change.

 

[whitty]

Gotcha. Hopefully someone from that area might check in. According to the DB here it's not but you know how things can change.

I live in Wayne County and all I've heard for about the last couple of months is it sounds like they are scrambling their audio. It is only the SO. It isn't encrypted though, just scrambled.

 

[K9KLC]

I live in Wayne County and all I've heard for about the last couple of months is it sounds like they are scrambling their audio. It is only the SO. It isn't encrypted though, just scrambled.

Are you receiving anything else on DMR with your device?

 

[Enforcer52]

Try SDRTrunk it works great on DMR systems. My local electric company is on DMR and all 9 of the prison units in my area are on DMR. SDRTrunk decodes them all with no problems.

There is a linux version of SDRT.

 

[jtrellan]

I live in Wayne County and all I've heard for about the last couple of months is it sounds like they are scrambling their audio. It is only the SO. It isn't encrypted though, just scrambled.

Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate the insight.

That definitely lines up with what I’m hearing. How are you able to tell the difference between a scrambled DMR transmission and one that’s actually encrypted? I’ve been decoding it through Trunk Recorder and SDR++, and the audio sounds identical to what I’d expect from encrypted traffic.

Also, am I understanding it correctly that their FM channel on 155.430 MHz is used as a backup? I’ve caught a few transmissions there but it doesn't seem to include all transmissions on the DMR frequencies.

 

[whitty]

Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate the insight.

That definitely lines up with what I’m hearing. How are you able to tell the difference between a scrambled DMR transmission and one that’s actually encrypted? I’ve been decoding it through Trunk Recorder and SDR++, and the audio sounds identical to what I’d expect from encrypted traffic.

Also, am I understanding it correctly that their FM channel on 155.430 MHz is used as a backup? I’ve caught a few transmissions there but it doesn't seem to include all transmissions on the DMR frequencies.

I have also heard some transmissions on 155.430 but nothing really significant. Usually if it's encrypted you hear what sounds like a busy signal when you are making a telephone call and the letter E for encryption.

 

[sneumann55]

I’ve been trying to get setup to monitor Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office on DMR. I’m able to decode the signal but the audio that comes through is distorted and I'm wondering if it's due to the transmission being encrypted.

RadioReference doesn’t show the Sheriff channel as encrypted, and I haven’t seen anything official confirming it one way or the other. Just wondering if anyone who’s been listening to Pulaski County for a while can confirm whether SO is running full-time encryption or if something else might be going on with the signal.

I also live in Pulaski county, and several months ago they were setting up new repeaters in each corner of the county, I have DMR and prior to that I was able to hear them fine, now they're definitely still using DMR but they are encrypted, I don't know what the encryption is I don't know if it's ever going to be able to be listened to, so anybody else who has invested in DMR fortunately I have a ham handheld in a DMR scanner which I could listen to them until I get to pass 3 or 4 months, the other agencies mostly fire and EMS are still on analog