XPR7550e and Enhanced Privacy

[Kmiller238]

I've just started to work with this. I have two radios, each with the same key, and privacy selected on a digital channel. What's puzzling me is that if both radios have privacy enabled, voice is clearly understandable, as expected.

But if I disable privacy on one, shouldn't I hear something garbled, if anything at all? That isn't what's happening. The receiving radio shows a flashing key icon, which indicates an incoming encrypted transmission, correct? On that receiving radio, I'm still hearing perfectly understandable voice.

Am I missing something here in how this is supposed to work?

 

[16b]

If you are talking about disabling privacy through the radio menu or keypad button, then all that controls is whether the radio transmits secure or clear. It will still receive encrypted transmissions if they have the correct key and key ID.

 

[Kmiller238]

That clears it up, thank you.

Just to confirm - the receiving radio will decrypt so long as the key and ID match, regardless of whether privacy is on or off. Do I have that correct?

 

[n3obl]

That clears it up, thank you.

Just to confirm - the receiving radio will decrypt so long as the key and ID match, regardless of whether privacy is on or off. Do I have that correct?

yes. if the key and id is present in the radio it will decode period whether its turned on or off.

 

[16b]

There is a (per channel) option called "ignore RX clear voice," which (according to the help; I've never used it) will mute an unencrypted call if privacy mode is enabled. But there isn't any way to mute encrypted calls (with correct key ID and value) when privacy is disabled.

Largely because of this behavior, it's generally considered bad practice to give the radio users the ability to enable/disable encryption separately from a menu or keypad button because someone will inevitably turn off encryption by mistake, and nobody on the system notices because everyone can still hear the unencrypted user and the unencrypted user can still hear everyone else. Non-radio people aren't going to notice or understand the slightly different PTT "chirp" or the different icon on the screen. Recommended practice would be to disable the Privacy menu item, and set up different channels for encrypted and unencrypted use. Ideally those channels would be different frequencies, but in a pinch you could use different code codes and/or talkgroups to achieve the behavior on the same frequency.