Local PD requests my feed be delayed :(

[SCPD]

There is always the Team Speak option allowing you to broadcast your feed or just that specific channel/agency. Then on a second scanner broadcast to broadcastify. I do something similar to this myself. Broadcastify get what is allowed, the second "Private" feeds gets what's not allowed under the TOS. And IF I wanted to, I still have an option to send the second feed to Live365 or Tune In (Tune In is app based)

That may be your healthy compromise sending that specific Law Enforcement channel or system to a private or 'Discrete' broadcast. Icecast hosting isn't too awfully expensive and ProScan is a cheap yet high quality option. Team Speak or Ventrillo are reasonably priced and allow you to restrict access and yes, there is a phone app for both. You could even sell subscription service to the Department in question with TS or Vent as both are secure clients making your feed 100% private even with a Mobile app.

Good luck!

 

[AZScanner]

You could even sell subscription service to the Department in question with TS or Vent as both are secure clients making your feed 100% private even with a Mobile app.

Good luck!

This is brilliant, right here.

Expand on this. What if Broadcastify charged a fee to listen to the feeds? I bet such a move would clear out a large portion of the riff raff who listen to our feeds in an attempt to elude the cops real fast. Broadcastify could also offer free accounts to feed providers, which would encourage more providers to put feeds up. I see it as a win, win, win. Less crooks listening in, more money for Broadcastify and more feeds for all of us to listen to.

Thoughts?
-AZ

 

[Tweekerbob]

I know I am late to the ball...but I've seen this argument many times and have remained mum. Simply stated, and this is not an all-encompassing argument, but I was always intrigued by the statement going something like this, "...we have had many suspects CAUGHT while listening to scanner apps on their phones."

I find this simply hilarious. On one very extreme, is the over-confidence of being able to "listen-in" on the police giving these would-be expert criminals a false sense of bravado and security? The joke's on them if they believe all police communications are transmitted through normal dispatch channels. Many agencies heavily utilize MDCs, Tactical channels and cell phones. Or is it that most of these people are too stupid to hold down regular jobs and any tool available to them is beyond the reach of their comprehension? So I ask the question, are smart phones leading to more arrests? This may be difficult to answer, because we NEVER knew how many people were/are getting away by listening to scanners in any shape or form to begin with.

The real questions is...can ANYONE prove, based on acceptable metrics, that crime has diminished through the long term use of encrypted communications or was it just a knee-jerk reaction to "hey these guys can hear us" syndrome? Certainly, there are several agencies (most of them federal) currently utilizing encrypted comms, but can any of them prove that encryption works and that concerned citizens should be devoid of any and all of their communications?

Before the recent advent of scanner apps for smart phones (at least the phones are smart), how many criminals were CAUGHT listening to hardware receivers? One can safely argue that programming today's hardware scanners is proving to be more and more difficult and that scanner feeds offer a viable solution. However, you still need to LEARN THE LANGUAGE. Many LE agencies still use a Chex-mix of codes and signals to communicate with each other. It literally can be a second language and can take weeks or months of consistent listening to become "fluent". Not to mention that for the travelling criminal, these codes often vary widely from county to county.

Many, if not most, criminals are committing crimes under the strong influence of drugs. Additionally, they probably have adrenaline pumping through their veins as well. This compounds the problem of connecting what you are hearing to any sort of coherent thought. A series of "DUHS" running through their initially feeble minds would be an understatement.

So, in terms of the criminals' minds, scanner apps do solve some initial problems. But in the end, their smart phones haven't made them any smarter.

On a quick side note, I run a local feed, and I've noticed that the longer the scanner app stays active, the longer the delay becomes. I'm no IT expert but I suspect some kind of mix of gibberish like network latency, buffering, etc. is to blame. In a 24 hour solid period of listening, the latency had increased to over 15 minutes. This certainly isn't a solution; strictly an observation.

 

[SCPD]

?

I have six uncles not including my Father who where LEO's and several Cousins that currently are LEO's. They tell me that on the occasion someone does have a scanner in their vehicle, most of the time it on when they walk up. Some people like to shove it in their face and argue with them over turning off while stopped. It only takes one person to pull a stunt like that to change a LEO's views.
I was pulled over once for going thru a stop light that had turned yellow as I went thru the intersection. The officer decided to pull me over. I turned it off before he got out and walked up to my drivers door. Seeing that I did have a scanner in the vehicle along with ham radio gear. He asked me to step out of the vehicle. Gave me a warning for driving thru a yellow :roll: and let me go. The point is, YOU cant tell when your going to get pulled over and for what. Your vehicle might 'Match the Description', 'You where over the Speed Limit by a couple mph', or you might not notice your tail is out.

I cant tell when Im getting pulled over?Nobody can get pulled over until they are signaled to do so .Right?
I myself always check my lights and vehicle before I leave,everyone should!

 

[Randdon]

Two trains of thought

I have two trains of thought on this one:

First, North American's, particularly in the U.S. have given up a lot of rights and freedoms under the guise of Home Land security. Many police forces believe it is their god given right to go one, two or ten steps further in taking away rights from you! (Just watch youtube videos of LEO's violating rights and the law!) So unless you are not breaking any laws in your state or county, then I would simply tell them no, they have no right to ask you and in fact they may be breaking the law either directly or indirectly through suppressing your rights. This tack I well recognize is a double edge sword.

Secondly, I am assuming the local force that contacted you is talking more or less about average everyday street crime and street drugs, somewhere in that crime arena. Now, if they are talking major crime and drug activity at the upper levels, than these guys are not even remotely interested in getting a feed off of some scanner service. They are already using their own communications methods, including illegal use of Amateur Radio equipment. The Cartels down in Mexico have major communications setups, including entire country coverage repeater systems, latest digital and encryption methodologies, you name it, they have it or more! I would assume nothing less of major criminal elements here, and in fact, I would not for a second, not believe that they haven't infiltrated police forces and have a tap into ALL of their communications methods including mobile terminals and GPS positioning and locations systems.

So the question here is, will the local department go digital if it hasn't already and will they go all the way to encryption? For local small time criminals, that would be the end, for organized crime, won't even come close to stopping them.

I am not anti-cop, but many police chiefs have alterer motives, they don't want us to know they screw up or are covering up some mistake or even wrong doing. Scanning the police frequencies is a way of holding them to the law and their duty. Too many police officers believe that they have the right to command you to do anything they want even knowingly they are breaking the law by doing so! They have even arrested and beaten up innocent people, this is a fundamental tenant of freedom and so is your right to listen to their conversations to hold them to that measuring stick. I know this could lead them to going fully encrypted but that is where you have to do your duty and vote them out or whatever your course of recourse could be.

My 224¢ for whatever it's worth OR NOT

 

[tk000]

Yet another thread rehashing the same feed delays/encryption/police complaints nonsense.. not sure why I bothered reading through any of it.

What I'd really be interested in seeing are facts and figures from the complaining PD regarding number of criminals they've caught listening to their feed. Because I don't see hundreds, or even tens, of people listenting to the 3 collective feeds provided by the OP. Let's see the agency's 2013 arrest statistics and compare that to how many of those arrests involved mobile scanning apps...

 

[AZScanner]

What I'd really be interested in seeing are facts and figures from the complaining PD regarding number of criminals they've caught listening to their feed. Because I don't see hundreds, or even tens, of people listenting to the 3 collective feeds provided by the OP. Let's see the agency's 2013 arrest statistics and compare that to how many of those arrests involved mobile scanning apps...

Exactly. I would bet the number of criminals they've caught listening in could be counted on one hand with 4 fingers left over. :roll:

Unless arrests have gone way down and injuries to officers have gone way up since the feed came online, it sounds to me like their concerns about the feed are unfounded, and as Chad said, this is more about keeping the press in the dark than the bad guys. It happened here in Phoenix with our C-Deck channels. Phoenix PD claimed they encrypted those channels for officer safety due to "all the bad guys listening on cell phones" but in reality, it was payback for the media showing up at a shooting suspect's house before the SWAT team did.

-AZ

 

[mjbjr]

No response here,just would like to follow where it goes is all.

 

[SCPD]

No response here,just would like to follow where it goes is all.

You were better off clicking Thread Tools -> Subscribe to this thread at the top of this page.

 

[mjbjr]

Unaware of that,thanks

 

[SCPD]

Tell them tough s***. You are not breaking any laws and it sounds like they want to hide something.

 

[skip21]

Bad guys have always been able to listen. That much has not changed. One of the stories I shot was about a ring of armed robbers dubbed the "Sonic Bandits" by the local police because the Sonic drive-ins around here were their favorite targets. When they caught the gang finally, they found them in a hotel room with a dozen scanners. So fast forward to today, they might have had a dozen smartphones. Big whoop.

Also most feeds are pretty much useless for following one call - they jump all over the place, especially in large metro areas. Imagine being a bad guy listening in on your phone as the cops chase you and then all of a sudden you hear some totally unrelated call on another channel about a domestic dispute or two cops on a talkaround channel discussing where they want to take lunch. Pretty useless right? So we can cut the bull about the bad guys being able to evade the cops thanks to smartphones. They might get lucky once in a while but if criminals have proven anything it's that they never learn, they get greedy/cocky/careless and eventually caught. It's not a matter of if, only when. Meanwhile, all the good guys out there who are listening can keep an eye out for the guy if he does elude police or even better, they can use the information to stay away from the area altogether instead of unknowingly wandering into a police situation.

We're straying from the topic here - Chad's got a big problem. He can either tell the cops "too bad" and then they encrypt or he can find a way to put a delay in and keep his site running. If it were me, I'd find another host and use a delay, or just limit the stream to dispatch only so they can move to a tactical channel and the baddies can't hear it. I honestly don't understand why RR won't give us the option to delay a feed if requested, but if that's their stance on it then I don't see that he has any other choice.

Chad, if you want some help with feed hosting, PM or email me. I know a guy who might be able to help you out.

-AZ

How many bad guys that you are aware of monitor encrypted broadcasts to their benefit? Thats where things are headed...encryption.

If you see so many blunders on COPS TVshow then why don't you phone the chief of police for those agencies and offer conselling to them on how its supposed be done?

 

[902]

Just got the dreaded call we all hope we never get from the local police department. The officer was very nice, but said after my feed being up for nearly 4 years, the time has come for us both to reach a possible compromise. He kindly asked if we could delay our audio for at least 5 minutes. He went on to say that more and more suspects are being caught with their cell phones playing their transmissions, and that he's worried it is having a negative impact on the capture of suspects.

I searched the forums for this topic, as I'm sure its been hashed out before, after my search yielded 9 pages, I searched for an hour. I didn't get anywhere. SO my question lies here. Is a delay feature not possible do to the cost involved or something else? I'd really like to know. Is it something that's even been considered.

Frowning in Flagstaff-
Chad

Chad,

I used to run a public safety communications system. Had this been another place and a few years ago, I might have been the guy calling. I've been in some closed-door meetings and I have to tell you that it seems (to me, at least) that you are being given a chance to participate in the solution. In the end, you'll make the decision you find best, but this could be a good opportunity to tell the guys in white shirts and lots of collar bling that hobbyists are responsible people. They seem to WANT to come up with something that's mutually agreeable. That's all I'll say on that matter.

You might be able to find a software delay feature that buffers 5 minutes of content and then dumps it after the set delay time. I don't know what the max is on this software, but you can try it. No endorsement implied.

There is a side benefit - I was on a volunteer fire department when I was younger. We had a fire siren, but habit made the dispatcher page the radio (the receivers were Plectron tabletop radios back then) and then blow the siren. If I were working outside, by the time I heard the siren I missed where and what the call was. I always tried to get them to change it around so that they could blow the siren first, then I could at least run inside and get the address without having to lug around a Bearcat SP-H/L scanner (or later an HT220 that I bought out of frustration). I thought about doing a tape delay back then, but I was breaking more things than I fixed in those days. If you do go with a delay of some sort, your feed would be the perfect "way back" device to listen to the call unfold when you've first been made aware of the event. Yeah, it's unintentional, but I would say it has use, especially as things start happening and you might miss them in real-time.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Best of luck however you choose to proceed.

 

[ramboton]

I think some law enforcement are just paranoid, because they do not understand the technology, I have been in Law Enforcement for 27 years and I provide 4 feeds to RR. I started providing the feeds to RR so I could listen in an office where my radio could not get reception. Many of our administrators use RR to listen to the feeds at home, in offices, or even when traveling outside of the signal range.

I figure just with the latency of the internet the feeds are already delayed from 1-3 minutes and that should be good enough. That may be something to point out to the officer that called, listen to a phone and a scanner at the same time you will hear the natural delay.

 

[SCPD]

Yet another thread rehashing the same feed delays/encryption/police complaints nonsense.. not sure why I bothered reading through any of it.

What I'd really be interested in seeing are facts and figures from the complaining PD regarding number of criminals they've caught listening to their feed. Because I don't see hundreds, or even tens, of people listenting to the 3 collective feeds provided by the OP. Let's see the agency's 2013 arrest statistics and compare that to how many of those arrests involved mobile scanning apps...

Nobody forced you to read the thread. The OP had a request from LEO agency about his feed and how it was going to be handled. Good information.

 

[webstar22]

I'm interested on how this turned out.

 

[JoeyC]

I can tell you how it turned out. The feed still exists and in the near future the department in question will join the ranks of the FHP, the entire county of law enforcement in Orange county CA. and the MPDC and others. While the department in question has no legal recourse but to ask nicely, no one needs to comply with their request, but we all know how that will turn out. The fact that they asked nicely tells me that they do not have the means now to shut down scanners with encryption and are willing to carry on as they have been but refusal to comply will most likely push the agenda to the next levels come future fiscal years. In a few years, the feed will be gone, as will most law enforcement feeds.

 

[pinballwiz86]

What's with the users telling people to "turn off their scanner during a traffic stop"? Uh..no. If the cop doesn't like it, he can use his cell phone to call dispatch.

 

[Ensnared]

Reasonable Request

In my opinion, the feed should be taken down. I would certainly pursue finding a feed service that allowed for longer delays. I like to work with law enforcement when I can do so.

 

[bemyax]

I've been running my feed for about a year and a half. Black Hawk County Sheriff, Fire and EMS, Waterloo Police Our county dispatch has an info channel not on my feed. Mobile dispatch terminals, instant messaging, car-to-car channels and PBX all take communications off the feed. When the older dispatchers are at work it's a fairly colorful feed with enough content to keep listeners. A couple of reporters told me they listen to it when they are not carrying a scanner. And a couple of retirees have said it's their way of staying connected with the community. Providing this value as a publication is worth enough to me that I pay for a separate, reliable internet connection.

I'm afraid that our upcoming digital conversion will dry up the content to which listeners have become accustomed. Until then, I'll try to think independently to serve all of the concerned interests.