Looks like theMiami-Dade County Public Services (Project 25) is full encryption?

[AZScanner]

R.I.P Got lots of use out of the 996XT. Now I am using it for conventional stuff, and the SDR for other things. Spectrum is dead on the old system, everything crypto on the new.

An interesting long article on why many agencies are going encryption.
Law enforcement agencies encrypting radio transmissions | StarNewsOnline.com

Very interesting indeed!

"Over the last couple of years we've seen an increase in criminal activity using technology to monitor law enforcement channels," said Sgt. Jerry Brewer of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office. As an example, Brewer told of a time during a vehicle stop when he heard a deputy's call to dispatch echoing from a scanner under the driver's seat of the stopped vehicle.

"For officer safety we feel it's necessary to encrypt our channels," he said.

There you have it straight from the horses' mouth. Are some of you still ready to argue that the literally thousands of public safety streams hosted by Broadcastify have nothing to do with that statement? Do you think all the bad guys out there are using scanners to monitor the cops? If so, PM me, as I can give you a great deal on a really famous bridge I happen to own up in Lake Havasu.

-AZ

 

[diodelatorre]

I think the encryption will go over the cliff, I mean the digital cliff.

Cliff effect
Cliff effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As soon a an Officer is killed because his radio signal went over the cliff, you can say bye bye to encryption and maybe digital.

 

[N4KVE]

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Less than three weeks after the Miami-Dade Police Department launched a new radio system that was supposed to improve transmissions and keep officers safe, Police Director J.D. Patterson announced Thursday the department would be returning to a less secure, but hopefully more reliable system.

In an email obtained by CBS4 News, Patterson acknowledged serious problems with the new radio system. “A number of radio users have reported incidents of hearing distorted audio and other anomalies that have affected radio communications,” Patterson wrote.

Since its inception on April 15, the system has been bombarded with reports from its officers of lost or garbled radio transmissions. The system, which cost taxpayers between $25 million and $30 million, moved the radio system from an analog to a digital signal. It also layered in a sophisticated level of encryption which would make it impossible for members of the public to listen to police radio transmissions on their own private scanners.

The problems extend beyond Miami-Dade County. Several municipalities, including North Miami, Sunny Isles, and Pinecrest rely on the Miami-Dade radio system to dispatch its officers.

But CBS4 News has learned the problem with the radios go well beyond garbled or lost transmissions. An emergency button has failed on several occasions. The so-called red button is located on every handheld radio and is supposed to act as a beacon when an officer’s life is in jeopardy.

When an officer is in distress and needs immediate help, all they have to do is press the red button and an emergency tone goes out, dispatchers are immediately informed of the officer’s location and anything the officer says is broadcast without the officer having to hold down the button as they normally do when they want to speak. But on several occasions the buttons were pressed and nothing happened.

No officers have been injured or hurt – but Patterson wasn’t going to wait for that to happen. He announced that while engineers try to figure out what is wrong with the system – they will return to a less-secure, but hopefully more reliable system this Tuesday.

 

[flecom]

New Police Radios Place Public, Officers At Risk « CBS Miami

 

[Ezra]

Looks like encryption is off for now because of problems

Miami-Dade police shut down new radio system to get kinks out - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com

"Less than three weeks after the installation of a $25 million encrypted radio transmission system that police say will make them safer, it’s been shut down for repairs becuase of garbled transmissions and a flawed emergency button."

 

[jdobbs2001]

Even without the encryption, Unidens suck at P25 anyhow so I still would not receive anything due to the horrible Simulcast reception of the Unidens

They are secure without the encryption

 

[pepsima1]

Well they will pull back for a while and use no encryption until they work the bugs out of the system and fine tune it.

Don't hold your breath on this being a permant fix. This will probably be temporary but enjoy listening while you can.

Every new system goes through this pain.

 

[bravo14]

If the whole system is Encrypted maybe the system is over loading causing the problems? I heard if the whole system is 100% Encrypted it causes problems.

 

[AZScanner]

I think the encryption will go over the cliff, I mean the digital cliff.

Cliff effect
Cliff effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As soon a an Officer is killed because his radio signal went over the cliff, you can say bye bye to encryption and maybe digital.

It'd be nice for someone to have the foresight to prevent that BEFORE it happens, but you're probably right in that it would take something like that to happen before we'd have a prayer of it going away. We've had tactical comms encrypted here for quite a while now and save for one isolated day where the encryption went a little haywire and had to be patched, it's worked perfectly. Great for the officers out there relying on it, but not so great for us in scannerland who will never be allowed to monitor those channels again.

I think this (the fact that Miami's system doesn't work) has nothing to do with any theoretical P25 flaws and a lot more to do with the fact that they only spent $30 million on a system that, from the sounds of the news stories posted here lately, should have been at least double that amount to work correctly. By comparison, the city of Phoenix spent $120+ million on their P25 radio system that supports thousands of users (both encrypted and non) in 20+ towns/cities in the Phoenix area. Even with all that money spent, it still has some issues but they are nothing like what's being reported in Miami. You get what you pay for, and when you cut sites to cut costs, you get the mess that is the Miami system.

-AZ

 

[qbertopp]

Is anyone able to hear any P25 comms?

How do you have the Miami-Dade Site 02 programmed in your 996xt. I have tried entering all the freqs in the Site 02 provided by RR and it sees the TG but no audio. I also programmed only the control channel and I see the NAC and TG's but also no audio. I have a 996xt..what am I doing wrong? Is anyone able to hear any non-encrypted comms on Site 102 of the Miami-Dade P25 system?

 

[jdobbs2001]

How do you have the Miami-Dade Site 02 programmed in your 996xt. I have tried entering all the freqs in the Site 02 provided by RR and it sees the TG but no audio. I also programmed only the control channel and I see the NAC and TG's but also no audio. I have a 996xt..what am I doing wrong? Is anyone able to hear any non-encrypted comms on Site 102 of the Miami-Dade P25 system?

You wont, 996xt cant demodulate multicast P25 properly.

Don't bother with the new models. They still use the FM discriminator hack to try and demodulate P25 instead of taking the baseband IF and demodulating using I/Q VS FM discriminator.

 

[jdobbs2001]

It'd be nice for someone to have the foresight to prevent that BEFORE it happens, but you're probably right in that it would take something like that to happen before we'd have a prayer of it going away. We've had tactical comms encrypted here for quite a while now and save for one isolated day where the encryption went a little haywire and had to be patched, it's worked perfectly. Great for the officers out there relying on it, but not so great for us in scannerland who will never be allowed to monitor those channels again.

I think this (the fact that Miami's system doesn't work) has nothing to do with any theoretical P25 flaws and a lot more to do with the fact that they only spent $30 million on a system that, from the sounds of the news stories posted here lately, should have been at least double that amount to work correctly. By comparison, the city of Phoenix spent $120+ million on their P25 radio system that supports thousands of users (both encrypted and non) in 20+ towns/cities in the Phoenix area. Even with all that money spent, it still has some issues but they are nothing like what's being reported in Miami. You get what you pay for, and when you cut sites to cut costs, you get the mess that is the Miami system.

-AZ

What I do not understand, why the heck did they jump with both feet into not only switching to a new P25 system, but encryption to boot.

It would have been smarter to just switch to the new P25 system first, give it a few months to a year and make sure it works. Then start testing encryption with a few groups first and roll it out over time?

 

[AZScanner]

What I do not understand, why the heck did they jump with both feet into not only switching to a new P25 system, but encryption to boot.

Because they are cops, not radio engineers. Besides, I'm sure the salesguys made it sound as though it will all work like magic, you can encrypt everything without any problems and that the radios will even emit a pleasant Lilac aromatherapy scent on demand - in other words, whatever it took to secure the contract.

It would have been smarter to just switch to the new P25 system first, give it a few months to a year and make sure it works. Then start testing encryption with a few groups first and roll it out over time?

It sure would have, but the one thing I think pretty much every American can agree on is how bass-ackwards the government does... well, pretty much everything!

-AZ

 

[jdobbs2001]

New digital radio system used by Miami-Dade Police raises securi - WSVN-TV - 7NEWS Miami Ft. Lauderdale News, Weather, Deco

Lol video of an officers harris radio audio in this report. It sounds just as bad as a uniden 996xt trying to demodulate multicast LSM.

Lol huge fail.

 

[pepsima1]

That's Harris for you. They should of stuck with the best out on the market and that Motorola.

Don't think that this Encryption is going away for good. They will go back in the clear for a while and then slam the door completely shut forever and forever.

 

[APX8000]

So are they using the new P25 system in the clear/unencrypted or did they temporarly switch back to their analog EDACS system? If they are running clear on the new one, start grabbing talk groups and submit them to the database. I just checked and all the talk group IDs are just listed as "encrypted" and "police."

 

[Jakeportland]

Law tac is encrypted

 

[Jakeportland]

Alright I just watched the news from Miami and it sound like there encrypted on the actual police radio that sounds really weird and when you listen to it on the police scanner it sounds encrypted so the problem is a need to switch back to the old analog until they can fix it

 

[jdobbs2001]

Alright I just watched the news from Miami and it sound like there encrypted on the actual police radio that sounds really weird and when you listen to it on the police scanner it sounds encrypted so the problem is a need to switch back to the old analog until they can fix it

Weird cause the Encryption was the issue, they were going in the clear temporarily until the fix the mess.

They sure rushed quickly to encrypt without thinking of testing. Its not like another month of being in the clear is going to be such a big deal for them. They have been in the clear for years.

They should first prioritize officer safety/communications first.

And play with the encryption until they get it right.

 

[bfperez]

I sympathize with the claims of robotic voices and would add that I also hate the way light background noise sometimes comes up. I bet 800mhz would be the most desired, popular band if there was a standard vocoder that utilized the full channel.