dragon_slayer79
Member
Hello all, I've been doing a lot of reading on the forums today and have came across a lot of talk about encription of signals. What I was wondering is... Is the future of scanning a relativly short road?
I know that there are a lot of locations out there that haven't made the switch (mine being one of them) yet, but a couple of groups have such as the highway patrol (in progress) and DOT(done). I'm assuming it's only a matter of time and money before EVERYONE makes the switch to digital and learns how to flip the switch to encode everything. Once that happens are we just out of a hobby? Or are there ways for us hobbiest to get around those barriers? Which brings up the legal debate. I know "THEY" want to shut us out so we can't listen, but on the other side of that same coin, I believe that to a point anyway that having people listening in keeps the "law" in check or more so anyway. We all know that there are crooked cops out there. So if nobody can listen then there isn't going to be anyone out there to say hey wait a minute we've got a problem here. Obviously these examples are hypathetical, but that being said if "big Bro" is watching us, who is watching "Big Bro"?
The main reason I bring this up is... I've been listening to scanners and such virtually my whole life, and recently have decided to make it more of a major hobby of mine. After reading some of the stuff though I have to wonder, is investing in all the radios ect. really worth it. Or am I trying to buy a dead horse? I currently have three scanners that all work fine excluding the digital stuff, but if everyone is flirting with encription when they switch to digital then I don't see any point in investing several hundred dollars into a fancy paper weight.
Be interesting to hear your thoughts on this. Not wanting to start any debate fights or anything so lets just keep it a civilized discusion. Thanks for stopping by and offering your thoughts.
I know that there are a lot of locations out there that haven't made the switch (mine being one of them) yet, but a couple of groups have such as the highway patrol (in progress) and DOT(done). I'm assuming it's only a matter of time and money before EVERYONE makes the switch to digital and learns how to flip the switch to encode everything. Once that happens are we just out of a hobby? Or are there ways for us hobbiest to get around those barriers? Which brings up the legal debate. I know "THEY" want to shut us out so we can't listen, but on the other side of that same coin, I believe that to a point anyway that having people listening in keeps the "law" in check or more so anyway. We all know that there are crooked cops out there. So if nobody can listen then there isn't going to be anyone out there to say hey wait a minute we've got a problem here. Obviously these examples are hypathetical, but that being said if "big Bro" is watching us, who is watching "Big Bro"?
The main reason I bring this up is... I've been listening to scanners and such virtually my whole life, and recently have decided to make it more of a major hobby of mine. After reading some of the stuff though I have to wonder, is investing in all the radios ect. really worth it. Or am I trying to buy a dead horse? I currently have three scanners that all work fine excluding the digital stuff, but if everyone is flirting with encription when they switch to digital then I don't see any point in investing several hundred dollars into a fancy paper weight.
Be interesting to hear your thoughts on this. Not wanting to start any debate fights or anything so lets just keep it a civilized discusion. Thanks for stopping by and offering your thoughts.