I invested a lot of money on a Uniden digital p25 scanner to keep up with my local first responders. It was great for a few years up until the point the most interesting ones were encrypted. Such a disappointment.
@@douro20 military grade encryption is not a thing it’s a marketing ploy military grade encryption is done by secure algorithms that the military itself designs for instance I will purchase the hand sacks from a supplier such as but they will put the program on them with their own encryptions standard you should always have that level of encryption when there’s major accident. Also is there something like a terrorist attack? Someone could plan to also attack the first responders, so if the radio is encrypted, it may be harder to identify certain things
A lot of US Agencies are going the encrypted route. NYPD recently went encrypted to the outrage of us who listen. That and P25 Phase II have made listening difficult at best.
@@quantisedspace7047 It's always been common knowledge that US emergency frequencies were on the open analogue bands. You can get police scanner apps for your phone and listen anywhere in the world. Journalists have used police scanners to gain advantages for decades. I do find it strange that this has been common practice for so long when even the UK has had encrypted emergency service communication systems in place for about 20 years, as the video said.
@@quantisedspace7047 it’s the United States. The cost of keeping up an expensive old system is always cheaper than a costa effective modern solution because the people making decisions are paid millions a year. They don’t have any perception on real cost.
Also, much traffic has moved to DATA dispatch, status, GPS and so on. Non of that Adam 12 stuff. Cell phones have also killed of almost all of the business radio systems and even pagers. Almost any old scanner will receive whats left.
In Australia (Sydney) about 15 years ago went to that, tested then shortly after full encryption Apco P-25 same. Scanner now junk. All the things they say you can listen to are boring and not interesting at all.
There are some serious users out there who are both Hams and RF technicians who invest in the latest technology Such as Harris and Motorola radios which are quite capable of all modes of modern encryption and formats such as P25 ( phase I &II ), Nexdn, DMR. THESE ARE ABOVE THE PRICE REALM OF MOST LISTENERS ! As for encryption, the good thing is if you were ever to get a moment with any of these modern radios, you cannot read the encryption keys from them. Some radios are even capable of locking the RADIO READ function in programming and will only allow one to do alignments with set frequencies in the software package. Some radios are capable of OverThe Air Reprogramming for both frequencies, transmit lockout, and encryption keys. Wen properly enabled it allows other departments easy access to send data to departments of other municipalities for mutual aid.
@@normanhill535it can't do anything for encryption. The majority of agencies in my area switched to P25 phase ll back in October, and they are mostly encrypted now. It sucks
I bought two SDS200 scanners: One for home, one for the mobile. In a year, encryption had rendered both of them little more than expensive bricks. Such a shame!
I almost bought one. Nice I didn't. Thanks for the tip. But I still have a Bcd536hp and a hand held Bcd326hp and they work great and I really enjoy listening to those. Keep the Hand held one in my truck.
@@JustLearning Like what. I don't need to spend time to look for messages not knowing who they are. Before you just turn it on and listen. With my digital one there were initial issues but I sorted them out. Once encryption turned on nothing. Never have purchased it if I had known about that.If you want to do what you say go ahead. A lot of the services today even road assistance use MDT tech used by the others.
Considering encryption capable radios are no longer cost prohibitive I'm surprised there any companies or departments still left on analog or open digital at all. Even many UHF CB radios here in Au are encryption capable.
Once upon a time (at least in the US) transparency was valued by emergency services. The thinking was that it's in the public interest to have the ability to monitor what's going on, and any journalist worth their salt would have carried a scanner. Sadly it seems those values are long forgotten.
I like DJs videos quite a bit, but his openness with showing the audited that he is listening in them is annoying. I also told him he can't legally listen unless they are on PMR446 etc
That’s not that fortunate the likelihood is a police department aren’t even funded enough to use the Mum system so a rack of funding does not speak through their effectiveness
yeah ems and fire around here are mostly volunteer that use their personal electronics to monitor need for assistance....they're not going to spending money on encryption any time this decade and probably not the next and maybe not until it's an governmental oversight requirement....
I don't think sharing frequencies is the problem. But I do feel the the steaming of emergency services has scared the cops into going encrypted. Look at it this way, most bad guys don't run around with a big scanner radio. But most of them carry a smartphone and could listen to the police using streaming services.
As far as I could tell there was a delay in those but maybe not enough to bother the crooks. They always made a stink claiming all the crooks were scanning police but the actual instances were few and far between at best.
@@TomSherwood-z5lrunning apps side by side with my scanner I never saw delays more than 5-10 seconds. The apps supposedly are forbidden to broadcast anything but patrol channels as well, but I regularly heard strike force and jcat tac comms on them.
I'm not so sure sharing of frequencies and the companies they are associated with, is the issue. After all, that stuff is basically public information, at least in countries like Australia where you can search for frequency allocations, openly, on the Government's own website. Digital and encrypted radio is just the next step in technology upgrades, just like GSM was to Analog cellular telephony. Better audio, longer usable range, support for data, better radios, more efficient use of the RF spectrum etc... are all reasons why a company would upgrade, not simply because the public are listening in. It's no different to any other technology that gets superseded and replaced with better options. Running repeater sites, for those organisations like Police, can also be very expensive, so why not do more with less?
Asking people not to be jerks on the internet is likely to be as effective as asking people not to look at pr0n or cute cat pictures. But you're not wrong. Where I live the cops went digital and possibly encrypted, and the fire department too, so my 125 is no longer usable for them, but I still have air, rail, and marine traffic at least. Public safety, in my opinion, shouldn't be encrypted. Some police activity needs to be, but the bulk of it, stuff like accidents and so on, should be in the clear for the public. One of my favorite photographers is a guy known as Weegee who, back in the 1940s, made his living by scanning New York City police radio in his car at night so he could drive to the crime scenes and get the photos. He was friendly with the police, and they never had a problem with him. I guess that sort of thing is old fashioned now.
While I find the tech behind digital radio impressive, it’s also quite boring once you get past the initial awe. Analog radio just has the nostalgia factor and experimenting with how far you can push the limits of older tech is far more interesting. I liken it to buying a modern car with higher horsepower and better fuel economy but everything is computerized and you can’t do much with, versus an old carbureted jalopy that you spend the weekends on trying to squeeze every bit of power you can out of it because you love the smell of petrol and getting your hands greasy.
I’m assuming that here in Canada, law enforcement frequencies are not encrypted as there’s an issue with nefarious tow truck companies that show up at scenes of vehicle collisions and try to tow away and steal cars. To get your car back you basically pay a ransom.
Atlantic Canada has switched to the new MSPRN system. Its now fully digitally encrypted P25 and moved to the UHF band. The new system encompasses EMS, RCMP, Partial Coast Guard, municipal policing and should soon include urban fire services. My assortment of scanners are becoming useless, but I won't complain, seeing the major uptick in successful drug interdictions and other criminal activity being caught and dealt with. I'm not unhappy with the new system, but I sure miss the in the clear activity. I have other radio hobbies to attend to anyway.
@ Here in Alberta the nefarious tow truck drivers issue has gotten so bad that the police/rcmp has to make public service announcements to make sure people don’t get taken advantage of in vulnerable situations.
Here is Southwest Ontario, the Ontario Provincial Police and EMS have switched to a new encrypted system. That same system is rolling out through the entire province. For the moment we can still listen to fire dispatch in analog and digital modes. The tow truck drivers most certainly have been one of the big reasons for the encryption. (When 2 tow trucks are on scene before ambulance or fire, there's an issue..)
It's not *only* encryption. I used to have a wall full of scanners. Now with wideband IBW SDRs I listen to 1000x more than all my scanners could put together. As you mentioned, SDRs plus the right software can do everything scanners once did plus so much more. The only reason why *all* public service communications is not encrypted is because Motorola charges a ridiculous amount of money per encryption key, per radio. Eventually, there will be no need for encryption as it's built into the cellular protocols. Most public service networks will switch over from P25 (TETRA in Europe) to POC LTE in the next 3-5 years. That will be the final nail in the coffin for scanner/SDR enthusiasts.
Thanks for all your hard work keeping us updated with everything radio over the years, Lewis. A great job, well done. This has nothing to do with today's topic, but I have to pass on something funny from around 35 years ago. I was a satellite TV installation engineer right from the launch of the Astra 1A satellite, way back in 1989. I worked for a group of TV stores in the Wakefield/Leeds area of Yorkshire, UK. Being a licensed radio ham I prided myself with answering all the customer's questions and fully explaining how to operate the system and receive the new SKY TV channels. I had a willing assistant we'll just call Andy, who soon learned how to install the dish, line it up with the satellite. I was impressed with Andy, and over the months he learned to do pretty much every aspect of the job. Then one day, as he was showing a customer how to work their new system, I overheard the customer as him "And where is this Astra satellite, exactly?" Andy knowledgeably replied "Oh, it's on the top of a really long pole, up in the Yorkshire Dales." Have a fantastic Christmas Lewis, and also to each and every viewer, wherever you are in the World.
Always remember my good friend who had a scanner a good few years ago who tuned into baby monitors by accident and heard couples in moments of passion on the airwaves - that was not encrypted at all.
Back in the days of analogue TV I had a fairly reasonable satellite TVRO system with a Season interface for decoding Sky and Maccess for decoding the Scandinavian TV package on the Thor birds as well as Astra at 19.2 degrees. Both encryption systems were fundamentally flawed which allowed people to download keys and decode the channels. Much fun was had. Then everything went digital and that was the end of that. I think more users are going digital and encryption doesn't cost anything to use - it's just an option. I guess it also comes down to whether it is allowed by Ofcom to use encryption on specific channels such as PMR - if they aren't then report them to Ofcom as a potential security threat?
Around where I live, all the police departments in the area now use digital trunking. Some have gone encrypted, but some have not, even though they could. I can still listen to them with an expensive Bearcat. And the police know it, because they sometimes say, "Give me a call on my phone", even when talking to the dispatcher. (Not saved on the tape?) Sometimes the most sensitive talk involving different police agencies is all unencrypted. They figure, probably correctly, that not too many criminals have expensive digital trunking scanners. And they can tell if the folks they are watching obviously know too much. And they have informants who would notice radio scanners. There is a theory that they are trying to hide the true extent of crime from the public, so one agency only blocks the incoming transmissions from the police in the field. Only SWAT rolls, national security stuff, and drug investigations need to be encrypted.
Have there been any judgements from the Information Commissioner [the data protection regulator in the UK] regarding the use of unencrypted radio communication? A website's traffic which could be easily intercepted would be considered a significant data breach. It seems a bit remiss that analogue PMR446, which can be received by 'toy' radios, is often used by schools, entertainment venues, shops, security etc.
It depends on a lot of things because in some cases of traffic being accepted is not the end of day to preach if it’s something like Google and a data is a noised that would be considered fine as most people use it and it’s very hard to track individual things down when it’s been anonymized Schools need to use those radios and quite simply it’s because it’s hard to obtain the correct licensing unless you’re a registered company the encryption standards require certain additional levels of licensing and it’s quite hard to get them. I managed to get some licensing as an individual but it consisted of six months of negotiation.
I've been listening to scanners since I was 12 years old, 36 years ago. My local city just went encrypted and my scanner is silent other than a few city departments. It sucks
@@PsRohrbaugh Some guys in the past would bug the Base Station ambience audio (comms were on speaker), sometimes with a buged power supply. I find that super wicked, but it worked.
With new technology still being developed, they can now lock and deactivate lost radios to prevent them from being used or hacked. Over the air update only works with radios preprogrammed with the departments. New security features require the radio programmer to have the system key to access the trunked system with the radio.
Agree with the comments about 'Auditors' in addition I reckon their activities will cause further regulation in the use of Drones. Fantastic drone footage of the masts BTW 😎
Yes, where we lived until a month ago for over 4 years, Nashua, NH, and nearby city of Manchester, NH are encrypted and not available. I could hear some other Police, but mostly EMS, Fire, and DOT is heard. I have the AOR DV10 receiver portable from Japan, directly, and a Beartracker 885, from Uniden, which scans from a US Canada updatable SD card, AM CB and Weather frequencies. It is not really a programmable scanner, and I hear less back here in Perkskill, NY, north of NYC now.😊
I am an avid watcher of your channel. Do not get me wrong, I always thought "scanning" was or should be a skill of the operator. Just like the avid SW listeners of the "number stations" of which I find very interesting. But back to the scanning, I was a CB user in the 80s and I would of been horrified if someone was recording me to publish online although there was no online back then. Is there not something in the communication act that says "you can not disseminate personal conversations" without the person knowing. Oh I loved your video the other day about the TV licence detector vans, I always thought it was the dreaded line out put transformer be you showed me it was more involved. Thank you.
My brother and i ordered a scanner about 4 years ago and a proper aerial. We are in N.West Ireland. The only thing we could pick up was the coast guard... Welsh, cork, everywhere, not another single station.. We had radios and scanners in the 90s and it was a fantastic tims.. All dead now😢
You'll get Airband and you can use that with online Air Radar to see what is flying over. You'll get Ham Band Repeaters as well - Taxi's, Marine Radio, Supermarkets, Hospital Paging, PMR 16 Channels and Space Station.
Is that a lot of these more modern radios can be automatically disabled when you do not need to use them and they will be re-enable when you need to use them potentially they could introduce that feature
PC and raspberry pie based SDR will easily replace what we have lost in the scanner world. Plus, the ability to open source code means capabilities for digital modes and other systems will be updated much faster and with no cost to the consumer, unlike with factory products.
Interesting note, John W. Sooter was listed as Chairman of the Board for Whistler group incorporated along with two other companies until just recently. ALL THREE of those companies are now listed as inactive. 😮 Out of curiosity I check to see if he had social media, which he does, Facebook. However, that doesn't seem to have been updated since 2021. Mysterious
Not only are more and more things moving to digital, it's moving from traditional radio systems into apps on a phone, on 4G/5G networks. It's now so much cheaper when you can get national coverage on your system and not having to own and maintain any infrastructure.
Hi Lewis , interesting video, I have the trx2e and 1e but have been meaning to replace for uniden which seem to decode more , especially when I borrowed one. I have one replaced under warranty. I am not surprised they have not been a big hit. Speak soon on PMR 16 OR 6….M7 NGX
I suspect you mis-quoted the crypto person. I suspect they mean a quantum computer capable of cracking the algorithms will not be available for around 20 years.
I work in public safety communication and between criminals using Baofeng radios, and people saying things to the police on our old analog system plus live tweeting police calls we were forced to switch to P25 with encryption.
Here in NZ the Police rolled out P25 Phase 2 encrypted radio some 15 years ago in three of the main cities. There are still some cities and areas using the old analog radio networks but this is about to end. The new PSN (Public Safety Network) will incorporate cellular LTE, digital radio (with P25 encryption standard) and paging. Ambulance, Fire and Police will all move to the PSN. Police will have encryption enabled by default (as it is now) but at this stage it is unknown if Fire and Ambulance will also enable encryption.
I'm glad you said there's still plenty to listen to, because there is. I have no interest at all in monitoring public safety, although I will occasionally listen to fire and EMS. I have much more fun listening to things like air, rail*, marine and businesses. In America, anyway, FRS is used a lot in smaller communities and you can hear some really interesting things. *I'm aware rail communications in Europe are mostly GSM-R and not monitorable. In the US and Canada rail communication is still mostly analog.
The encryption on Tetra has been unencrypted for a while now. Just don't expect your standard radio scanner to do this, you need a slightly stronger hardware to do this. This can also have been fixed with a simple update in the Tetra firmware and software. Expect encryption to be the standard, not that clear radio to be the standard.
Tetra encryption algorithms are centrally managed in a lot of professional systems when the hands set up on charge they can be updated and they can receive over the phone. My updates so most large system operators have automatically done this for every handset the company looking after the system has and if it hasn’t been done it simply because they don’t need that high level of privacy, they potentially just got the encryption with the system as a bonus
the only reason i have a scanner is to listen to the railroads here in the US plus aircraft. other then that i have no reason to have it on. even my "old" digital base scanner isn't on anymore and just sitting on my desk.
A few years ago I modified my Uniden BC355N (that I got for free) to be able to listen to digital on. A few minutes and it now had a discriminator output on it. I bought a Minis Forum PC for around $70, I got DSD plus running on it hooked everything together and was able to listen to digital with it. This year my local PD/Fire/Emergency enabled encryption on their P25 system so that's now out of the question. But I can at least listen to Hams using D-Star, FM fusion, DMR, and others.
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i still think 2 metres fm has its purpose and can be a lot of fun for experimentation and being an amateur its still interesting to get the odd contact i prefer analogue to digital .. i am thinking of doing a bit of foxhunting soon .. maybe you could do a video on foxhunting and direction finding :)
Interesting. Figuring out who I pick up, and where they are based is the fun in scanning for me. Never been interested in looking up frequencies as 9 times out of 10 I couldn't give a toss what is being said. I'm more interested in my antenna setup lol.
Whistler probably had a much smaller market share than Uniden-Bearcat. So, it was probably harder for them to make a profit. The market had already seen some mergers, such as the joining of the former rival Unident and Bearcat lines, which may have indicated economic pressure in the industry. As far as causes for more encryptions, at least in the US, I think that the popularity of scanner audio streaming (over the internet) probably is the the biggest factor in encouraging encryption. The cost of listening dropped to installing a free app on a smart phone. This caused the number of people listening to increase--including white-hat hobbyists, as well as bad guys listening in purely to avoid getting caught. Officer safety is a large part of this, as incidents of people shooting at the police to get away, or just ambush them seems to be a growing part of the news cycle. I think the hobbyists have always been willing to spend the money on electronics to enjoy the hobby, but probably less so for the street level bad guys. Also, US government agencies, apparently mostly at the state level, have been leaning on police departments to not put personally identifiable information, such as the names and dates of birth of people they encounter on the radio "in the clear."
Hello from the States. Been monitoring the various bands since the early 1990's. I largely lost interest in the mid 00's. Not just because of encryption which hit my area both police and fire but it was always one migration after the other and would need to buy a new scanner. First it was VHF to UHF had to buy a new scanner. Then it was to 800 conventional, needed another scanner. Then it was trunking. Needed a new scanner. Then it was another type of trunking, needed another scanner. Then it was digital... you guessed it, needed another scanner. By the time encryption rolled around, I was like, ok there is no amount of tax dollars they won't waste to conceal their activities. Well at least we still got ham.... oh wait. 😕
I live in Australia and our government had enough of the police being broadcasted over the internet with many listeners just listening on their phones (not even needing a scanner). So they announced they were going encrypted digital which they did about 5 years back. Even the popular amateur repeater I listened to has gone digital now. It does support analog still, but as one user said on there when using analog, he said "analog is boring I'm going back to digital". So analog scanners are pretty much dead. Scanning is not like the the scanning days of the past.
It is even worse when you can go online and listen to the communications without having to buy a scanner or the data needed to decode the signals. Think of the amount of sales lost to such activity, and then wonder why scanner manufacturers are dropping like flies.
At least in the US , one reason for lower scanner sales is /are scanner broadcast websites, why pay $600 for a scanner when you can just listen to area freqs on a web based simulcast? but yeah the migration to encryption certainly knocked the wind out of scanner sales as do police using txting for car to car, cop to cop stuff ....and some of the 700 MHZ expansion didn't help either.
why would public services encrypt their communication? isn't the citizens supposed to be able to monitor their com? also if they want to discuss sensitive stuff they can switch to encrypted, but to encrypt everything is suspicious or show that public service arn't serving the people.
Here in Germany I havent' met anybody using a scanner in many years - devades in fact. Aside of this activity being illegal with a few exceptions such as CB and ham radio frequencies, broadcast and TV where there is a general permission to receive that particular service which hasn't really bothered those individual doing scanning ot seems the interest in the airwaves has generallly waned since mobile phones became affordable, the internet, hundreds of TV channels a modern PC and console gaming became available to private individuals at home. Iow, it was some sort of entertainment which lost out against others.
I believe if my taxes are paying public servants that work for us I should be able to monitor them. That being said I realize scanners can be used for nefarious behavior but there are laws for that. If there trying to hide what there up to then more the reason to be able to listen.
You need to understand this you think because they are using radios you have right to listen but you don’t think you have a right to listen to the phone call recordings look at their emails so this doesn’t seem to be about holding them to account it seems to be about wanting to listen to them on our radio scanner which is fine but you make it seem like it’s holding them to account which you aren’t doing
I’ve been saying for the last several years that eventually radio scanners are going to be nothing more than paperweights. Just as you state, due to encryption. It’s finally coming to roost. Jurisdictions are tired of being under a microscope, and rebroadcasting on the internet hasn’t helped either.
It might sound odd, but I personally am finding certain aspects of Social Media, irritating, it's a bit like Urbex'ers, dont mind some of them, but these Auditors.. not for me personally. As far as Scanners go, I've never really fancied a digital one, like DAB Radio's, mobile phones etc, they are always wanting some sort of constant attention with updates etc, if a firm like Whistler goes out of business or updates are not availible. Your investment goes up the spout. Analouge you dont need any of that. And it's like anything else, you get what you put in. Years ago, I had an AOR handset, a really good bit of kit at the time. I personally quite fancy SW listening, it sounds interesting. Great video as always Lewis. 👍
The public should be aware of daily activity of the police. So open radio is good. However the emergency services people need to be able to switch over to a private frequency when they need to. Like it or not the public scanner folks can be useful to law enforcement.
Many private and confidential things are shared also you do not think you have a right to view the pieces emails listen to their phone call record and just walk in to the offices and listen to what they are saying so this is not about holding them to account this is about you trying to justify you listening to them
I miss the old days. No encryption. Analog. Now there's nothing to listen to except medical and fire, and State Police (for now) No more local law enforcement. My scanners are pretty much useless now. Encryption started in January 2018 here. The other agency became encrypted July 2023.
A lot of “Public Safety Agencies “ went digital encrypted around me back about 5-7 years ago. I’m in the Southern California USA area. Needless to say, this created a major void in what to listen to.
Quite often if there was something like a terrorist attack, you could potentially be implicated if they find you with a radio of standard tune to the frequency as now a lot of terrorist attacks have a digital part where there will be someone actually carrying out the activity but they were essentially digital support feeding them information of emergency services. Think they are doing anything which encrypted data means they can potentially arrest them without them knowing which is quite a good idea if they have an explosive device explosive device.
Naw... At least in the US. Frequencies, Repeater Offsets, and PL/DCS information has always been readily available. Though more and more agencies / companies are going encrypted due to liability due supposedly for PII concerns.. Which is BS. You can take care of 99.9% of that concern with policy not encryption, but ever since the Cellular industry was able to get away with passing a law outlaying their frequencies to be used on scanner so they could say "No, people can't listen, it is illegal." The knock on has been to use privacy as an excuse to less transparent to the public for public safety, etc.
I would suspect that perhaps the era of the console scanner may simply be over. But what I actually am inclined to point out is that I’m the UK just as it is in the US having frequencies set aside for anyone essentially creates a signature for anyone who might be interested. In intelligence operations this is known as traffic analysis but with specially set aside frequencies the identity of the sender is apparent just based on the frequency they are using. It’s almost certainly not the passive hobby of a previous age but building a signal sensor and a directional antenna should be well within the capabilities of radio amateurs.
In the U.S. at least it is illegal to reveal radio frequency content for 2 way radio. It does not stop the reception though, nor is it illegal, but if you tell someone else the content, you can be fined or even jailed. (Communications act of 1934). Now as to encryption, break it, you violate national security acts. (Not that you can break the encryption assuming it is digital and 128 bit and up.) I do like the comment made about a voyeur complaining that someone has pulled the black out curtains closed on their home window. We never have had the right to know, or for that matter need to know private communications of anyone.
Whistler was, for a long time, a big player in the radar detector market and back in 2021 the radar detector forums were lamenting Whistler losing its way. The radar detector market has collapsed as apps like Waze cost nothing and highway speed limited were increased from 55mph to 70mph or more. Whistler was also making GPS units which also got wiped out by phone apps. The market that whistler once dominated is gone and despite efforts to try to pivot to other markets, Whistler was always late to the party and it was a party where no one bought based on product name and reputation but rather the lowest cost chicom product knowing they'd replace it in a year or two.
It’s not like radio receivers are secret…. It doesn’t need to be behind closed doors. It’s mostly happening because companies are selling radio gear and digital and encryption are ways to get customers to pay huge prices to upgrade gear, if it did the exact same thing as what they already have it wouldn’t be much of a sell…
It’s shocking how much the United States government agencies do not use encryption especially police departments and like you would assume they would want encrypted radios for the additional features our sent with encrypted data such as but of course that would mean holding people to account which is not what the United States likes
Just sharing frequencies shouldn't be that big of a deal considering that in North America(US and Canada) at least are all public knowledge whose records (frequencies, transmission mode etc) are search able from the government maintained websites
I have a Uniden digital scanner which I haven’t turned on in about 4 years because our local Sheriffs office went P25 encrypted. It’s become a useless brick.
For me i love our local farm radios wee have dmr, ctcss, dcs single uk business, and repeaters in vhf pmr bands, tomorrow at our santa tractor ride will have 12 or more freqs active including stewards, security on lions on dmr and ctcss radios escorting tye ride, taking ubc3600 and uniden 160dn
Publishing was never an issue in uk, not in any serious way, in fact we had radio agency at the time using proma databases as well as there own, we knew often freqs in use they didn't ie illegal users, unlicensed so our members found freqs we reported in out database and radio communications agency could see we had found unlicensed users
We should be reporting users and freqs why should they be hidden we should share ofcom are even not caring about streaming freqs marine and air freqs are regularly streamed on RUclips and on zello we've had lakenheath, mildenhall for 10 years now, I can sit and listrn on scanner or zello it's great, no one cares
I think private companies turning on encryption is no bad thing. It's not great for scanning, but it does reduce the risk of sensitive data leaking and fundamentally serious business is more important than my hobby. That said, Tetra encryption was comprehensively broken in mid 2023 (TetraBurst). I don't know enough to know if the available remediations have been pushed out, but the expert's opinion of a quantum computer running for twenty years might be optimistic. Unfortunately the replacement standards are also secret algorithms so we can expect this to happen again.
I've got an IC-R7000, AR5000, AR8000 & FRG9600 all sat on the shelf little to listen to other than aviation - but to me they are pure 'tech porn' and pieces of art 😎
Where the grass is greener, in the United Kingdom - not sure what the laws and regs there are like, but… When a company/corporation in america goes out of business entirely, and also not acquired by another *(without lapse)*, then that starts the ball rolling. For updated that would mean that anyone could write code that could legally be used on the devices. Any attempts at needing any licensing for writing that code would be nullified. But it gets better, and this one could apply in the UK. Feel welcome to look up credit card protections. If one would have bought any of their radio scanners at any point up to eleven months before they went out, they could be entitled to a full refund through most credit cards, including interest.
Can we not keep this hobby underground? It isn't like many people are that interested. I passed on a load of local com frequencies to a new listener the other day and she passed them to her dad, no need for Facebook.
Oh I did like that but on opinions Lewis. After reading through, well not just yesterday’s tv licence van vid, but MANY others as wel, it baffles me still why so many feel this almost narcissistic need to tell you they are buggering off. As a commenter, my contribution (unless directly stated by the content creator specifically of course) means very little to nothing. And here’s the worse news. Neither does anyone else’s. Thankfully, Lewis seems to be a decent enough chap who will engage at least politely, and in my experience, quite nicely. For The most part. I feel this dig was a smidge… peeved… anyways I ramble. Signal stick has done the same to my uv 5RM plus and ar 5RM plus. Both the same radio but one is a lil more… dark side as Fred in the shed would say. But yeah. I bring mine everywhere now and I was sat on Robinswood hill, bout half way up and I was wigging in on Gatwick and Glasgow and even Leeds at one point. I’m land locked in Gloucestershire and I even get some action on coastguard. So I’ve taken a punt on this other one. Load it on the UV 5RM and see what happens. Cheers Lewis! Have a good Christmas.
Unication G2-G5 pagers, (136-174, 380-512 and 700 & 800 MHz) can accommodate NXDN, DMR and APCO P25 modes, with single or dual bands. They are also trunking capable and have up to 256 channels. Oh, Uniden's BCD160DN covers NXDN and DMR instead of APCO P25; and costs about $250. Will not pick APCO P25 or trunking. Last, Unication G pagers are very expensive, from $400 to almost $800. Wishing you and your family future success and good health and respect in 2025.
Maybe there's an argument for officer safety in a small number of instances, however, I feel law enforcement is a public good that's paid with tax dollars, they should not be hiding their communications from the public.
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Complaining about frequency sharing is a bit like a voyeur complaing about someone closing the curtains. 😅
😆 brilliant
I invested a lot of money on a Uniden digital p25 scanner to keep up with my local first responders. It was great for a few years up until the point the most interesting ones were encrypted. Such a disappointment.
I could not bring myself to drop like 600$ on a new handheld scanner or something. When voice went digital.
Why should fire/EMS communications be encrypted? I think that's silly. And in the UK they want military grade encryption!
The encryption isn't nice, but the scanner is still useful for listening to other things.
@@douro20 military grade encryption is not a thing it’s a marketing ploy military grade encryption is done by secure algorithms that the military itself designs for instance I will purchase the hand sacks from a supplier such as but they will put the program on them with their own encryptions standard you should always have that level of encryption when there’s major accident. Also is there something like a terrorist attack? Someone could plan to also attack the first responders, so if the radio is encrypted, it may be harder to identify certain things
Just like in the US, their plan is to hide everything from public including things that we pay for. Public service is no longer public.
A lot of US Agencies are going the encrypted route. NYPD recently went encrypted to the outrage of us who listen. That and P25 Phase II have made listening difficult at best.
They need to hide their criminal activities
So NYPD don't routinely use encryption? Why TAF would police radio transmit stuff in the clear ?
@@quantisedspace7047 No they didn't until recently. Some divisions did, like Special Victims, Narcotics etc, but routine calls were not.
@@quantisedspace7047 It's always been common knowledge that US emergency frequencies were on the open analogue bands. You can get police scanner apps for your phone and listen anywhere in the world. Journalists have used police scanners to gain advantages for decades. I do find it strange that this has been common practice for so long when even the UK has had encrypted emergency service communication systems in place for about 20 years, as the video said.
@@quantisedspace7047 it’s the United States. The cost of keeping up an expensive old system is always cheaper than a costa effective modern solution because the people making decisions are paid millions a year. They don’t have any perception on real cost.
Also, much traffic has moved to DATA dispatch, status, GPS and so on. Non of that Adam 12 stuff. Cell phones have also killed of almost all of the business radio systems and even pagers. Almost any old scanner will receive whats left.
I used to listen to my scanner almost 24/7 until about 5 years ago when local law enforcement went P25 Phase II, full encryption. 😞
Uniden BCD325P2 covers APCO P25 Phase 2. Nice size and reasonably priced for what can do.
In Australia (Sydney) about 15 years ago went to that, tested then shortly after full encryption Apco P-25 same. Scanner now junk. All the things they say you can listen to are boring and not interesting at all.
There are some serious users out there who are both Hams and RF technicians who invest in the latest technology Such as Harris and Motorola radios which are quite capable of all modes of modern encryption and formats such as P25 ( phase I &II ), Nexdn, DMR. THESE ARE ABOVE THE PRICE REALM OF MOST LISTENERS ! As for encryption, the good thing is if you were ever to get a moment with any of these modern radios, you cannot read the encryption keys from them. Some radios are even capable of locking the RADIO READ function in programming and will only allow one to do alignments with set frequencies in the software package. Some radios are capable of OverThe Air Reprogramming for both frequencies, transmit lockout, and encryption keys. Wen properly enabled it allows other departments easy access to send data to departments of other municipalities for mutual aid.
@@normanhill535it can't do anything for encryption. The majority of agencies in my area switched to P25 phase ll back in October, and they are mostly encrypted now. It sucks
Because they want to hide their transgressions
I bought two SDS200 scanners: One for home, one for the mobile. In a year, encryption had rendered both of them little more than expensive bricks. Such a shame!
I bought a Radio Shack top end one many years ago same deal.
I almost bought one. Nice I didn't. Thanks for the tip. But I still have a Bcd536hp and a hand held Bcd326hp and they work great and I really enjoy listening to those. Keep the Hand held one in my truck.
@@davidaaaa4611 Total waste of money now. They even use digital trunking as well. Give it a miss.
Don't sell yourself short. There is Sooooo much more to listen to than Police and Fire and EMS. But that is up to you.
@@JustLearning Like what. I don't need to spend time to look for messages not knowing who they are. Before you just turn it on and listen. With my digital one there were initial issues but I sorted them out. Once encryption turned on nothing. Never have purchased it if I had known about that.If you want to do what you say go ahead. A lot of the services today even road assistance use MDT tech used by the others.
Considering encryption capable radios are no longer cost prohibitive I'm surprised there any companies or departments still left on analog or open digital at all. Even many UHF CB radios here in Au are encryption capable.
Once upon a time (at least in the US) transparency was valued by emergency services. The thinking was that it's in the public interest to have the ability to monitor what's going on, and any journalist worth their salt would have carried a scanner. Sadly it seems those values are long forgotten.
I agree with you Lewis on the auditors especially dj who openly plays the audio and I’ve commented so many times that he shouldn’t
I find auditors cringe and highly irritating.
I like DJs videos quite a bit, but his openness with showing the audited that he is listening in them is annoying. I also told him he can't legally listen unless they are on PMR446 etc
Fortunately, I live in a rural area in the US where all my police and fire are still using old analog VHF & UHF frequencies.
@@Foxonian
The audio quality is suberb.
Remember the audio reception on those low band GE and Motorola radios with big loud speakers ?
That’s not that fortunate the likelihood is a police department aren’t even funded enough to use the Mum system so a rack of funding does not speak through their effectiveness
yeah ems and fire around here are mostly volunteer that use their personal electronics to monitor need for assistance....they're not going to spending money on encryption any time this decade and probably not the next and maybe not until it's an governmental oversight requirement....
I don't think sharing frequencies is the problem. But I do feel the the steaming of emergency services has scared the cops into going encrypted. Look at it this way, most bad guys don't run around with a big scanner radio. But most of them carry a smartphone and could listen to the police using streaming services.
As far as I could tell there was a delay in those but maybe not enough to bother the crooks. They always made a stink claiming all the crooks were scanning police but the actual instances were few and far between at best.
@@TomSherwood-z5lrunning apps side by side with my scanner I never saw delays more than 5-10 seconds. The apps supposedly are forbidden to broadcast anything but patrol channels as well, but I regularly heard strike force and jcat tac comms on them.
I'm not so sure sharing of frequencies and the companies they are associated with, is the issue. After all, that stuff is basically public information, at least in countries like Australia where you can search for frequency allocations, openly, on the Government's own website. Digital and encrypted radio is just the next step in technology upgrades, just like GSM was to Analog cellular telephony. Better audio, longer usable range, support for data, better radios, more efficient use of the RF spectrum etc... are all reasons why a company would upgrade, not simply because the public are listening in. It's no different to any other technology that gets superseded and replaced with better options. Running repeater sites, for those organisations like Police, can also be very expensive, so why not do more with less?
Asking people not to be jerks on the internet is likely to be as effective as asking people not to look at pr0n or cute cat pictures. But you're not wrong. Where I live the cops went digital and possibly encrypted, and the fire department too, so my 125 is no longer usable for them, but I still have air, rail, and marine traffic at least. Public safety, in my opinion, shouldn't be encrypted. Some police activity needs to be, but the bulk of it, stuff like accidents and so on, should be in the clear for the public. One of my favorite photographers is a guy known as Weegee who, back in the 1940s, made his living by scanning New York City police radio in his car at night so he could drive to the crime scenes and get the photos. He was friendly with the police, and they never had a problem with him. I guess that sort of thing is old fashioned now.
While I find the tech behind digital radio impressive, it’s also quite boring once you get past the initial awe. Analog radio just has the nostalgia factor and experimenting with how far you can push the limits of older tech is far more interesting. I liken it to buying a modern car with higher horsepower and better fuel economy but everything is computerized and you can’t do much with, versus an old carbureted jalopy that you spend the weekends on trying to squeeze every bit of power you can out of it because you love the smell of petrol and getting your hands greasy.
I’m assuming that here in Canada, law enforcement frequencies are not encrypted as there’s an issue with nefarious tow truck companies that show up at scenes of vehicle collisions and try to tow away and steal cars. To get your car back you basically pay a ransom.
Atlantic Canada has switched to the new MSPRN system. Its now fully digitally encrypted P25 and moved to the UHF band. The new system encompasses EMS, RCMP, Partial Coast Guard, municipal policing and should soon include urban fire services. My assortment of scanners are becoming useless, but I won't complain, seeing the major uptick in successful drug interdictions and other criminal activity being caught and dealt with. I'm not unhappy with the new system, but I sure miss the in the clear activity. I have other radio hobbies to attend to anyway.
@ Here in Alberta the nefarious tow truck drivers issue has gotten so bad that the police/rcmp has to make public service announcements to make sure people don’t get taken advantage of in vulnerable situations.
MB emergency services have gone the encrypted route. R.I.P.
Vancouver and lower mainland have been for 5 years! I have a lot of expensive paperweights😢
Here is Southwest Ontario, the Ontario Provincial Police and EMS have switched to a new encrypted system. That same system is rolling out through the entire province. For the moment we can still listen to fire dispatch in analog and digital modes. The tow truck drivers most certainly have been one of the big reasons for the encryption. (When 2 tow trucks are on scene before ambulance or fire, there's an issue..)
It's not *only* encryption. I used to have a wall full of scanners. Now with wideband IBW SDRs I listen to 1000x more than all my scanners could put together. As you mentioned, SDRs plus the right software can do everything scanners once did plus so much more. The only reason why *all* public service communications is not encrypted is because Motorola charges a ridiculous amount of money per encryption key, per radio. Eventually, there will be no need for encryption as it's built into the cellular protocols. Most public service networks will switch over from P25 (TETRA in Europe) to POC LTE in the next 3-5 years. That will be the final nail in the coffin for scanner/SDR enthusiasts.
Thanks for all your hard work keeping us updated with everything radio over the years, Lewis. A great job, well done.
This has nothing to do with today's topic, but I have to pass on something funny from around 35 years ago. I was a satellite TV installation engineer right from the launch of the Astra 1A satellite, way back in 1989. I worked for a group of TV stores in the Wakefield/Leeds area of Yorkshire, UK. Being a licensed radio ham I prided myself with answering all the customer's questions and fully explaining how to operate the system and receive the new SKY TV channels. I had a willing assistant we'll just call Andy, who soon learned how to install the dish, line it up with the satellite. I was impressed with Andy, and over the months he learned to do pretty much every aspect of the job. Then one day, as he was showing a customer how to work their new system, I overheard the customer as him "And where is this Astra satellite, exactly?" Andy knowledgeably replied "Oh, it's on the top of a really long pole, up in the Yorkshire Dales."
Have a fantastic Christmas Lewis, and also to each and every viewer, wherever you are in the World.
Always remember my good friend who had a scanner a good few years ago who tuned into baby monitors by accident and heard couples in moments of passion on the airwaves - that was not encrypted at all.
That's a shame about Whistler. It was nice to see an alternative to the Unidens etc.
I always thought they were garbage Uniden was a far superior unit..
Back in the days of analogue TV I had a fairly reasonable satellite TVRO system with a Season interface for decoding Sky and Maccess for decoding the Scandinavian TV package on the Thor birds as well as Astra at 19.2 degrees. Both encryption systems were fundamentally flawed which allowed people to download keys and decode the channels. Much fun was had. Then everything went digital and that was the end of that.
I think more users are going digital and encryption doesn't cost anything to use - it's just an option. I guess it also comes down to whether it is allowed by Ofcom to use encryption on specific channels such as PMR - if they aren't then report them to Ofcom as a potential security threat?
Around where I live, all the police departments in the area now use digital trunking. Some have gone encrypted, but some have not, even though they could. I can still listen to them with an expensive Bearcat. And the police know it, because they sometimes say, "Give me a call on my phone", even when talking to the dispatcher. (Not saved on the tape?) Sometimes the most sensitive talk involving different police agencies is all unencrypted. They figure, probably correctly, that not too many criminals have expensive digital trunking scanners. And they can tell if the folks they are watching obviously know too much. And they have informants who would notice radio scanners.
There is a theory that they are trying to hide the true extent of crime from the public, so one agency only blocks the incoming transmissions from the police in the field. Only SWAT rolls, national security stuff, and drug investigations need to be encrypted.
Have there been any judgements from the Information Commissioner [the data protection regulator in the UK] regarding the use of unencrypted radio communication?
A website's traffic which could be easily intercepted would be considered a significant data breach.
It seems a bit remiss that analogue PMR446, which can be received by 'toy' radios, is often used by schools, entertainment venues, shops, security etc.
It depends on a lot of things because in some cases of traffic being accepted is not the end of day to preach if it’s something like Google and a data is a noised that would be considered fine as most people use it and it’s very hard to track individual things down when it’s been anonymized Schools need to use those radios and quite simply it’s because it’s hard to obtain the correct licensing unless you’re a registered company the encryption standards require certain additional levels of licensing and it’s quite hard to get them. I managed to get some licensing as an individual but it consisted of six months of negotiation.
Even though I don't have any interest in scanning as a hobby, this is a fascinating channel
I've been listening to scanners since I was 12 years old, 36 years ago. My local city just went encrypted and my scanner is silent other than a few city departments. It sucks
Mine too, back in October.
Typically you don't crack the codes. You get them through other methods, such as lost radios and catching over the air updates.
@@PsRohrbaugh
Some guys in the past would bug the Base Station ambience audio (comms were on speaker), sometimes with a buged power supply.
I find that super wicked, but it worked.
With new technology still being developed, they can now lock and deactivate lost radios to prevent them from being used or hacked. Over the air update only works with radios preprogrammed with the departments. New security features require the radio programmer to have the system key to access the trunked system with the radio.
Agree with the comments about 'Auditors' in addition I reckon their activities will cause further regulation in the use of Drones.
Fantastic drone footage of the masts BTW 😎
Yes Barrie they’re idiots mate
Yes, where we lived until a month ago for over 4 years,
Nashua, NH, and nearby city
of Manchester, NH are encrypted and not available.
I could hear some other Police, but mostly EMS, Fire, and DOT
is heard.
I have the AOR DV10 receiver
portable from Japan, directly,
and a Beartracker 885, from
Uniden, which scans from a
US Canada updatable SD card,
AM CB and Weather frequencies. It is not really a
programmable scanner, and I
hear less back here in Perkskill, NY, north of NYC now.😊
How you decode P25... transmission....and encoding 😮
I am an avid watcher of your channel. Do not get me wrong, I always thought "scanning" was or should be a skill of the operator. Just like the avid SW listeners of the "number stations" of which I find very interesting. But back to the scanning, I was a CB user in the 80s and I would of been horrified if someone was recording me to publish online although there was no online back then. Is there not something in the communication act that says "you can not disseminate personal conversations" without the person knowing. Oh I loved your video the other day about the TV licence detector vans, I always thought it was the dreaded line out put transformer be you showed me it was more involved. Thank you.
My brother and i ordered a scanner about 4 years ago and a proper aerial. We are in N.West Ireland. The only thing we could pick up was the coast guard... Welsh, cork, everywhere, not another single station.. We had radios and scanners in the 90s and it was a fantastic tims.. All dead now😢
You'll get Airband and you can use that with online Air Radar to see what is flying over.
You'll get Ham Band Repeaters as well - Taxi's, Marine Radio, Supermarkets, Hospital Paging, PMR 16 Channels and Space Station.
Started volunteering with a group on my state's system, mostly to get a radio so I could continue my listening hobby :)
That wouldn't happen to be UCAN, would it?
@@bisurdaddy .. negative.
Is that a lot of these more modern radios can be automatically disabled when you do not need to use them and they will be re-enable when you need to use them potentially they could introduce that feature
@@bisurdaddy .. negative
@UKsystems ... not sure I follow. That capability already exists for many systems.
PC and raspberry pie based SDR will easily replace what we have lost in the scanner world. Plus, the ability to open source code means capabilities for digital modes and other systems will be updated much faster and with no cost to the consumer, unlike with factory products.
Used to be able to listen most mobile phone calls back in the 90s on my Tandy realistic scanner ,
Thanks for the video, Lewis. Insightful. It might be so that the era of scanning is truly over with all the interesting things going digital encrypted
Interesting note, John W. Sooter was listed as Chairman of the Board for Whistler group incorporated along with two other companies until just recently.
ALL THREE of those companies are now listed as inactive. 😮
Out of curiosity I check to see if he had social media, which he does, Facebook. However, that doesn't seem to have been updated since 2021. Mysterious
There is some frequencies that we broadcast for scanner listeners. There are some others that reflect the worst part of someone's life...
I'm using the ofcom frequency database to find digi frequencies - that said there are some that aren't listed and still require good old hunting.
Not only are more and more things moving to digital, it's moving from traditional radio systems into apps on a phone, on 4G/5G networks.
It's now so much cheaper when you can get national coverage on your system and not having to own and maintain any infrastructure.
Hi Lewis , interesting video, I have the trx2e and 1e but have been meaning to replace for uniden which seem to decode more , especially when I borrowed one. I have one replaced under warranty. I am not surprised they have not been a big hit. Speak soon on PMR 16 OR 6….M7 NGX
I suspect you mis-quoted the crypto person. I suspect they mean a quantum computer capable of cracking the algorithms will not be available for around 20 years.
There are radios to crack encryption ?
Yes, however, it would be considered hacking because you are deliberately breaking into the secure system and breaking the encryption
@UKsystems Yes it not something you should do !
Thanks
Thank you so much!!
I work in public safety communication and between criminals using Baofeng radios, and people saying things to the police on our old analog system plus live tweeting police calls we were forced to switch to P25 with encryption.
20 years to crack the code....
NSA: old my beer.....(5 minutes)😂😂
Google Willow Quantum chip: Hold my bee.....I'm done.
@@golf-n-gunshold my wasp
quantum computers ha hah MF ha ha....2 TRS-80 and 500 lines each of correct program code
Here in NZ the Police rolled out P25 Phase 2 encrypted radio some 15 years ago in three of the main cities. There are still some cities and areas using the old analog radio networks but this is about to end. The new PSN (Public Safety Network) will incorporate cellular LTE, digital radio (with P25 encryption standard) and paging. Ambulance, Fire and Police will all move to the PSN. Police will have encryption enabled by default (as it is now) but at this stage it is unknown if Fire and Ambulance will also enable encryption.
I'm glad you said there's still plenty to listen to, because there is. I have no interest at all in monitoring public safety, although I will occasionally listen to fire and EMS. I have much more fun listening to things like air, rail*, marine and businesses. In America, anyway, FRS is used a lot in smaller communities and you can hear some really interesting things.
*I'm aware rail communications in Europe are mostly GSM-R and not monitorable. In the US and Canada rail communication is still mostly analog.
And in Finland rail is TETRA
This gives as comunism the history is repeting and the authorytis will pass to opresive regims , very good articole👍
Nice spelling. Did you make up your own language?
@@johnlamberti2735 the truth disturbes you this is an answer of a man who thinks dictatorial
Might as well enjoy it and share it while you can there's no stopping encryption no matter what you do it's inevitable so enjoy it before it's gone.
The encryption on Tetra has been unencrypted for a while now. Just don't expect your standard radio scanner to do this, you need a slightly stronger hardware to do this. This can also have been fixed with a simple update in the Tetra firmware and software. Expect encryption to be the standard, not that clear radio to be the standard.
@@jonfr
Some issues on the security of Tetra are not fixable.
State actors allways listened since the beginning.
Tetra encryption algorithms are centrally managed in a lot of professional systems when the hands set up on charge they can be updated and they can receive over the phone. My updates so most large system operators have automatically done this for every handset the company looking after the system has and if it hasn’t been done it simply because they don’t need that high level of privacy, they potentially just got the encryption with the system as a bonus
@@jplacido9999 it’s worse knowing that you can introduce your own encryption algorithm into the standard definitely but it’s very expensive
the only reason i have a scanner is to listen to the railroads here in the US plus aircraft. other then that i have no reason to have it on. even my "old" digital base scanner isn't on anymore and just sitting on my desk.
I have both trx1 and 2 great radios and I love it I keep certain frequencies to myself and only share with a trusted friend
A few years ago I modified my Uniden BC355N (that I got for free) to be able to listen to digital on. A few minutes and it now had a discriminator output on it. I bought a Minis Forum PC for around $70, I got DSD plus running on it hooked everything together and was able to listen to digital with it.
This year my local PD/Fire/Emergency enabled encryption on their P25 system so that's now out of the question.
But I can at least listen to Hams using D-Star, FM fusion, DMR, and others.
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i still think 2 metres fm has its purpose and can be a lot of fun for experimentation and being an amateur its still interesting to get the odd contact i prefer analogue to digital .. i am thinking of doing a bit of foxhunting soon .. maybe you could do a video on foxhunting and direction finding :)
Interesting. Figuring out who I pick up, and where they are based is the fun in scanning for me. Never been interested in looking up frequencies as 9 times out of 10 I couldn't give a toss what is being said. I'm more interested in my antenna setup lol.
Whistler probably had a much smaller market share than Uniden-Bearcat. So, it was probably harder for them to make a profit. The market had already seen some mergers, such as the joining of the former rival Unident and Bearcat lines, which may have indicated economic pressure in the industry. As far as causes for more encryptions, at least in the US, I think that the popularity of scanner audio streaming (over the internet) probably is the the biggest factor in encouraging encryption. The cost of listening dropped to installing a free app on a smart phone. This caused the number of people listening to increase--including white-hat hobbyists, as well as bad guys listening in purely to avoid getting caught. Officer safety is a large part of this, as incidents of people shooting at the police to get away, or just ambush them seems to be a growing part of the news cycle. I think the hobbyists have always been willing to spend the money on electronics to enjoy the hobby, but probably less so for the street level bad guys. Also, US government agencies, apparently mostly at the state level, have been leaning on police departments to not put personally identifiable information, such as the names and dates of birth of people they encounter on the radio "in the clear."
Hello from the States. Been monitoring the various bands since the early 1990's. I largely lost interest in the mid 00's. Not just because of encryption which hit my area both police and fire but it was always one migration after the other and would need to buy a new scanner. First it was VHF to UHF had to buy a new scanner. Then it was to 800 conventional, needed another scanner. Then it was trunking. Needed a new scanner. Then it was another type of trunking, needed another scanner. Then it was digital... you guessed it, needed another scanner. By the time encryption rolled around, I was like, ok there is no amount of tax dollars they won't waste to conceal their activities. Well at least we still got ham.... oh wait. 😕
I live in Australia and our government had enough of the police being broadcasted over the internet with many listeners just listening on their phones (not even needing a scanner). So they announced they were going encrypted digital which they did about 5 years back.
Even the popular amateur repeater I listened to has gone digital now. It does support analog still, but as one user said on there when using analog, he said "analog is boring I'm going back to digital". So analog scanners are pretty much dead. Scanning is not like the the scanning days of the past.
Now you tell me; two days after my sds200 arrives. 😅
I feel for you....
It is even worse when you can go online and listen to the communications without having to buy a scanner or the data needed to decode the signals.
Think of the amount of sales lost to such activity, and then wonder why scanner manufacturers are dropping like flies.
At least in the US , one reason for lower scanner sales is /are scanner broadcast websites, why pay $600 for a scanner when you can just listen to area freqs on a web based simulcast? but yeah the migration to encryption certainly knocked the wind out of scanner sales as do police using txting for car to car, cop to cop stuff ....and some of the 700 MHZ expansion didn't help either.
why would public services encrypt their communication?
isn't the citizens supposed to be able to monitor their com?
also if they want to discuss sensitive stuff they can switch to encrypted, but to encrypt everything is suspicious or show that public service arn't serving the people.
You know, the DRUG CARTELS use encrypted radios
They probably funded the research and development costs 😂😂😂😂
Here in Germany I havent' met anybody using a scanner in many years - devades in fact. Aside of this activity being illegal with a few exceptions such as CB and ham radio frequencies, broadcast and TV where there is a general permission to receive that particular service which hasn't really bothered those individual doing scanning ot seems the interest in the airwaves has generallly waned since mobile phones became affordable, the internet, hundreds of TV channels a modern PC and console gaming became available to private individuals at home. Iow, it was some sort of entertainment which lost out against others.
big oof for raido scanners this sucks that raido scanning will become a thing of the past it sucks to see this happen to raido scanning
you can use canoe radio on a SDR to be called all the soco and cryptic communication,,
I believe if my taxes are paying public servants that work for us I should be able to monitor them. That being said I realize scanners can be used for nefarious behavior but there are laws for that. If there trying to hide what there up to then more the reason to be able to listen.
You need to understand this you think because they are using radios you have right to listen but you don’t think you have a right to listen to the phone call recordings look at their emails so this doesn’t seem to be about holding them to account it seems to be about wanting to listen to them on our radio scanner which is fine but you make it seem like it’s holding them to account which you aren’t doing
I have an analog scanner and except HAM and ATC there is nothing to listen to nowadays. I switched to SDR and Dragon OS
I’ve been saying for the last several years that eventually radio scanners are going to be nothing more than paperweights. Just as you state, due to encryption. It’s finally coming to roost. Jurisdictions are tired of being under a microscope, and rebroadcasting on the internet hasn’t helped either.
It might sound odd, but I personally am finding certain aspects of Social Media, irritating, it's a bit like Urbex'ers, dont mind some of them, but these Auditors.. not for me personally. As far as Scanners go, I've never really fancied a digital one, like DAB Radio's, mobile phones etc, they are always wanting some sort of constant attention with updates etc, if a firm like Whistler goes out of business or updates are not availible. Your investment goes up the spout. Analouge you dont need any of that. And it's like anything else, you get what you put in. Years ago, I had an AOR handset, a really good bit of kit at the time. I personally quite fancy SW listening, it sounds interesting. Great video as always Lewis. 👍
Never under estimate the power of internet clout for some people. Some are perfecfly willing to destroy their own hobby for ot.
We just sold our scanner on eBay after our local police became the “secret police” and went encrypted
It should be illegal for police to have encrypted radio. It’s in the public interest I’d argue.
Interest to what ? Listening is an offence
No it isn't. Sensitive and personal information can be and is communicated over radio, the general public have no right nor reason to hear it.
The public should be aware of daily activity of the police. So open radio is good. However the emergency services people need to be able to switch over to a private frequency when they need to. Like it or not the public scanner folks can be useful to law enforcement.
Many private and confidential things are shared also you do not think you have a right to view the pieces emails listen to their phone call record and just walk in to the offices and listen to what they are saying so this is not about holding them to account this is about you trying to justify you listening to them
They use tax payers money to fund radios
It's just like helping oneself to the contents of another person's rice bowl uninvited.
I miss the old days. No encryption. Analog. Now there's nothing to listen to except medical and fire, and State Police (for now) No more local law enforcement. My scanners are pretty much useless now. Encryption started in January 2018 here. The other agency became encrypted July 2023.
A lot of “Public Safety Agencies “ went digital encrypted around me back about 5-7 years ago. I’m in the Southern California USA area. Needless to say, this created a major void in what to listen to.
The government and local (Law) enforcements agencies Don't want us to hear in on all of their dirty deeds..
yes very good👍
Quite often if there was something like a terrorist attack, you could potentially be implicated if they find you with a radio of standard tune to the frequency as now a lot of terrorist attacks have a digital part where there will be someone actually carrying out the activity but they were essentially digital support feeding them information of emergency services. Think they are doing anything which encrypted data means they can potentially arrest them without them knowing which is quite a good idea if they have an explosive device explosive device.
Lifes too short now for me to waste time on other peoples chatter.
Naw... At least in the US. Frequencies, Repeater Offsets, and PL/DCS information has always been readily available. Though more and more agencies / companies are going encrypted due to liability due supposedly for PII concerns.. Which is BS. You can take care of 99.9% of that concern with policy not encryption, but ever since the Cellular industry was able to get away with passing a law outlaying their frequencies to be used on scanner so they could say "No, people can't listen, it is illegal." The knock on has been to use privacy as an excuse to less transparent to the public for public safety, etc.
I would suspect that perhaps the era of the console scanner may simply be over. But what I actually am inclined to point out is that I’m the UK just as it is in the US having frequencies set aside for anyone essentially creates a signature for anyone who might be interested.
In intelligence operations this is known as traffic analysis but with specially set aside frequencies the identity of the sender is apparent just based on the frequency they are using.
It’s almost certainly not the passive hobby of a previous age but building a signal sensor and a directional antenna should be well within the capabilities of radio amateurs.
In the U.S. at least it is illegal to reveal radio frequency content for 2 way radio. It does not stop the reception though, nor is it illegal, but if you tell someone else the content, you can be fined or even jailed. (Communications act of 1934). Now as to encryption, break it, you violate national security acts. (Not that you can break the encryption assuming it is digital and 128 bit and up.) I do like the comment made about a voyeur complaining that someone has pulled the black out curtains closed on their home window. We never have had the right to know, or for that matter need to know private communications of anyone.
Whistler was, for a long time, a big player in the radar detector market and back in 2021 the radar detector forums were lamenting Whistler losing its way. The radar detector market has collapsed as apps like Waze cost nothing and highway speed limited were increased from 55mph to 70mph or more. Whistler was also making GPS units which also got wiped out by phone apps. The market that whistler once dominated is gone and despite efforts to try to pivot to other markets, Whistler was always late to the party and it was a party where no one bought based on product name and reputation but rather the lowest cost chicom product knowing they'd replace it in a year or two.
It’s not like radio receivers are secret…. It doesn’t need to be behind closed doors. It’s mostly happening because companies are selling radio gear and digital and encryption are ways to get customers to pay huge prices to upgrade gear, if it did the exact same thing as what they already have it wouldn’t be much of a sell…
Yep. Dropped cash on a Uniden SDS-100 and less than a month later a bunch of what I listened to went encrypted.
Almost all the police departments near me have gone encrypted. There is hardly anything fun to listen to anymore.
It’s shocking how much the United States government agencies do not use encryption especially police departments and like you would assume they would want encrypted radios for the additional features our sent with encrypted data such as but of course that would mean holding people to account which is not what the United States likes
Just sharing frequencies shouldn't be that big of a deal considering that in North America(US and Canada) at least are all public knowledge whose records (frequencies, transmission mode etc) are search able from the government maintained websites
I have a Uniden digital scanner which I haven’t turned on in about 4 years because our local Sheriffs office went P25 encrypted. It’s become a useless brick.
For me i love our local farm radios wee have dmr, ctcss, dcs single uk business, and repeaters in vhf pmr bands, tomorrow at our santa tractor ride will have 12 or more freqs active including stewards, security on lions on dmr and ctcss radios escorting tye ride, taking ubc3600 and uniden 160dn
Publishing was never an issue in uk, not in any serious way, in fact we had radio agency at the time using proma databases as well as there own, we knew often freqs in use they didn't ie illegal users, unlicensed so our members found freqs we reported in out database and radio communications agency could see we had found unlicensed users
We should be reporting users and freqs why should they be hidden we should share ofcom are even not caring about streaming freqs marine and air freqs are regularly streamed on RUclips and on zello we've had lakenheath, mildenhall for 10 years now, I can sit and listrn on scanner or zello it's great, no one cares
I think private companies turning on encryption is no bad thing. It's not great for scanning, but it does reduce the risk of sensitive data leaking and fundamentally serious business is more important than my hobby.
That said, Tetra encryption was comprehensively broken in mid 2023 (TetraBurst). I don't know enough to know if the available remediations have been pushed out, but the expert's opinion of a quantum computer running for twenty years might be optimistic. Unfortunately the replacement standards are also secret algorithms so we can expect this to happen again.
I've got an IC-R7000, AR5000, AR8000 & FRG9600 all sat on the shelf little to listen to other than aviation - but to me they are pure 'tech porn' and pieces of art 😎
Where the grass is greener, in the United Kingdom - not sure what the laws and regs there are like, but…
When a company/corporation in america goes out of business entirely, and also not acquired by another *(without lapse)*, then that starts the ball rolling. For updated that would mean that anyone could write code that could legally be used on the devices. Any attempts at needing any licensing for writing that code would be nullified.
But it gets better, and this one could apply in the UK. Feel welcome to look up credit card protections. If one would have bought any of their radio scanners at any point up to eleven months before they went out, they could be entitled to a full refund through most credit cards, including interest.
love my sds200 still plently of goods to listen to
Can we not keep this hobby underground? It isn't like many people are that interested. I passed on a load of local com frequencies to a new listener the other day and she passed them to her dad, no need for Facebook.
Oh I did like that but on opinions Lewis. After reading through, well not just yesterday’s tv licence van vid, but MANY others as wel, it baffles me still why so many feel this almost narcissistic need to tell you they are buggering off. As a commenter, my contribution (unless directly stated by the content creator specifically of course) means very little to nothing. And here’s the worse news. Neither does anyone else’s. Thankfully, Lewis seems to be a decent enough chap who will engage at least politely, and in my experience, quite nicely. For
The most part. I feel this dig was a smidge… peeved… anyways I ramble. Signal stick has done the same to my uv 5RM plus and ar 5RM plus. Both the same radio but one is a lil more… dark side as Fred in the shed would say. But yeah. I bring mine everywhere now and I was sat on Robinswood hill, bout half way up and I was wigging in on Gatwick and Glasgow and even Leeds at one point. I’m land locked in Gloucestershire and I even get some action on coastguard. So I’ve taken a punt on this other one. Load it on the UV 5RM and see what happens. Cheers Lewis! Have a good Christmas.
Unication G2-G5 pagers, (136-174, 380-512 and 700 & 800 MHz) can accommodate NXDN, DMR and APCO P25 modes, with single or dual bands. They are also trunking capable and have up to 256 channels. Oh, Uniden's BCD160DN covers NXDN and DMR instead of APCO P25; and costs about $250. Will not pick APCO P25 or trunking. Last, Unication G pagers are very expensive, from $400 to almost $800. Wishing you and your family future success and good health and respect in 2025.
SWL contest 2025 will start the 01 January 2025. AM radios on MW and SW.
Great video and valid points.
Brilliant video 👍
Maybe there's an argument for officer safety in a small number of instances, however, I feel law enforcement is a public good that's paid with tax dollars, they should not be hiding their communications from the public.