Pittsburgh Ops and Admin have gone DIGITAL Encrypted

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W8KIC

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I love the scanning hobby as much as the next guy but I doubt any of those lawsuits would go anywhere seeing that the city government has no legal obligation to allow the public to listen to public safety comms or anything really; they could encrypt the garbage collection if they wanted.

I understand the need for encryption on the TAC and SWAT channels but the dispatch channels should be left alone unless city, state or county officials can show a clear and demonstrable need to do so other than the hypothetical drivel they've been peddling! After all, it was the public (i.e.the taxpayers) who made (and continue to make) that infrastructure they utilize for their job possible in the first place.
 

daine1619

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I understand the need for encryption on the TAC and SWAT channels but the dispatch channels should be left alone unless city, state or county officials can show a clear and demonstrable need to do so other than the hypothetical drivel they've been peddling! After all, it was the public (i.e.the taxpayers) who made (and continue to make) that infrastructure they utilize for their job possible in the first place.
Eventually I understand the whole city will move P25 conventional ops on all channels. I believe the main dispatch channels will remain clear but digital mode(P25)
I also believe that they will eventually move to P25 conventional on all of their channels but remain clear on the main dispatch so scanners would still be able to listen to them as long as they had a P25 capable scanner.
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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I know it illegal to listen to encrypted but i just been thinking if they dont have very hard encryption is it possible for someone get a same radio they use and if they could program it will be possible for them to listen i dont know how programming p25 and encrypted works it just seems like someone if they really wanted to they could find a way to listen.if the nac code on radio reference or do they need some kind of special password to get to the encryption part .
 

n3obl

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I know it illegal to listen to encrypted but i just been thinking if they dont have very hard encryption is it possible for someone get a same radio they use and if they could program it will be possible for them to listen i dont know how programming p25 and encrypted works it just seems like someone if they really wanted to they could find a way to listen.if the nac code on radio reference or do they need some kind of special password to get to the encryption part .
And highly illegal.
 

daine1619

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I know it illegal to listen to encrypted but i just been thinking if they dont have very hard encryption is it possible for someone get a same radio they use and if they could program it will be possible for them to listen i dont know how programming p25 and encrypted works it just seems like someone if they really wanted to they could find a way to listen.if the nac code on radio reference or do they need some kind of special password to get to the encryption part .


So no only the legal repercussions of decoding an encrypted message exists, you have to take into consideration the amount of possible "passwords" is somewhere in the realm of 1 in 1.1 Trillion. so the chances of someone guessing is not really logical.
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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Yeah I figured that. I know they will eventually go all encrypted at least police im sure ems and fire will still be free to listening.
 

harvick21

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I love the scanning hobby as much as the next guy but I doubt any of those lawsuits would go anywhere seeing that the city government has no legal obligation to allow the public to listen to public safety comms or anything really; they could encrypt the garbage collection if they wanted.
Everyone is missing what lawsuits means....people suing the city for police abuse. Pgh PD has a history of this and starting to hide basic communications, I guarantee the will be more abuse of the citizens. If you don;t believe this, you're only fooling yourself. the best thing to do is file FOIA and get a hold of daily logs and the audio files. This is allowed by law. Use your power or lose it.
 

n3obl

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Everyone is missing what lawsuits means....people suing the city for police abuse. Pgh PD has a history of this and starting to hide basic communications, I guarantee the will be more abuse of the citizens. If you don;t believe this, you're only fooling yourself. the best thing to do is file FOIA and get a hold of daily logs and the audio files. This is allowed by law. Use your power or lose it.
And they will deny it and joe public does not have the money for FOIA lawsuits. The government has unlimited money and resources at their disposal to keep you at bay.

You will be good little subjects and do as we say!
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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And they will deny it and joe public does not have the money for FOIA lawsuits. The government has unlimited money and resources at their disposal to keep you at bay.

You will be good little subjects and do as we say!
What no the Government would never do that 😂😂😂.lol
 

harvick21

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SWAT call at this time and told the to go to ICS channel. So again, WTF do they need 5 encrypted channels for? Also, for lawsuit, you can contact the ACLU or any public group that watches govt closely. With the Pgh's history, most likely they would get involved.
 

Medic10mda

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Is it possible the admin channel is not correctly listed and they moved it to another frequency? No activity at all for over a week even when units told to switch up to admin.
 

n3obl

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What are you trying to monitor with? Uniden scanner mute encrypted traffic so its hard to monitor on these models.
 

Binger511

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I'm surprised index wasn't one of the ones to be moved to the big "E" considering that's where a majority of the most sensitive information is. Maybe M&C hasn't had their radios upgraded yet. Who knows, I always enjoy listening to the tow trucks so hopefully not soon.

I also believe that they will eventually move to P25 conventional on all of their channels but remain clear on the main dispatch so scanners would still be able to listen to them as long as they had a P25 capable scanner.
Any ETA on dispatch switching to unencrypted p25?
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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I'm surprised index wasn't one of the ones to be moved to the big "E" considering that's where a majority of the most sensitive information is. Maybe M&C hasn't had their radios upgraded yet. Who knows, I always enjoy listening to the tow trucks so hopefully not soon.


Any ETA on dispatch switching to unencrypted p25?
Negative on when dispatch will be encrypted im guessing soon im thinking they will switch dispatch to those encrypted channels so the dispatch channels can get worked on and then they will switch back. If you think about it there are 3 police dispatch channels they cant just switch them to encrypted in a day because they have to reprogram evey radio for police ,fire,ems and who else has the radios.then once that happens they will switch back to there dispatch channels and will be encrypted.they might go p25 non encrypted (hopefully) but i dont think so in my opinion.
 

Medic10mda

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Negative on when dispatch will be encrypted im guessing soon im thinking they will switch dispatch to those encrypted channels so the dispatch channels can get worked on and then they will switch back. If you think about it there are 3 police dispatch channels they cant just switch them to encrypted in a day because they have to reprogram evey radio for police ,fire,ems and who else has the radios.then once that happens they will switch back to there dispatch channels and will be encrypted.they might go p25 non encrypted (hopefully) but i dont think so in my opinion.


Just the messenger here…. Heard they are not going to E/e for dispatching.. just eventually go to p25. Too many other agencies that overlap to go secure and those groups don’t have the $. All of the colleges / universities and surrounding municipalities that are on DMR or NXDN or open p25 use dispatch so that would be a big project which they would push for the county to pay for. The ops channels and few others have been in the works for over 18 months.
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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I hope they dont go encrypted but makes me wonder why encrypting all the ops channels when they have the new encrypted channel Pgh secure and then the other police secure channels they use for tactical stuff. Why do they need that many channels encrypted unless they will all eventually go Encrypted
 

Medic10mda

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They seem to move all of the protests in the city to secure channels now. I think secure and ics have limited towers thus adding ops and admin get the city covered all around and can jump onto that channel based on location. Also, given the increase frequency of the public events /protests occurring at the same time maybe they pushed for more channels to secure? Down the road… I am sure this momentum will pickup and all be secure In the future… if they don’t move to 700 trunk 1st 😉
 

Jl942264

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So, let me just get this straight, The police Dispatch channels, Zone 1/2 etc will eventually be going P25 Conventional on the existing UHF channels and probably not going "E"? But the other more admin/special op channels will be going E? Also, last time I was in town I could've sworn I saw an officer carrying an APXNext... anyone have any info on that...
 

PGHSCANNERWACKER1

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So, let me just get this straight, The police Dispatch channels, Zone 1/2 etc will eventually be going P25 Conventional on the existing UHF channels and probably not going "E"? But the other more admin/special op channels will be going E? Also, last time I was in town I could've sworn I saw an officer carrying an APXNext... anyone have any info on that...
I dont know about apx next i know they have apx radio but i wouldn’t be shocked if they did.i dont see them in my opinion just doing conventional p25 if they going to do why not do encryption because the city has all the Capabilities to do it . And i dont know any department that may need to be on the city channel that dont have p25 radios for example port authority police has kenwood nx-5300 series radios.Pittsburgh school police has p25 because they are on conventional p25 already all the Allegheny County Police, allegheny County sheriffs, housing Authority ,thats most of anyone I could think of that would need to use the city channel. My opinion they will go all Encryption For police at least.
 
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