Orange County CCCS P25 Update

[med2365]

These people do not understand what is going on.
You wait and watch. When something big goes down.
And they need help. No one going to able to talk to each other.
Look at hurricane Katrina.....

 

[Markb]

These people do not understand what is going on.
You wait and watch. When something big goes down.
And they need help. No one going to able to talk to each other.
Look at hurricane Katrina.....

Dude, read the 5th post above yours....

 

[B]

These people do not understand what is going on.
You wait and watch. When something big goes down.
And they need help. No one going to able to talk to each other.
Look at hurricane Katrina.....

Not even close to being true...

 

[prcguy]

The Chief must have read my post. I'm sure it was my post......

 

[MEDIC135]

MetroNet is following suit

 

[engineco16]

Their new encryption was an issue we starting dealing with 3 days ago on Twitter and soon news agencies and reporters got involved and it started rolling pretty fast. Chief Fennessey follows me on Twitter and was seeing all of the posts. We were told he wanted to do away with it, but the OCCA wanted it. I got a call from a reporter who interviewed me yesterday saying he's doing away with the encryption immediately. I asked if we made a difference and here was his reply (below), it just shows if enough people speak up the right way people will listen. Huge kudos to Chief Fennessey. But with the new P25 system will our scanners have to be reprogrammed?

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Oh it def did. I was contacted by a throng of reporters and the RTNA plus all you guys. When I first contacted OCFA they said Chief May meet with OC chiefs and MAY try to reverse. They asked “do you want to wait on the story till after Thur?” I said no... we’re applying pressure. I think we can enjoy this small victory.

 

[B]

Their new encryption was an issue we starting dealing with 3 days ago on Twitter and soon news agencies and reporters got involved and it started rolling pretty fast. Chief Fennessey follows me on Twitter and was seeing all of the posts. We were told he wanted to do away with it, but the OCCA wanted it. I got a call from a reporter who interviewed me yesterday saying he's doing away with the encryption immediately. I asked if we made a difference and here was his reply (below), it just shows if enough people speak up the right way people will listen. Huge kudos to Chief Fennessey. But with the new P25 system will our scanners have to be reprogrammed?

--------
Oh it def did. I was contacted by a throng of reporters and the RTNA plus all you guys. When I first contacted OCFA they said Chief May meet with OC chiefs and MAY try to reverse. They asked “do you want to wait on the story till after Thur?” I said no... we’re applying pressure. I think we can enjoy this small victory.

Nice work, well done!

 

[Markb]

All good stuff! A big thank you to those who rallied and worked to get this reversed. I guess the next question is exactly what they will reverse on. Will the med channels stay? HIPAA exempts it, but there seems to be a lot of misinformation about this fact out there. I guess we shall see.....

 

[engineco16]

So does anyone know how this will affect our current scanners setups?

 

[gabrielm]

All: I have heard first-hand from MetroNet that their agencies will also be reversing encryption effective ASAP.


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[engineco16]

Correct. Chief Fennessey did a great job today.

QUOTE="Gabrielmcgowan, post: 3146264, member: 376438"]All: I have heard first-hand from MetroNet that their agencies will also be reversing encryption effective ASAP.


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[gabrielm]

Okay. Well once you get the official answer which most likely you won't get anything back let us all know how it goes. The county employee that manages the facebook account makes no decision on radio comms for the county. OCSD runs the radio division and they make the decisions and the rules. I am just letting you know how things really work in the world and in The County of Orange. Alot of us have been down this long road for years now on different issues and no good outcome is going to happen.

The real reasons why they locked everything down is beyond what we can imagine. The clock never turns back time. Remember that.

Does the clock really never turn back time? Haha.


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[Markb]

So does anyone know how this will affect our current scanners setups?

The cutover to the new system is nearly complete, it appears, so you have to program the P25 version of the CCCS located in the Db.
There is still some work to do on this in the Db, so if there is a TG that you don't see entered, just take the old TG number and divide by 16, which will give you the correct TG on the new system.

 

[allend]

Well everybody I just read the tweet and boy " I AM GOING TO HAVE TO EAT SOME CROW TONIGHT". I am okay with it because some positive stuff has evolved over the past four days. I am just glad that people are listening and made a huge impact with Orange County on doing the right thing.

I bet The Orange County Fire Departments are going to have to switch back to their old system on the analog talkgroups until the backbone of the new NextGen system is upgraded to OTAP and OTAR unless this was already done when going live. There is no way they can just turn off encryption on all of their mobile and portable radios and dispatch consoles remotely unless OTAP is in place. They can't re-touch 10K radios plus and do it manually. Imagine telling your employee's to collect 10K radios and send the troops out tomorrow and re-program them. Everybody would quit and walk off the job.

Laguna Beach and Costa Mesa fire is a whole different beast as the other South Cell has been completely turned off. How are they going to switch back or turn off the encryption? Interesting Times for The County and Nationwide. I bet this tweet went viral.

 

[mule1075]

All: I have heard first-hand from MetroNet that their agencies will also be reversing encryption effective ASAP.


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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1141836448204673024

 

[engineco16]

Well I hope someone does it for scanner dummies like me and it all get's updated in the download section for Orange County.

The cutover to the new system is nearly complete, it appears, so you have to program the P25 version of the CCCS located in the Db.
There is still some work to do on this in the Db, so if there is a TG that you don't see entered, just take the old TG number and divide by 16, which will give you the correct TG on the new system.

 

[WD6ABC]

Great News Chief !!

 

[Eng74]

So does anyone know how this will affect our current scanners setups?

It should not change anything on the scanner users end. They just have to un-encrypts the talk groups they want open. It all depends on if they cN flash program their radios or how they will do it.

 

[allend]

Well if the new system is equipped and built out with OTAP and OTAR then it can be done on the fly. But knowing how Motorola APX radios work the encryption is hardware based and the encryption keys are strapped to talkgroups in the flashcode code. If OTAP is not configured and functioning on the new system then I believe that all radios will need to be touched with the programming cable and programmed manually.

Actually if they have to be touched manually they can do hot swaps and get rid of all of zones for the old and the new system and make one solid working codeplug for the future and then enable POP25 and OTAP and be prepared to never touch those radios manually again.

Just have to wait and see if The County prepared those radios for future growth and enabled all of those features when they built the codeplug for all of those new APX radios for the departments. Have to wait and see. If not, then they might have to revert back to the old analog system. From an outsider and with tech skills who knows until it happens. Time will tell.

As to the MED Channels I think those might be a loss for good. Even though we all know that no pertinent patient information is and has never been giving over the air waves its never been a HIPPA violation as we all know. I have never heard a paramedic over the past almost 20 years ever violate HIPPA policies. Paramedics and Doctors always take that oath to protect patient privacy laws. It will be interesting to see how that rolls over.

 

[allend]

Metro Cities Fire Authority (Metro Net)
6 hrs ·
This past week, Orange County fire agencies switched to our new P25 digital radio system. The new radio system has been a multi-year project at the county level. Included with the new radio system is encryption of radio channels. When the new system came online this week, encryption was by default turned on for all channels.
Today, the Metro Net fire chiefs with OCFA agreed to turn off encryption for all but a few of our channels. This means our dispatch, tactical and expanded incident channels will once again broadcast in the clear.
To make this happen will take some effort on the part of the OC Sheriff - Communications Division folks so the change will not happen today but very soon. Metro Net will post again once the change is complete.
Thank you for all of your comments and support! It is nice to know so many of our citizens are listening

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Wonder what they mean by turning "off for all but a few of our channels (which are talkgroups not channels)". I know there are a couple of encrypted fire talkgroups but wonder if the MED talkgroups will stay encrypted or not?