San Luis Obispo Sheriff department will be installing Digital encrypted radio systems in 2025

[N6JPA]

This will cover the entire county. This was in the Estero News print edition this month. They are doing it to protect PII as directed by the CA Dept of Justice. San Luis obispo City and Paso Robles City police are already digital voice encrypted. I haven't heard anything about MEDCOM channels going digital voice encrypted on 463 MHz, but it is in the plan to also protect PII.

 

[code3cowboy]

The last time this topic was broached, I believe in October, one if not more of the county radio techs popped in to dispel this myth.

It's really easy for non-radio people to embellish the wrong words or to not fully understand the difference between features purchased and capabilities.

 

[N6JPA]

The last time this topic was broached, I believe in October, one if not more of the county radio techs popped in to dispel this myth.

It's really easy for non-radio people to embellish the wrong words or to not fully understand the difference between features purchased and capabilities.

You can read the newspaper print story in the Estero News. Let's see I announced that SLO was going encrypted and it went encrypted. Paso Robles City police went encrypted after that. The news paper reports that the Sheriff department is going digital voice encrypted in 2025. Whom are you to believe?

 

[N6JPA]

Here is the news article from Estero Bay News. County to Replace Emergency Radio System | Estero Bay News

 

[N6JPA]

Here is the recent Estero Bay News Article in PDF format about the new SLO sheriff system. https://esterobaynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/EBN-4-10-25.pdf

 

[mmckenna]

I know a radio tech down there. He doesn't work for the County, but one of the local agencies.
Last year, him and I were talking about encryption, and he shared info that supported that most agencies in the county were going to have the option. They had a plan for handling keys between agencies, which channels would be available for encryption, etc.

From the article, looks like the county is planning to refresh their system. Not surprising based on a 20 year old infrastructure. Article specifically mentions P25.

I think most of us can put 2 and 2 together. Encryption will be an option. Seeing how it gets deployed would remain to be seen, but based on the CaDOJ, FBI and USDOJ, I think we can all see where this is probably going.

 

[kk6dj]

2+2=5?

Based on my discussions with County Staff there is no plan to encrypt Medcom nor Sheriff Blue, Yellow or Red channels.

-The article from 2021 is referencing the infrastructure backhaul upgrade to move radio traffic from T1 to IP transport and increasing bandwidth and resiliency with an eye toward supporting any future technologies.

-The more recent story about handhelds addresses two issues. Some deputies have been carrying radios first deployed in 2000 and cannot communicate directly with the local cities that have encrypted on their primary channels nor can they monitor them. Additionally, the sheriff handheld and mobile fleet encompasses many different models and manufacturers of analog radios. This new purchase will bring all mainline sheriff resources in line with one hardware/software/accessory platform to directly support operations on the locality's channels, encrypted or not and just plain finally retire some really old radios.