The first PSN simulcast site’s are up and operating in Sydney Australia and what does it mean for me with a 536HP.

[Ubbe]

Couldn't they have upgraded their system without using full time encryption? For a while I've been saying if they're in a certain situation where they think it might be needed then it's okay, but otherwise their channels should stay open.

In Tetra, and most other radio systems, its too easy to clone a radios serial number and use its user ID and get transmit access. Using encryption you'll need the key to even be let into the system.

/Ubbe

 

[lolbananalol2]

Sorry didn't mean to mess that up.

 

[lolbananalol2]

Here's the 'other thing though', ever heard of the saying prevention is better than the cure?
Preventing the ability to do these things is being proactive and called risk mitigation.

It either can either lessen the impact if someone does gain access or the prevent the ability to have your system compromised in this first place thus removing the potential of having that 'one case' where the unthinkable might happen and someone dies because some goose couldn't help themselves and had to transmit and impede the system in a negative manner and those that needed it couldn't use the system.

Yes, they could've upgraded and secured the ability to access the system without encryption, but they may feel the amount of information being heard (and at times rebroadcast) or passed on via unofficial platforms was also another problem they wanted to remove. It's a shame, but it is what it is.

Apparently even the next Government user that is due to migrate to our MMR / RMR (finally!) in Victoria is going encrypted. They've been approved for access via the relevant entities & agencies that govern the system and have been radio shopping. Just have to wait for the migration to begin.

Also a side note, it's been over 20 years since the MMR was born, and from memory it was around 2006/7ish that the final UHF Legacy Analogue Network to P25 MMR patches were removed for Victoria Police meaning you could no longer listen. Incredible to think it would take their Victoria Police rural counterparts another 14 or so years to enjoy the same privacy and network security via the RMR.

Edit: Just in regards to the simulcast issues. Oddly enough I've never had an issue with them down here and some parts of the system on the MMR have been simulcast from multiple sites since the MMR was created, although admittedly it's usually only been 2-3 sites, with one going to 4 in recent years.

Surely they could either set the radios to be able to toggle the encryption on and off or have a designated channel for incidents that might need it. Either way, the public should be able to listen to every day comms.

 

[lolbananalol2]

Your spot on there.
1 of the reasons they expedited police encryption over a decade ago in NSW is because Middle Eastern thugs-drug dealers were transmitting on the police analog frequencies mainly on the Bankstown area frequency and calling out certain police officers and causing havoc. Not long after this Lakemba police station was riddled in bullets. I witnessed the transmissions back. Most of the Middle Eastern perpetrators are now doing life in jail or deceased. Google Danny Karam boys or DK Boys.

Look at this page it has information on the police station shootings and more.

Michael Kanaan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I can understand Ambulance going encrypted because in certain areas Ambulance officers are being attacked and need police assistance when attending certain jobs were 2 gangs have had a brawl.

And as you mentioned the advancement of first responders radio hardware from analog simplex, analog semi duplex or repeaters, voting, P25, P25 encryption, P25II TRS, P25II TRS encryption and now P25II TRS encryption simulcast.

The encryption still shouldn't be a pething. Most places aren't like that every day.rmanent

 

[Robbie1984]

Here in South Australia when the SAGRN was introduced a big stink was made by farmers, Adelaide hills residents, country towns, schools, councils and education department around CFS, SES ,MFS , Forestry and National Parks going fully encrypted fortunately total encryption never went ahead due to several reasons

1. A big part of South Australia is particularly vulnerable to major bushfires with several communities having been impacted by past major fires

2. A huge percentage of CFS and SES volunteers have scanners as their main source of gathering information before the pager goes off

3. Farmers, Private operators and logging companies rely on scanner traffic to know what is happening so they can attend to help with fires

4. A few schools rely on radio traffic updates via scanner stream or base setup to determine if its safe to let buses run or to keep children at school until its safe but also make justifiable calls to close the school on a catastrophic fire danger day

SA Ambulance was fully monitorable until 2014 they went to full encryption like SA Police mainly due to the nature of incidents both attend only time you can hear either agency is when their radios are on a multi agency talk-group talking to CFS or SES

 

[lolbananalol2]

Here in South Australia when the SAGRN was introduced a big stink was made by farmers, Adelaide hills residents, country towns, schools, councils and education department around CFS, SES ,MFS , Forestry and National Parks going fully encrypted fortunately total encryption never went ahead due to several reasons

1. A big part of South Australia is particularly vulnerable to major bushfires with several communities having been impacted by past major fires

2. A huge percentage of CFS and SES volunteers have scanners as their main source of gathering information before the pager goes off

3. Farmers, Private operators and logging companies rely on scanner traffic to know what is happening so they can attend to help with fires

4. A few schools rely on radio traffic updates via scanner stream or base setup to determine if its safe to let buses run or to keep children at school until its safe but also make justifiable calls to close the school on a catastrophic fire danger day

SA Ambulance was fully monitorable until 2014 they went to full encryption like SA Police mainly due to the nature of incidents both attend only time you can hear either agency is when their radios are on a multi agency talk-group talking to CFS or SES

Do you think we could try and put up a similar fight here to try and stop some of the services going fully encrypted?

 

[Robbie1984]

Do you think we could try and put up a similar fight here to try and stop some of the services going fully encrypted?

If you can get a reasonable sized gathering of people and a comprehensive submission outlining negatives and potential repercussions of the PSN going fully encrypted throw in a petition that is signed by all facets of the community from RFS/SES volunteers, farmers who have farm fire units, schools and local businesses then it should give some sort of push back making NSW state govt or whoever is in charge of the NSW PSN rethink their approach
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When it comes to the submission make sure to include the following

*Past significant disasters (black summer 2019/2020)

* How being able to monitor RFS,NSW Fire and Rescue, SES helped with early planning or coordination of say evacuations or logistics associated with setting up staging areas/camping for evacuees

* Potential repercussions of a fully encrypted network

* Possible solutions to allow community group, businesses and individuals to monitor their selected services
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When i did my comprehensive submission into the 2019/2020 South Australia bushfire season one of my recommendations being installation of UHF CB radios in all MFS and CFS vehicles was noted the committee sighted that it would be more cost effective to retrofit MFS appliances with CFS VHF fire ground radios of which has happened although the initial recommendation has since manifested as a large number of CFS appliances now have either GME or Uniden UHF radios installed

 

[lolbananalol2]

If you can get a reasonable sized gathering of people and a comprehensive submission outlining negatives and potential repercussions of the PSN going fully encrypted throw in a petition that is signed by all facets of the community from RFS/SES volunteers, farmers who have farm fire units, schools and local businesses then it should give some sort of push back making NSW state govt or whoever is in charge of the NSW PSN rethink their approach
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When it comes to the submission make sure to include the following

*Past significant disasters (black summer 2019/2020)

* How being able to monitor RFS,NSW Fire and Rescue, SES helped with early planning or coordination of say evacuations or logistics associated with setting up staging areas/camping for evacuees

* Potential repercussions of a fully encrypted network

* Possible solutions to allow community group, businesses and individuals to monitor their selected services
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When i did my comprehensive submission into the 2019/2020 South Australia bushfire season one of my recommendations being installation of UHF CB radios in all MFS and CFS vehicles was noted the committee sighted that it would be more cost effective to retrofit MFS appliances with CFS VHF fire ground radios of which has happened although the initial recommendation has since manifested as a large number of CFS appliances now have either GME or Uniden UHF radios installed

Thanks for that. I don't know too many people that I could get together plus I'm not very good at writing out long submissions like that but I can try and give it a go.

 

[BinaryMode]

The pager type radios by Unication are reportedly suppose to work great for simulcast.


And you guys aren't alone in the wonderful world of encryption... When you go digital it's very easy to use that option. Thus governments WILL do so.

 

[VK3YMML]

The pager type radios by Unication are reportedly suppose to work great for simulcast.

I had a Unification G3 for sometime, they are quite hard to program and the software is quite complicated to say the least.
Radio systems are going encrypted however pager systems that support emergency services remain in the clear which probably
have more details then you hear on the radio to be honest.

 

[VicradioZone]

I had a Unification G3 for sometime, they are quite hard to program and the software is quite complicated to say the least.
Radio systems are going encrypted however pager systems that support emergency services remain in the clear which probably
have more details then you hear on the radio to be honest.

Just in regards to the comments regarding Pager Messages. Whilst somewhat true , certainly for rural based assets at present, a substantial amount of pager traffic for Ambulance Victoria Metropolitan located assets have moved to a different platform, which pager monitors can not intercept. This change happened a few years ago now. State Wide assets based in Metro areas (such as HEMS as an example and Senior roles like Regional Commanders etc) can still be monitored but metropolitan based MICA / AGP's and the like can not.

If you have a trawl through most pager sites nowadays you will see much less in the way of Metropolitan jobs whereas a few years back you'd see every single metro job pretty much for nearly every metro asset. Metro based NEPT's and such are still on the usual system so you will see them, but 'hot jobs' and critical stuff I believe have moved off the legacy pager system.

Some text from Ambulance Victoria back in 2021 regarding the project and change.

A key part of being a modern ambulance service is investing in technology to improve our efficiency and effectiveness - to offer safer care through informed treatment and a better experience for our patients and people. We are committed to digitally connecting our vehicles and equipping paramedics with technology that provides real-time data, tools, and support for best care at the scene and easy exchange of patient information between external health providers. As part of this progression, we will soon commence transitioning our operational messaging platform from pagers to SMS via service (Zoll) mobile phones for the Metro region.

The SMS alerts will replace the current paging service but will continue to deliver operational messages regarding response to cases, vehicle moves and other ad-hoc information (such as information relating to additional safety measures).This solution is currently functioning successfully at Sorrento and Sunbury branches, and is in use by a number of our operational managers.

A transition pilot program will commence in June 2021 at our Footscray, Central, and Yarra Junction branches, with a staged rollout to all other branches occurring between July and October 2021. The entire transition will conclude in October 2021. As part of the pilot and subsequent rollout, service (Zoll) phones will be permanently assigned to a METRO branch/call-sign. The service phone will be used in the same manner as the current pager.

Pre-shift, you will need to collect the service (Zoll) mobile phone that matches the call-sign for your shift. The phone will be included in your 'grab and go pack.' Mid-shift, you will need to carry the phone on you unless you are in the ambulance vehicle, where it needs to be mounted in the in-vehicle cradle for charging. Post-shift, you will need to return the phone to branch and charge it in the charging bay so that it is ready for the next shift. In the case of 24hr vehicles, the phone is to be handed over to the oncoming crew. Other All paramedic unions will be engaged with throughout this process, and we will keep them informed as we progress through the pilot and roll out. All metro vehicles will be fitted-out to include an appropriate in-vehicle mounted service (Zoll) phone charger.

The messaging functionality will be activated on all service phones to allow Metro crews to receive messages. It is not to be used as a communication device between teams for SMS messaging. Instead, the phone needs to be made available to receive operational messages without interruption. A Frequently Asked Questions document is available to help answer question any questions you may have. The Emergency Management Operational Communications (EMOC) program continues to be implemented in the rural regions to provide a more resilient, robust, fit for purpose system that enables rapid response to incidents, and promotes a safer working environment for operational staff. In January 2021, the Supplementary Alerting Service (SAS) was rolled out to all operational employees. Planning is also underway to expand the digital radio network to all rural regions to improve the quality and reliability of voice communication and enable interoperability between AV's metro and rural radio networks.

 

[lolbananalol2]

Just in regards to the comments regarding Pager Messages. Whilst somewhat true , certainly for rural based assets at present, a substantial amount of pager traffic for Ambulance Victoria Metropolitan located assets have moved to a different platform, which pager monitors can not intercept. This change happened a few years ago now. State Wide assets based in Metro areas (such as HEMS as an example and Senior roles like Regional Commanders etc) can still be monitored but metropolitan based MICA / AGP's and the like can not.

If you have a trawl through most pager sites nowadays you will see much less in the way of Metropolitan jobs whereas a few years back you'd see every single metro job pretty much for nearly every metro asset. Metro based NEPT's and such are still on the usual system so you will see them, but 'hot jobs' and critical stuff I believe have moved off the legacy pager system.

Some text from Ambulance Victoria back in 2021 regarding the project and change.

So basically they don't trust anyone either. When they expand the radio network, will that be encrypted as well?

 

[VicradioZone]

The current plan for AV Rural Comms is to be encrypted when they migrate, eventually, they're hanging on to SMR RavNet (based on MPT1327) for dear life at this stage with extended timelines and agreements.