Over the past year or more I've fretted about the inevitability of my home county, Fayette County, GA, enabling encryption on it's new P25 system. The system remains unencrypted, and you can follow it using a P25 Phase II scanner like the Uniden/Bearcat SDS100 or 200. But, at some point soon the county will flip the switch and our ability to monitor the county system will end. Very likely some time this year.
I'm a big scanner fan. I've been doing it for almost half a century. There was always something to listen to. Not just police & fire, but public works, rail, aviation, utilities, cab services, businesses, and more. In fact, in the days of crystal controlled scanners there was often more to listen to than the scanner technology could support. I remember standing in the newsroom of the Toledo Blade newspaper in the 70s (I worked there while in college), listening to at least two 5-channel scanners squawking away. Someone on the floor was always tagged to keep an ear on the radio traffic, usually one of the lower ranking reporters or interns. Mid-70's scanner technology was such that, if the news guys needed to monitor just one more frequency, they'd have to run down to Radio Shack and buy another scanner and a handful of crystals.
Today that paradigm is flipped. Current scanning technology has out-stripped the number and types of radio services available to monitor.
The current Uniden top-tier scanners are a good example. Their ability to track P25 Phase II simulcast systems is amazing. I own a Uniden SDS100 that is dedicated to following my county's P25 traffic. The SDS100 is expensive, the build quality is merely OK, and the user interface is a confusing mess. But for P25 Phase II scanning, the SDS100 and its big brother, the SDS200, are about the only game in town.
But what to scan? As more and more public service agencies flip the switch and enable encryption on their P25 systems, there's less and less for these expensive, high technology scanners to monitor. At some point both the consumers and the manufacturers will start asking, 'Is it worth the cost?'
Around Christmas I bought what I call 'the best $500 HT you can buy for $700', the new Kenwood TH-D75. One of the features many owners have noted is the radio's scanning speed. It's fast. Many claim it's almost as fast as some dedicated analog scanners. That means, for me, it's plenty fast enough. With Kenwood's programming software it's also easy to set up scanning banks, and the radio is far easier to use. Of course it only scans analog signals, and DSTAR, but it does have good scanning performance. I figured I'd turn it into a hybrid ham radio/scanner. I hopped over to RadioReference.com and see what frequencies are available for Georgia. Surely there must be some government and utility agencies still using analog systems, right? Boy, was I disappointed! For Georgia's state and local governments, and large utilities, the pickings are slim. The state is shutting down most of its analog narrow-band communications systems, and many local agencies are following their lead. A few analog frequencies and repeaters are being held in reserve just to ensure coverage in case of other system failures, but for the most part there's no analog FM activity anywhere.
Here's a short video of the D75 scanning simultaneously on both A & B receivers. The top receiver is scanning the standard FMRS/GMRS frequencies, and the bottom receiver is scanning some of the few remaining Georgia state government unencrypted frequencies
As mentioned, the State of Georgia is abandoning both analog (narrow FM) and P25 systems. Many, probably most, agencies are migrating over to either the internet-based SouthernLinc LTE or GTA LTE systems. No scanning opportunities there. There are still some listed VHF interoperability frequencies, but those seem to be unused. The Georgia State Patrol and the Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources have switched almost entirely to LTE. I expect the other state government agencies to follow. It just makes sense from a budget, coverage and interoperability perspective. The legacy VHF FM systems are quickly going dark.
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| Many state-level public service agencies in Georgia have gone over to LTE-based services, many using Harris-based hardware. These HTs come in at something like $7,000/each (based on my sources). Ouch |
Aviation is still wide open, on analog VHF AM frequencies, and with Hartsfield Airport just up the road and regional ATC centers in nearby Peachtree City and Hampton, GA, there's a lot to listen to. There are also VHF FM frequencies that cover air evacuation (LifeFlight and others) services across the state, although I've heard very little activity on any of those.
Utilities are a mixed bag. We tend to think that Georgia Power rules the state, and they have converted almost wholly over to the SouthernLinc system (SouthernLinc is owned by Georgia Power's parent company, Southern Company). But Georgia Power doesn't rule everywhere - some parts of Georgia are still served by small electrical co-ops that run their own communications systems. Many of them are DMR and NXDN, a few are on P25, and a big chunk are still using VHF FM. I think there's a lot of scanning opportunity there, but most of these systems are well away from Fayette County, and hard to catch.
Rail also seems to be a mixed bag. Locally, CSX and Norfolk Southern are still using VHF FM, so there's lots of opportunity there. It's not just the road frequencies, but the Atlanta yard frequencies are easy to catch. But I read threads on pages like RadioReference.com that discuss rail operators migrating to closed systems.
GMRS, MURS and FRS are wide open, and monitoring those frequencies locally can be important. It's not just spying on the McDonald's drive-thru chatter, but a lot of organizations will use these radios to coordinate activities. I'd bet there's some cheap GMRS/FRS handhelds riding around in the cabs of government vehicles - think road clearing crews, plows, etc. They'll be used by shelter staff, relief coordinators, private contractors coordinating supply delivery and other non-government support personnel. Keeping tabs on this activity can provide a window into the wider relief activity.
CB? Sure, why not. It gets a good bit of use as a general chat tool, which can be both informative and entertaining.
Maritime? Well, the nearest saltwater coastline is several hundred miles away. There are several large lakes near Atlanta that we regularly camp at. While I suspect most boaters on those lakes (Lanier, Allatoona, West Point, Hartwell) use smartphones and FRS for communications, there may be some maritime frequencies used by local police on maritime patrol.
Overall, however, the trend for government agencies and large private organizations like the railroads is away from open repeaters to P25 and internet-based LTE services. This means, increasingly, there will be less to scan for. When Fayette County enables encryption on the P25 system it will reduce the use case for complex scanners like the SDS100. The Uniden scanners can, of course, scan a variety of modes other than P25 (oddly, though, not DMR without an additional and pricey software key), so those who own one of these units will still be able to use it. But if you are thinking of getting into local scanning, there is little sense in investing in a P25 capable unit unless you know for sure the agencies you want to scan do not, and are not planning to, enable encryption.
All this is sad. Over the course of the few months I worked on this post, two events occurred. First was an outbreak of bad weather in mid-February, with a line of strong storms that pushed through the southeast. The south metro Atlanta area was hard hit with strong winds, flash flooding and even an EF0 tornado. I was woken up at 0430 by my weather radar, and spent the next six hours glued to my scanner, monitoring our county P25 system. The information was invaluable - reports on issues like downed trees, power outages, damaged cars, requests for assistance. Since our local radio club, and our repeaters, are dedicated to supporting the National Weather Service regional forecast office in Peachtree City, GA, there was no repeater coverage for events inside our county (an issue that has since been corrected with the re-establishment of our 146.685 repeater). I ended up posting situational updates to our club via our Groups.io email reflector. A few of the issues I picked up on the scanner - trees down, and localized flooding - got posted over to the NWSChat site
Recently, my wife and I spent several days camping on Lake West Point in Georgia, and I brought along the Kenwood TH-D75 programmed with a wide variety of maritime, GMRS, MURS, and state and federal VHF frequencies. I didn't pick up a single transmission on any of these services. It was winter, and there were few campers at the park, so that may have cut down on FRS and GMRS use I've heard in the past when families are using the radios to keep in touch. Still, dead silence on all the other bands I scanned.
Where's all this heading? I fear that the days of the general purpose scanner are slowly but inevitably drawing to a close. Most enthusiasts buy a scanner to listen to their local public service traffic - that's where the action is. If those services are switching over to encrypted or LTE-based services, the justification for developing new scanning technologies goes away. Just in the last few months we've seen one major scanner manufacturer, Whistler, leave the market. Uniden, has to see this as a shrinking market and is likely having internal discussions about market viability.
I'll wrap this up by saying that federal, state and local emergency services are encrypting their services not because they must, but because they can. I understand the compelling reason for encrypting many law enforcement frequencies - it's a safety and security issue. But there's no compelling reason for encrypting frequencies dedicated for things like fire, ambulance, public works and other service channels. If we are to preserve our ability to monitor these frequencies, we need to let our elected representatives know, and we need to flip the current paradigm, which today goes like this, "We (the government) have the ability to encrypt, and we're going to do it unless you give us a good reason not to (and we get to decide if it's a good enough reason, or not)." Instead the paradigm needs to be, "The frequencies will remain open unless you (the government) can provide a compelling argument why they should be encrypted."
W8BYH out
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