Looking for walkie-talkies for a school

[R8000]

Let's keep this technical related.

 

[12dbsinad]

Let's keep this technical related.

Technical? We're talking about Baofengs here...

 

[mmckenna]

More than worrying about encrypting school radios because of some fobia that some school shooter may listen in, which has never been the case because they could care less.

I like the idea of not giving them the option.
Entertaining scanner listeners is very, very low on my list of priorities.

 

[12dbsinad]

I like the idea of not giving them the option.
Entertaining scanner listeners is very, very low on my list of priorities.

Understood.

On the flip side, and I HATE to bring this up, but -we- make it too easy by this very site. 18, 19, 20 year olds who gun down innocent children in schools probably can't change a tire but they can run a smart phone like no ones business. I doubt they could manually program a scanner, or even know what a frequency is. Sorry, but sometimes you just need to call the child ugly and I guess I just did that. Pot meet kettle.

 

[mmckenna]

On the flip side, and I HATE to bring this up, but -we- make it too easy by this very site. 18, 19, 20 year olds who gun down innocent children in schools probably can't change a tire but they can run a smart phone like no ones business. I doubt they could manually program a scanner, or even know what a frequency is. Sorry, but sometimes you just need to call the child ugly and I guess I just did that. Pot meet kettle.

Yeah, I get it. There's a good reason for encryption. I know some cannot agree with that, but it's the truth.

 

[otobmark]

Didn’t icom provide military with 400mhz modified frs radios? I see CAP members with them at events. We have a cashe of frs radios at our various EOC’s for local comms. About 10 years ago we took out a few of everything we had in inventory to test them. The surprise was simplex walkie to walkie the lowband moto’s were the worst and UHF moto’s tied with frs radios for the best despite frs being half a watt. I expected vhf to do better but rubber ducks were a handicap. Also, I have a basic home type refrigerator running in my shop ( not commercial or military grade) that is far more than 30yrs old.
point is cost benefit analysis. Do you want 10 people with bulletproof radios or 100 (or 1000) people with non Kevlar version? My frs fatalities have been loss, and getting so ugly I euthanized them. I avoid Chinese stuff on principle so little personal experience.
I Worry more about the dangers of “woke” teachers than gunmen. Radios do not make a school secure. Every shooting I know about it was failure of law enforcement and protocol not school comms. Teachers and students begging for help that never came had perfectly reliable comms. As said by a previous poster it’s 99.99% routine traffic, solve that problem cost effectively (it does need to actually work). Probably why OP is on this particular forum. Not gospel just my opinion.

 

[Namibia]

I don't think I've ever heard of a school shooting that the nutjob planned out by listening to the school radios. They usually walk in by a unsecured door.

I'm more worried about "furries" corrupting kids when their classmates hiss, growl, scratch, claw, etc. and go to the bathroom in a litter box at school.

Precisely. The information transmitted over school radios is of no real utility for planning a school shooting, nor is it very private information. I don't get why people seem to think schools employ active security measures coordinated via radio. If any exist, they are done by SROs on their own radios.

 

[mmckenna]

Precisely. The information transmitted over school radios is of no real utility for planning a school shooting, nor is it very private information. I don't get why people seem to think schools employ active security measures coordinated via radio. If any exist, they are done by SROs on their own radios.

Depends entirely on the size of the school, and how you define "school". If you are assuming it's just an elementary school, or if you are thinking bigger.

No random dude with a scanner needs to listen in on a school arranging for a parent to pick up a sick child, or whatever else is going on.

And there are precisely zero laws that would keep a school from deciding to use encryption for any reason they choose. They can use whatever technology they feel like, including LTE cell phones, which are fully encrypted.

 

[Namibia]

Depends entirely on the size of the school, and how you define "school". If you are assuming it's just an elementary school, or if you are thinking bigger.

No random dude with a scanner needs to listen in on a school arranging for a parent to pick up a sick child, or whatever else is going on.

And there are precisely zero laws that would keep a school from deciding to use encryption for any reason they choose. They can use whatever technology they feel like, including LTE cell phones, which are fully encrypted.

The necessity of any scanning activity is subjective. I'm not saying either that they should specifically cater to people that want to scan anyways. And yes, there's no laws against them employing encryption...but it would be a wasteful misappropriation of funds, but as a spouse of a teacher and visiting at her a work a lot, I'm used to seeing that first hand in schools. If the school needs better radios on technical or coverage grounds, that would be a lot more valid.

 

[mmckenna]

The necessity of any scanning activity is subjective. I'm not saying either that they should specifically cater to people that want to scan anyways. And yes, there's no laws against them employing encryption...but it would be a wasteful misappropriation of funds, but as a spouse of a teacher and visiting at her a work a lot, I'm used to seeing that first hand in schools. If the school needs better radios on technical or coverage grounds, that would be a lot more valid.

Every radio I've touched in the last 15 years had some level of built in encryption or scrambling capability at no additional charge, right down to the most basic hand held radio.
So, it's not a "wasteful misappropriation of funds". It IS a waste to not use the tools you are given.

Any radios I've set up for school use -all- get the encryption turned on. End users don't know the difference. As a parent, it's one additional tool in the tool box that I can give them free of charge.

My wife is a teacher and my sister is a councillor at a middle school. I've heard the $4!† that goes on in those places. No one needs to be listening to that stuff for entertainment.

 

[Namibia]

Every radio I've touched in the last 15 years had some level of built in encryption or scrambling capability at no additional charge, right down to the most basic hand held radio.
So, it's not a "wasteful misappropriation of funds". It IS a waste to not use the tools you are given.

Any radios I've set up for school use -all- get the encryption turned on. End users don't know the difference. As a parent, it's one additional tool in the tool box that I can give them free of charge.

My wife is a teacher and my sister is a councillor at a middle school. I've heard the $4!† that goes on in those places. No one needs to be listening to that stuff for entertainment.

From what he initially said, it sounds like he can't afford much more than a BF-888. Mine was $16 for a pair, there are encrypted radios for slightly more than that?

 

[mmckenna]

From what he initially said, it sounds like he can't afford much more than a BF-888. Mine was $16 for a pair, there are encrypted radios for slightly more than that?

I don't know, I don't buy the Chinese radios.

Kenwood NX-1300NUK or 1300DUK run around $200 and include basic encryption on the digital side as well as voice inversion scrambling on the analog side.

 

[buddrousa]

Using a Cheap Chinese Radio in a School is like putting a large flashing sign in front of the school saying we are not prepared for anything and have done no preplanning. You are just asking to be a target. Our state just set out grants statewide for school security these include cameras access control SECURE RADIO SYSTEMS so there are no reasons to CHEAP OUT and not do the job right. Laws also need to be ENFORCED and if the news media would stop giving the a$$ clowns their 15 minutes of fame on TV the problem would go away.

 

[JethrowJohnson]

I think it might be better for some schools to use LTE Cellular systems. Every once in a while I leave my scanner in Discovery mode to find the unknown fire talkgroups, but because it has to receive every single talkgroup on these towers, it receives the school ones too, and they use them more like phones than anything else. Starts to get annoying too, I just end up pressing Avoid.

 

[KevinC]

I think the OP has enough info to get him/her headed in the right direction. And with the talk of furries and guns and whatever else we’re getting off topic. Closing.