Does anyone else have NXDN in use in your area?
There is an agency I was listening to (city of Canton, GA) for a while on their VHF nxdn system using an Icom radio in conventional mode that only works in NVFM while the kenwoods work in both NFM and VNFM depending on how it's set up. At some point they switched over to NFM or some trunking system (I never did find out exactly) and they went dark on my radio. But while I had them, they sounded really good. The moral of the story is there's no guarantees that you can monitor them even with a NXDN radio. At the flip of the proverbial switch, they can turn on encryption or authentication.
I've heard of another agency in my state where the PD was on NXDN and the fire was on analog and the PD purposely did not want the FD showing up at their calls (I know, I know) and I guess some people were trying to show who was boss and got radios and then authentication was turned on and that was the end of that.
well I for one am a little miffed at the fact that the Police Dept and Fire Dept in Kings Mountain NC went to the NXDN system spending well over $300.000 of the towns tax dollars, and all this was decided at a behind closed doors meeting.
KM is a relatively small town pop. @10,000, "so it's not like we are trying to listen in on swat teams so we can warn the perps" very aggravating for community watch, anyway not only can I not monitor whats going on in my town, but they seem to be having a great deal of difficulty communicating with other agencies, specifically cleveland county sheriffs dept, also Volunteer fire Depts.
looks like 1 step forward and 2 steps back to me, this is not progress, and a waste of money.
this may be more of a rant but that's how i feel.
I understand that there may be a work around by getting a radio with a discriminator tap on it, not real familiar with this but looking for someone to help me understand more.
Scruggsy, I can certainly understand your frustration. There is no excuse for close door meetings where this kind of money is being spent....
But...
Your city got off easy. Real easy.
It could've been a lot worse, a lot more expensive and a lot more unmonitorable.
You could have ended up with an encrypted 7/800mhz P25 trunking system. Those seem to start at around $72 per capita and you're at $30. It's cheaper to buy an NXDN radio than a digital trunking scanner, not that either are guaranteed to give you access. And instead of giving the business to (I'm guessing) a local vendor, the business could've gone to an out of state vendor. At some point the radio systems have to be replaced and NXDN really is very cost effective. That doesn't excuse the closed door meetings and like any government contract, they might've paid way too much but the bright side is you've still got something you can probably listen to. Maybe.