Batboard

just a quick question.

looking at buying a Optoelectronics Digital Scout.

Can anybody tell me if it will detect APCO25 transmissions where encryption is used. in particular DES-OFB/XL

Yep - it works.

I'm pretty sure that it will detect that there's a signal on the channel - however, it will not decode it, or tell you its encrypted, you'd have to discover that on your own.

-Alex

tracka wrote:just a quick question.

looking at buying a Optoelectronics Digital Scout.

Can anybody tell me if it will detect APCO25 transmissions where encryption is used. in particular DES-OFB/XL

The Digital Scout is not required to detect APCO25 Phase 1 transmissions. A regular Scout will detect these transmissions just fine. APCO25 Phase 1/2 is a standard FM constant-carrier transmission, even those with encryption.

The idea of the Digital Scout is to detect TDMA signals, such as some cell phones and APCO25 Phase 3 (IIRC).

Neither device will tell you that the signal is a P25 signal, nor if it's encrypted or not.

tvsjr wrote:

tracka wrote:just a quick question.

looking at buying a Optoelectronics Digital Scout.

Can anybody tell me if it will detect APCO25 transmissions where encryption is used. in particular DES-OFB/XL

The Digital Scout is not required to detect APCO25 Phase 1 transmissions. A regular Scout will detect these transmissions just fine. APCO25 Phase 1/2 is a standard FM constant-carrier transmission, even those with encryption.

The idea of the Digital Scout is to detect TDMA signals, such as some cell phones and APCO25 Phase 3 (IIRC).

Neither device will tell you that the signal is a P25 signal, nor if it's encrypted or not.

great, sounds good to me.

thanks for the info.

I personally have the digital scout from Opto. Yes it sure does pick up and display APCO25 signals as well as most other digital sources including keyfobs, X-10 (rf controller). sometimes Nextel

From my experience is the digital scout has slightly reduced sensitivity than the regular Scout40 in analog mode as well as digital mode. Even with the slightly reduced sensitivity, I still like my Digital Scout very much. It works as they describe on their website.

I've owned the Digital Scout since the Dayton Hamfest, and since then, I've left it turned on with wall wort plugged in. Since then, I've picked up many interesting frequencies - some known, others NOT

Digital APCO25 transmissions are picked up by the Digital scout approx the same distance as an analog signal on the same frequency.

I like the Digital Scout, but is a bit more advanced than the regular scout.