Weld County & possible ENC?

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Halfpint

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Late yesterday/Earlier this morning I caught a conversation between a couple of the Weld county SOs about them possibly going ENC. Now I can't be sure that they were talking about them going completely ENC as neither of the individuals came right out and said so because it was also mentioned that this was something that was going to take awhile for them to `install' said ENC on their radios. (IE, The impression that I got that they were talking about *their* radios and possibly not everyone's which kinda leaves me a tad bit more confused as if they were only some of the `lucky?' ones how would the communicate with the `unlucky' ones?)

I guess what we may have to hope for is that they are going to make it ENC for certain things and leave other things `in the clear'? Oh, well... Some days one is the windshield and the next day the bug?
 

dw2872

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Usually, once they have the encryption keys programmed into their radios then they can switch to specific channels and talk in encrypted mode.

Encryption is usually programmed by what channel they would switch to. They usually can't just switch on and off encryption on whatever radio they are on (except on some of the federal radios some agencies have).
 
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dw2872

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The way Westminster, Estes Park, and Ft Collins did it was they had two different channel settings programmed in ahead of time. On their radios the techs programmed all the channels into the Zone B switch settings in unencrypted mode and they stayed on those until it was time. They also had all those same channels programed into the Zone A switch setting but those were set to encrypted so they were ready when they decided to switch.

Hopefully Weld is not jumping on the Larimer County and Westy band wagon.
 

SCPD

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Usually, once they have the encryption keys programmed into their radios then they can switch to specific channels and talk in encrypted mode.

Encryption is usually programmed by what channel they would switch to. They usually can't just switch on and off encryption on whatever radio they are on (except on some of the federal radios some agencies have).

Sure they can. Program a switch on the radio to enc the transmission or not. On my Moto XTS2500, the A/B/C concentric switch can be programmed to turn on encrypted transmission or clear leaving the radio. Dispatch can be encrypted and as long as the keys are loaded in the radio, it will decode but the radio in the field could be transmitting in the clear. Certain talkgroups can be strapped so there is no choice, the enc is always on. Usually the the talkgroup needs to be flagged in the system as encryption capable.

There is a drug task talkgroup on the ARMER system that's supposed to be encrypted, but some users will be in the clear as they did not enable encryption and did not notice the 0/ (did my best) on the display. It's not noticed on receive as long as the keys are loaded, it decodes the received audio.
 

dw2872

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Exactly. Like I said, the same channel is programmed different ways on a different A/B/C zone setting. If the person is still on the wrong setting, he will be in the wrong encryption mode. I saw it happen on the recent Westy switchover. Dispatch had to have a radio set aside in un-encrypted mode to catch all the stragglers.

To the average user it seems like an "encrypt, don't encrypt" switch but it is actually the same exact channels loaded with encryption only on one of those switch settings.
 

PJH

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Incorrect, to a point.

On modern Motorola radios, you can assign a physical button or switch, or a softkey for user selectable secure operation. On display radios, if multikey option is present in the radio and multiple keys are loaded into the radio, then the user can select whatever key they want.

In addition the radio can be programmed to be "slaved" (no user intervention, preprogrammed) to the clear mode or an encypted mode on a per channel basis, depending on how the agency wants it the radios set up.

The ABC switch has limited functiality on a radio wide basis depending on what functions are programmed. Some cancel others out or are incompatible with each other and the software will not allow it.

The most common use for the ABC switch is for scan, zone select (usually first three zones only), keypad lock.

Secure capable radios typically have a concentric swtich around the channel selector for secure/non-secure operation.

Most radios with the same key loaded in will decrypt the secure converstation, unless programmed differently - and on digital systems unless your looking at a specific light or icon, you will not notice the difference in operation.

We setup a county FD to use it as a zone 1/zone 2 select feature for fireground/dispatch channel select. For instance, if the station was in "Batt 2" channel for dispatch, the radio would remain on Channel 2 (Batt 2) and then on scene they would go to Batt 2 FG known as 2C. Flip the switch right to C (B was unprogrammed) and it put you on the fireground channel without messing with the channel selector. Worked really well.

One of the many things you can do with programming:
 

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