Batboard

Very strange situation....We had a fire about three months ago and my radio
collection was about five feet from the point of source. Fortunately most
of the stuff just needed to be cleaned and is good to go. But the insurance
company says it still needs to be replaced. Quite a bit of it was just Saber's
with issues but they still say they need to be replaced. There was a bunch
of mobiles too. All Moto units. The local dealer valued my entire collection
at about $17k. NOW.... What do I buy? I have a few of those Puxing radios
off ebay and really like them. They do just about everything I need. I fortunately
had my favorite Saber unit with me at the time so that one is safe. I really
like having an LCD to see what alpha channel I'm on. DTMF is used occasionally
for auto-patch. I have HAM and GMRS licenses and use both fairly equally.
Our local police in Milwaukee, WI use analog on repeaters and I like to listen
to them. Future plans, if ever they get it to work, is going Open Sky locking
me out totally. County is on 800 trunking with moto equip. They're going to
P25 Moto encrypted soon. I wish I could monitor them but looks to be a lost
cause. Scanners won't help me either. This TRBO thingy looks possible
but maybe not... I don't like the look of a full keyboard, resembles a scanner
but for functionallity seems the better way to go. I'm thinking the EX600xls
and the ht1550xls are the ones I should get... I can still listen to the city until
they switch. The band splits fit for police, HAM, and GMRS. Now hopefully
CPS will be the same for both.

A few general thoughts:

1. Many, but not all, agencies continue transmitting their dispatching on
the "old" dispatch channels after they move to a trunked system, so perhaps
you'll not be completely locked out. This applies usually to fire but not police.

2. You might want to investigate getting a couple of XTS3000 radios, one in
VHF and the other UHF. You can do a lot with them compared to the old
Sabers that you're so familiar with. The XTS5000 is even better, but the
prices of the 3000s have been really coming down recently.

3. In my area I manage to monitor local PD on UHF P25 trunked by just scanning
all eight channels with no trunking setup. It's primitive but seems to work. The
system is a dual 460/800 mHz one.

4. Are you sure your agencies will be going to P25 encrypted? It would be an
unusual move for them to encrypt everything. Supervisory channels, etc., yes,
but everything would be, as I said, unusual.

Regards,

"I talked to our gov't rep today about the county system. He said their Motorola trunking system is 15 channels of 800MHz of analog and 5 channels of 800MHz Digital. They eventually will go all Digital with encryption and APCO 25. I was told you would have to have authorization even for receive because the radio would have to be programmed to follow the conversation and requires the county setting up the IDs. It is recommended to get a good scanner for use now."

Kind of stinks.

Hi Tom! Thanks for the reply. My local moto dealer said this:

"I talked to our gov't rep today about the county system. He said their Motorola trunking system is 15 channels of 800MHz of analog and 5 channels of 800MHz Digital. They eventually will go all Digital with encryption and APCO 25. I was told you would have to have authorization even for receive because the radio would have to be programmed to follow the conversation and requires the county setting up the IDs. It is recommended to get a good scanner for use now."

This really stinks. Scanner is totally useless at that point. I did read the encryption article that's sticky on the front page too.

If some of it was unencrypted I could still listen but I need to get another radio since they're at 800. I really only
use UHF. I think I'm beating a dead horse on this. Our governments are out of control and need to be replaced.
All citizens should have the right to monitor all public service. They're working for us not the other way around.
I can see encrypting sensitive crimes but ONLY those. If there was a way to decrypt eventually I would break
the law and listen anyway, I just don't care anymore. There could be a way eventually but just no demand
to do it. So we sit in silence.

I don't know if this will start a flame war, but I suggest you contact your local government and DEMAND that normal not sensitive radio traffic be listenable. You are right, the public is entitled to listen to non-sensitive traffic even if the Police don't like it, thats called open government. If you get the runaround or don't like what you hear I sugest you then tell them you are going to run for governmment office in that municipallity to change it.