Portland, Oregon Multnomah County

[dbjincorp]

Does Any know why in the past couple of weeks Portland Police Bureau is using a intermittent tone beep every 10 seconds on Central, East, and North Dispatch Channels? I appears to have started the same time protests escalated in the city. Most of the communication related to the protests moved to the rapid response team that I believe use encrypted com. The tones I referred to above are annoying and of course stop the scanning cycle momentarily. Thanks for any information

 

[marksmith]

Those are standard tones used to alert users on the channel of a current event on the channel. If it is what I think it is it is just a beep every 10 seconds or so. This is to alert other users that something is taking place on the channel and to stand by non-emergency communications. This is often referred to as a 10-3 on the channel. All normal activity should cease until the incident is under control and the 10-3 is cancelled.

 

[dbjincorp]

Thanks for your input and I understand the procedure, however Portland Police will normally announce verbally, "All Non-Emergency traffic off the air" and sometimes use the tone in conjunction depending how long the incident takes to resolve. If the incident is resolved quickly dispatch will simply say "Returning to Normal Traffic" . What I am referring to is a little different, the tone is being broadcasts continuously every 10 seconds on several of the main dispatch channels for the past week. I am beginning to believe all three districts have moved to encrypted channels so the they can not be monitored by the out of town protesters that are here to cause trouble. ??? Just a guess. Sheriff and Fire that use the same P-25 system are communicating and operating normally.

 

[RaleighGuy]

Did you see this @dbjincorp

PPB encypting Nets in 2021.

That's what I am hearing from someone in the know at BOEC. Apparently the news media is a little upset about it too because provisions are not being made for them to buy radios. But as they say on Broadway it ain't over till the fat lady sings. Not sure if this covers Net 4 (if they are still...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[marksmith]

You could be right. I have never heard the 10 second beep associated with encryption though. Normally just a lot of noise.

 

[marksmith]

They could be using a texting method that involves just a short burst in/around a beep and is voiceless communication.

 

[dbjincorp]

Hmmm? I was suggesting they may have actually moved to another channel which is encrypted, such as TAC 1 which I a known encrypted channel..anyway, Thanks again for you thoughts.

 

[dimsone503]

I was told on another post that they moved over to 154.695 PL 192.8. Found out that was for Portland Maine.. =(

 

[dbjincorp]

Ahh....found this and it answered my question:

Portland OR Alerts@pdxalerts
https://twitter.com/pdxalerts/status/1268375375840571392

Portland: if anyone is wondering why we aren’t tweeting anything, it’s because PPB and BOEC have moved all dispatch channels (Central, East and North) to encrypted tactical channels. No material means no tweeting. Sorry for the inconvenience. Stay safe everyone.