Thank you.
Hi Jim... former resident of your town (west side) here. As far as I'm concerned yes it has. I do see that your PD dispatch entry in the database was updated yesterday, so they may still be using it in the clear... I'm too far away now to hear it.
Anyway, I'd been scanning in Lake County for over 40 years when my town switched to the StarCom system and encrypted, just weeks after I bought a WS-1088 to be Phase II capable... what a disappointment. The only thing we listen to now is our and a couple neighboring FDs.
That said... I now have a TRX-1 and love it... works well on the NWCD StarCom system where I work in Schaumburg... again, FD only.
You might want to wait to see what the new Whistler offering that's supposed to arrive this quarter is like though... will likely work much better on the Phase II StarCom TGs... at least you could listen to Animal Control!
Yeah, that's what I was worried about.....Yes, Gurnee is still in the clear and I am actually listening to them on my SDR dongle. On the other dongle, I am listening to fire and it is, for the most part, quiet as you can imagine. If Police goes encrypted, there's nothing, other than Great America, to listen to.
I think I will simply remain "on-hold" for now. ISP and Chicago PD would be fun to listen to, but they're not overly "relevant" and not necessarily worth the $400....and imagine if they go encrypted.
Milwaukee is toast, too, which is actually closer than Chicago to me.
I could hook the scanner up to a beastly antenna on my tower, but then I'm stuck in the ham shack which is in the basement.
As for Animal Control.....well, I think I'd be pretty ticked if that was all I could listen to.
Sticking to my dongle for the moment (that sounds weird) - Jim K9IDX