White County - DMR Radio or Analog Scanner?

[rescue161]

My Dad moved to to White County, GA and I was going to get him a scanner, but noted that all of the police/sheriff are encrypted. I thought about getting him either a VHF pager or a cheap analog scanner to hear the fire department, but wasn't sure if he would only hear the dispatcher using that method. I would imagine if I sent him one of my DMR radios, he could monitor all traffic on the FD/EMS side, RX only of course. What are everyone's thoughts?

 

[DanRollman]

My Dad moved to to White County, GA and I was going to get him a scanner, but noted that all of the police/sheriff are encrypted. I thought about getting him either a VHF pager or a cheap analog scanner to hear the fire department, but wasn't sure if he would only hear the dispatcher using that method. I would imagine if I sent him one of my DMR radios, he could monitor all traffic on the FD/EMS side, RX only of course. What are everyone's thoughts?

Helen PD, Cleveland PD and White Sheriff are indeed encrypted on their DMR channels but fire/ems is not currently using encryption on their DMR channels. I was up there last weekend and confirmed this.

The analog relay of the DMR fire channel is still active but sounds terrible in much of the county. The DMR fire channel itself, on the other hand, sounds great. So I recommend you get your dad a DMR radio rather than an analog scanner if his main target is White County fire/ems. Last weekend I used my DMR-capable SDS100 and it worked well, but back when I owned a mountain house in White County I had a CS751 DMR radio and it worked amazing.

Of course, he'd need a SDS100 or similar if he wants to also scan Habersham's DMR trunking system (and their future P25 trunking system) or Hall County Fire on their P25 trunking system. He'd also need a scanner with NXDN if he has any interest in monitoring Towns or Union counties. A SDS100 with appropriate upgrades could do all of this of course, but I leave to you whether you love your dad enough to spend that kind of money on him.

 

[rescue161]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Take care and have a great weekend!

 

[rescue161]

Well I programmed up a cheap radio for RX only and he is happy. He asked me about specific codes, but I have no idea what they could be as they are typically regional. I did find a list of 10-codes for Georgia, but does anyone have a list of codes? He mentioned Code-4, which I assumed just meant that everything was okay. Thanks in advance.