Generally, encrypted signals give you the 'ole R2D2 scrambled audio. However, in Calhoun County, Michigan, I get nothing. No audio whatsoever. The scanner just scoots past onto the next unencrypted quick key. A question asked and answered 1000 times, no doubt, but is that a common type of encryption, no audio? Thanks in advance!
SDS100/SDS200: Regarding Encryption Calhoun County, Michigan
- Thread starter relafountain
- Start date
You did not identify which scanner you are using.
Uniden scanners are designed to skip (ignore) encrypted transmissions. When the scanner sees that the transmission has attributes indicating encryption, it does not stop on the channel long enough to notice. No audio is played. If you are using software, such as ProScan. to log transmissions, occasionally you'll see a notation that the channel was encrypted. Most times, though, the scanner recognizes encryption and moves on too quickly to generate a log entry.
There is no setting that allows you to change how the scanner handles encryption.
On the newer Whistler database scanners, such as the TRX-1 & TRX-2, you can choose how the scanner deals with encryption.
If "Audio Tone is selected, you'll hear a beep like the "line's busy" signal when you called a phone number that was on another call. You also have the option to select "silence" and not hear anything, or "digital noise", which is the garbled "R2D2" audio you referred to.
Looking at your county on the statewide system, MPSCS, you'll see that the talkgroups are tagged as encrypted:
The capital D indicates that the talkgroup is using P25 Phase I. Had P25 Phase II was used, that would be incited with a capital T. The E indicates full time encryption is in use. Had, instead, encryption was used only part of the time, and otherwise 'in the clear', not encrypted, that would be flagged with a lower case e instead of upper case.
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Thank you very much for your quick reply! I am using a unit in SDS 200 scanner, which explains now that why there is no audio. Thank you again.
That should read Uniden SDS 200…
Which, of course, ignores encrypted channels.
