To Listen to OKC's New System

[robynsjw]

OK, I've read some of the older posts about OKC's new EDACS Provoice and analog system. They say nothing will hear EDACS. Is this still valid?

My BC780 won't even hear the control channel "noise" data (over the speaker, but I can hook a slicer up to it next month ). So even if they go EDACS analog I won't be able to hear them.

I've found what looks like a good deal on a BC250D, APCO P-25 Capable. Includes a free digital card. All for only $349.95
http://www.premiere-electronics.net/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=A034BC250D

Will this do me any good at all? Any rumors about a card to plug in for EDACS? Or should I wait, because it will probably take a whole new radio, or a non-handheld at least? Or maybe a laptop hooked up to a scanner to hear anything...

Thanks in advance!

 

[mam1081]

You should be able to trunk the EDACS system - however, you will be unable to listen to the ProVoice traffic on the system. If they are anything like San Antonio did, they will leave some things (Streets, Animal Control) analog and everything else digital.

Program all of the frequencies for one site into your 780 - make sure the "E" shows up on the display for EDACS trunking. You should set the scanner to follow an "EDACS Wide" system. This should work. You probably won't hear too much - only testing at this time. I know last week they were testing digital, which the 780 (or any scanner now) will ignore and just act like nothing is happening. You can confirm the digital by listening to the system in conventional mode (turn off the "Trunk" option), and lock out the control channel. If you hear data - that's the provoice, and that means the end to listening to OKC (at least the digital stuff) w/ our scanners. Another option they may turn on is "ESK". This option slightly scrambles the control channel so that even the analog talk groups are not trunkable (the scanner does not "decrypt" the easy encryption scheme of ESK - but there has been an etrunk version that will decode it).

The 250D, 296D, 796D or Pro-96 will not interpret Provoice, FYI. Only way to do it now is buy a GE radio.

Happy listening (while we still can)!