The end of scanner development and mfg.

[mmckenna]

As part of the freedom of information act should be included to decryption of regular emergency radio communications, due to the fact we, the American tax payer pays for all the communications equipment which services our cities and communities.

I understand your passion for this, but it ain't going to fly. The "tax payer" dollars argument isn't valid. There are lots of things that the US taxpayers pay for that we don't have access to.

If you want recordings of traffic, then the FOIA is an option. But you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that a scanner listener needs realtime access to communications systems.
Just like you'll never get real time access to all the telephone calls that go in/out of a police department, or their cell phones, or the 911 PSAP….

Encryption should only be used for specific undercover work. We, as American citizens deserve to be able to listen to what is happening around us. It's already illegal to use a scanner to commit a crime and that is as far as it should go.

Except that only works for people who choose to follow the rules.

Only freedom to listen to the airwaves will keep the scanner market alive. Unfortunately, emergency radio communications is slated to go completely encrypted, which should not be allowed to happen.

No, emergency radio communications is not "slated to go completely encrypted". Most small agencies do not have the funding to do that, and it's unlikely to change any time soon.

We should have the right to decrypt radio communications.

No, and it's not going to happen. Encryption serves a purpose. The technology that makes it work is complex, and keys can be changed quickly. It isn't the responsibility of public safety agencies to vet every scanner hobbyists and make sure they have current encryption keys in their radios. That's totally unrealistic and not even remotely scalable.

 

[chill30240]

NOT NECESSARY MY OPINION. . . . . . . . . . . But does raise some good points worth thinking about

This thread gives me a migraine.

Same tired, old nonsense comments regarding radio systems and encryption.

Whaaa encryption is bad!
1st amendment!
The police are out to get me, you, everyone, we have to know what they are doing!
HIIPPA, cuz privacy
Motorola is raping the government!
I'm a taxpayer an I want to dictate how money is spent!
Government has to be hiding something!!
I want the old technology back!

Why is the radio world filled with fat, mouth breathing basement dwellers who constantly blab conspiracy theories or participate in self-aggrandizing volunteer, quasi public safety whacking?

And yet you all wonder, postulate and theorize when an agency has enough of this BS crap and decides to their encrypt 24/7.

Let's review a few things:

While your "right" to listen to the electromagnetic spectrum exists (mind you there is no constitutional right to do this) it is limited by the Communications act of 1934. You don't divulge communications that you're not party to. Any government entity can encrypt and they don't need your dorky radio nerd permission to do so. No, the 1st amendment doesn't really apply here, because you listening to the government doesn't have the government infringing on your speech. Listening isn't speech and it isn't protected as free speech.

NEED TO KNOW. I hate to break this to you all, but you as joe blow citizen has essentially zero need to know things. You may think you do, but in reality you don't. Your oversight is through your elected officials (try finding them on the radio sometime, you won't). You as joe blow citizne don't have the right to access literally any level of materials from LES all the way up to TS with compartmentalization. You just don't. Really want to know, file a FIOA, after the fact....really, really want to know? Go work for the government, either civilian or armed services and get yourself the appropriate security clearances which of course will still abide by need to know so area 51 is still gonna be off limits to you and your APX8500

Your dictating government budgets is done through your elected representatives,, don't like it complain to them.

Motorola like any company engaged in RF engineering is a for profit enterprise just like Harris or JVC Kenwood. You act all uppity because how dare they make money selling RF devices to a government agency. If this bothers you please go read about a capitalist economy. BTW, feds started the encryption thing..local agencies have followed suit. It isn't Motorola pushing anything.

If you believe domestic law enforcement is out to get you or the government is hiding something just because they use encryption ( i saw one comment of monitoring the police for my and others safety, lol) then you need to actually move to a country that is a police state. In the mean time you're not that important

Want old technology? Don''t like NC Viper, Starcom21 , go back to 50khz wide FM Motorola T powers and get on the ham repeater and discuss your last bowel movement and colonoscopy. Technology moves forward regardless if your like or dislike of it.

You all sound like a bunch of whackers....

 

[TailGator911]

I seem to have upset some of the posters here by saying that E can and will be decrypted and cracked someday. How is it not possible that if one man created something, another man can take it apart? Nothing is impossible. Think about what was 'impossible' 100 years ago and look at us now. Petty insults aside, this is just one man's opinion. It's just a conversation, folks. Have fun with it! I certainly am!

 

[mmckenna]

How is it not possible that if one man created something, another man can take it apart? Nothing is impossible.

Well, it's like a password. You might figure out my password, eventually, but all I'd have to do is change it, and you'd be locked out again. You'd have to start from zero and figure out what the new password is.

Same thing with encryption. Sure, someone could discover the key, someone could leak the key, but an agency that is serious about communications security would periodically change the keys to reduce the risk.
I think with the current AES-256, the amount of computing power and time needed to break it would take too long and be too costly. As in wayyyyyy to long to be much good.

A lot of "impossible" things become possible if you have enough man-hours and money, kind of like going to the moon. I think the overwhelming point others are trying to make is that the amount of money and time needed to 'break' encryption is well beyond the hobbyist. Current high end encryption is not going to be broken in any easy fashion. It might get it's key leaked, a human inside the system might get compromised, but that's not hobby level stuff.

It's just a conversation, folks. Have fun with it! I certainly am!

Yep, some folks need to take a deep breath, maybe take a walk outside and relax a bit.

 

[K7MFC]

IF AES-256 is cracked, you will never, ever, see that incorporated into any consumer scanner.

 

[jonwienke]

I seem to have upset some of the posters here by saying that E can and will be decrypted and cracked someday. How is it not possible that if one man created something, another man can take it apart? Nothing is impossible. Think about what was 'impossible' 100 years ago and look at us now. Petty insults aside, this is just one man's opinion. It's just a conversation, folks. Have fun with it! I certainly am!

It's not one person's opinion vs another, it's thousands of man-years of research and testing of encryption algorithms verifying that they don't have weaknesses that can be exploited without the key. Having fun is one thing, claiming the moon is made of green cheese is another.

Research into cracking encryption is a multi-billion-dollar industry with national security implications. The NSA hires more mathematicians than all of academia combined specifically to test the strength of algorithms we use, as well as those used by other nations. And has since it was founded.

 

[columbas]

If you have been scanning for 60 years, you'd know that scanners have actually gotten cheaper, when you consider inflation. The software is free, and surely you should be able to program your own scanner by now. Even you buy all of the optional mode keys, you're still not paying $1000.

No Scanner's are not cheaper by far. Yes I can program them on my own . I am a ham radio operator and program much more than scanner's. Back in the day at the highest place around they would range from 40 to 100 dollar's. Far from the $1,100.00 Uniden offer's with everything programed like dmr, pro voice apco p 25 and so on. They charge you $75.00 extra for each decoding program.

 

[belvdr]

No Scanner's are not cheaper by far. Yes I can program them on my own . I am a ham radio operator and program much more than scanner's. Back in the day at the highest place around they would range from 40 to 100 dollar's. Far from the $1,100.00 Uniden offer's with everything programed like dmr, pro voice apco p 25 and so on. They charge you $75.00 extra for each decoding program.

I thought the extras were $60 each ($180 total). If that's correct, it is $880 all in.

I'm sure Jon is taking inflation into account, otherwise the comparison isn't useful

 

[K7MFC]

Far from the $1,100.00 Uniden offer's

What current offering from Uniden retails for $1100?

 

[Bob1955]

Never said all these companies will start producing equipment. I said the interest is growing. When the interest grows, so doesn't profit. There MAY be some company out there that will see this. Note I said MAY. Nobody knows, but at this point if you look around, you'll see more analog work than you did 8-10 years ago. Most of that is with legacy equipment at this point. Your cassette player and scanner analogy really isn't the same deal, I'll explain in my next quote.


Scanner production will cease because of measures taken to try to make the airwaves non scanable. Today that is mostly E, which if it could be decoded I'd be illegal anyway. It probably won't be because of lack of interest either. That lack of interest on a cassette player that you mention CAN come back, regardless of technology. Or, maybe it won't. It already has to some extent. That's the difference.

To give an example, I own a International Harvester Scout. For years, body parts and reproduction parts were non-existent. Until enough interest came about that a company bought the old International tooling and started making body panels and parts. Sure, it's really expensive. But it's available, and they continue to grow. Now, if for some reason these vehicles could no longer be driven legally, or fuel made illegal, or something else to make them non-usable they would be paper weights and worth nothing but scrap steel. No one would want to restore them, maintain them and the interest for a company to start reproducing parts wouldn't be there by increased interest on a 50 year old SUV. They would just go away. That's what will happen to scanners.

There will always be frequencies to listen to. YOU are just NEGATIVE. Here in Westchester County, NY-there is only one encrypted police agency. We currently have analog trunking for WCDES and that will be going digital in 2021 and so will "some" analog frequencies. This is from a top source on a local ham radio club. This gentleman is setting up the sites as I type. Rockland County across the Hudson River is all digital trunking now. We are behind their 700-800Mhz systems.
Do you really think that Uniden America Corporation would invest their money on the SDS-100/SDS-200 if the hobby is dying? Come on, get a grip "12dbsinad"!

 

[zerg901]

Lets talk about "necessity" versus "nice to have".

1. Public safety agencys need 2 way radios. Thats a "hard" necessity nowadays.
2. Some people want to hear whats going on around them for situational awareness. Lets call that a soft necessity.
3. Some people want to listen in on routine communications. Thats has been going in the USA for the last 100 years probably. (standby - BOLO going out for suicide by cop case in my area).

 

[jonwienke]

No Scanner's are not cheaper by far. Yes I can program them on my own . I am a ham radio operator and program much more than scanner's. Back in the day at the highest place around they would range from 40 to 100 dollar's. Far from the $1,100.00 Uniden offer's with everything programed like dmr, pro voice apco p 25 and so on. They charge you $75.00 extra for each decoding program.

Again, $880 is the maximum price with all the add-ons for Uniden's top-of-the-line unit, $950 if you pay $70 for a GPS kit, too. (you can find GPS pucks for about $32 on amazon right now. Amazon.com: GlobalSat BR-355S4 GPS Receiver (Black): Cell Phones & Accessories)

The first programmable non-crystal analog scanners cost far more than $40-100; that's today's prices for something like a BC125AT analog unit. Back in the day, they were more like $300; I used to sell them when I worked at Radio Shack in the late 80s.

According to US Inflation Calculator $700.00 today is $309.95 in 1988 dollars, so not much change in real cost, especially considering that the basic SDS200 does far more than top-end scanners did in 1988. You get far more value for your money now than you did then; mobile scanning on a cross-country trip was pretty much impossible then.

 

[trentbob]

Again, $880 is the maximum price with all the add-ons for Uniden's top-of-the-line unit, $950 if you pay $70 for a GPS kit, too. (you can find GPS pucks for about $32 on amazon right now. Amazon.com: GlobalSat BR-355S4 GPS Receiver (Black): Cell Phones & Accessories)

The first programmable non-crystal analog scanners cost far more than $40-100; that's today's prices for something like a BC125AT analog unit. Back in the day, they were more like $300; I used to sell them when I worked at Radio Shack in the late 80s.

According to US Inflation Calculator $700.00 today is $309.95 in 1988 dollars, so not much change in real cost, especially considering that the basic SDS200 does far more than top-end scanners did in 1988. You get far more value for your money now than you did then; mobile scanning on a cross-country trip was pretty much impossible then.

In 1974 I bought an Electra Bearcat 101 programmable scanner. 16 channel that you used a code book and lifted the tabs in the right sequence for a frequency. It was $399.99 at Lafayette Electronics. In today's money that would be about $1,900 and it was worth every penny.

It was AC only so I had the converter on the floor behind the driver's seat and I would just reach around and toggle the switch.

I bought a second one for the house.

That was good research and development.

Uniden bought out Electra and took over the BC 210xlt.

 

[SteveSimpkin]

Again, $880 is the maximum price with all the add-ons for Uniden's top-of-the-line unit, $950 if you pay $70 for a GPS kit, too. (you can find GPS pucks for about $32 on amazon right now. Amazon.com: GlobalSat BR-355S4 GPS Receiver (Black): Cell Phones & Accessories)

The first programmable non-crystal analog scanners cost far more than $40-100; that's today's prices for something like a BC125AT analog unit. Back in the day, they were more like $300; I used to sell them when I worked at Radio Shack in the late 80s.

According to US Inflation Calculator $700.00 today is $309.95 in 1988 dollars, so not much change in real cost, especially considering that the basic SDS200 does far more than top-end scanners did in 1988. You get far more value for your money now than you did then; mobile scanning on a cross-country trip was pretty much impossible then.

In 1988 I paid about $420 for my Radio Shack Pro-2004 scanner. That's equivalent to around $900 today. I loved that scanner but it only had 300 channels, was analog only, had a numeric frequency-only display and was programmable only by hand. Pretty sad by today's standards. Makes the SDS200 seem like a bargain.

1988 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 94 of 184

1988 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 94 of 184

www.radioshackcatalogs.com

$1,500 for a cell phone that could only make phone calls! That's $3,250 in today's dollars. I'll never complain about iPhone prices again.

1988 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 2 of 184

1988 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 2 of 184

www.radioshackcatalogs.com

Don't get me started on what I spent on computers back in the day. The good old days were not always cheap.

 

[buddrousa]

I think I gave more than that for my late 1970's Regency Touch.

1979 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 147 of 176

1979 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 147 of 176

www.radioshackcatalogs.com

 

[mkt853]

After I am long gone...

Here in CT only about 5 of 169 towns are Encrypted. Nothing that affects my listening.

Hartford County, Connecticut (CT) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Hartford County, Connecticut (CT)

www.radioreference.com

So all of the "Sky is Falling" talk is a bunch of hot air.

More than five municipalities are encrypted. I mean just go take a look at Fairfield County, for example. Not gonna hear much in the way of PD comms in the most densely populated part of the state. As towns replace/upgrade systems, there is an undeniable trend towards more encryption. Watch what happens with the new statewide system. It's all fun and games now, but that thing is going to be dark in five years. Some of the channels are already encrypted, some of the municipalities that are joining are going to be encrypted, and each troop is going to have a full time encrypted channel which they'll use for sensitive comms, but one day will "forget" to switch back. Americans at some point simply decided that blue lives matter (used metaphorically here don't take it personally) more than their ability to monitor their own government.

 

[doctordialtone]

I mean just go take a look at Fairfield County,

I don't live in Fairfield County, so it doesn't affect me. All I am concerned about is TODAY.

I can hear everything I want to hear. You are welcome to your "Sky is Falling" view.

 

[drbeede]

I don't see scanners dying off any time soon, in my neck of the woods most of the public safety agencies still use analog communications and can be heard using any normal run of the mill scanner, I myself have a Uniden Beartracker 800 BCT7 which I use to listen to all the analog stuff plus any of the law enforcement agencies which have encryption hardly ever use it so most of the talk is wide open, given the nature of how things are here I believe folks in my area will be scanning the airwaves for may years to come.

 

[mkt853]

I don't live in Fairfield County, so it doesn't affect me. All I am concerned about is TODAY.

I can hear everything I want to hear. You are welcome to your "Sky is Falling" view.

That's fine, but your statement that "Here in CT only about 5 of 169 towns are Encrypted" is not accurate.

 

[ten13]

Do you really think that Uniden America Corporation would invest their money on the SDS-100/SDS-200 if the hobby is dying?

Who was it who said, "There's a sucker born every minute...."?

They didn't develop those radios overnight. Probably in the development stage five or so years ago, before the changes before us were becoming mainstream.

With that said, let's see what kind of a new case Uniden puts the 200 in next year and sells it as the "latest" scanner with "new" bells and "improved" whistles (with an appropriate markup).