Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So I have a $200 unit I purchased from Radio Shack and it worked great for the last year that I have had it. Recently It's no longer picking up police bands! all other agencies I can still receive but not city of Milwaukee Police. A while ago I heard that MPD was in the process of changing over to digital and is this the reason I cannot pick anything up? it's a new unit and just one day it stopped working on local police bands. I reset the unit twice and reprogrammed it but to no avail. So does this mean all analog scanners are useless or will be in the future? I have a pro-528 1,000 channel hand held scanner with triple trunking. I paid 200 two years ago for this unit.
Any help?
Last edited by Bo; 02-19-2010 at 08:49 AM..
Reason: Moved from the Entertainment Radio forum. This is a Hobbies topic.
Analog radios won't receive digital traffic. Encrypted digital transmissions are protected by the ECPA and scanner manufacturers are prevented by that law from selling consumer radios that can decrypt digital radio signals. If your local agencies encrypt their digital signals, which nearly all of them do, there won't ever be a consumer radio you can buy to listen to them.
The ECPA has effectively killed the scanner hobby.
Analog radios won't receive digital traffic. Encrypted digital transmissions are protected by the ECPA and scanner manufacturers are prevented by that law from selling consumer radios that can decrypt digital radio signals. If your local agencies encrypt their digital signals, which nearly all of them do, there won't ever be a consumer radio you can buy to listen to them.
The ECPA has effectively killed the scanner hobby.
That is terrible news! thanks for the insight anyways!
Analog radios won't receive digital traffic. Encrypted digital transmissions are protected by the ECPA and scanner manufacturers are prevented by that law from selling consumer radios that can decrypt digital radio signals. If your local agencies encrypt their digital signals, which nearly all of them do, there won't ever be a consumer radio you can buy to listen to them.
The ECPA has effectively killed the scanner hobby.
Not completely true. Actually, a lot of - probably most - agencies DO NOT encrypt their digital traffic unless it is very sensitive. It can therefore be received by any digital scanner (about 4 models are selling now).
So I have a $200 unit I purchased from Radio Shack and it worked great for the last year that I have had it. Recently It's no longer picking up police bands! all other agencies I can still receive but not city of Milwaukee Police. A while ago I heard that MPD was in the process of changing over to digital and is this the reason I cannot pick anything up? it's a new unit and just one day it stopped working on local police bands. I reset the unit twice and reprogrammed it but to no avail. So does this mean all analog scanners are useless or will be in the future? I have a pro-528 1,000 channel hand held scanner with triple trunking. I paid 200 two years ago for this unit.
Any help?
Well, it's not "useless" until it receives nothing. Aircraft, rail, business, marine, etc. are still almost all analog.
The city is indeed transitioning to a new APCO-25 digital trunking system. This is good news and bad news. The good is you can scan this with a digital scanner. The bad is if they encrypt you'll be left in the dark.
Not completely true. Actually, a lot of - probably most - agencies DO NOT encrypt their digital traffic unless it is very sensitive. It can therefore be received by any digital scanner (about 4 models are selling now).
What are those models? I just bought a Radioshack Pro 164 and although I pick up a lot of police and fire frequencies, I still haven't figured out how to save talk groups or enter talk group codes.
Talking to your local scanner group or with a shop that sells scanners will give you a lot of info,basically if it transmits you can receive it assuming you have enough money to buy whats required, many scanners can be upgraded but the key is talking to some one in the know about what needs upgrading and whether your unit is compatible with the upgrade...Joining a scanner forum will give you lots of info on whats possible..
I also have a handheld Radio Shack 60 channel programmable, doesnt get the police or cell phones any more but it sure gets a lot of other stuff like marine,railway,aircraft,frs radio,lots of private company stuff and cb frequencies, getting a current frequency directory for your area is a well spent $20
Actually, I was wrong in my last post. The City of Milwaukee indeed cannot be monitored with even a digital-capable scanner, as they switched to the proprietary OpenSky system (what a misnomer). No scanner is currently capable of decoding OpenSky transmissions, and the producer of the radios (MA/COM or whatever they are called now) has no intention of licensing their technology to scanner manufacturers. This is in contrast to open-standard APCO P25 transmissions, which can be decoded by several scanners available today (PRO-106, PRO-196, BCD396T, BCD996T, PSR500, PSR600) as long as they are not encrypted (a few agencies, most notably Orange County, California and Cook County, Illinois, have encryption enabled for all transmissions, and hence are unmonitorable). The various agencies in Minnesota (law enforcement, EMS, fire, road works, etc.) are transitioning to ARMER, which is a monitorable APCO-P25 digital system. I live in Duluth, where virtually all traffic is still analog; however, we have an active ARMER site relaying the highway patrol dispatch, and a couple northern Wisconsin counties have went P25 digital. I think in particular of Washburn County, which although located 60 miles away, sounds great on my PRO-106 (which I am very impressed with in other respects as well). Listening in on unencrypted digital transmissions is legal; however, encrypted digital transmissions are illegal (and for all intents and purposes, impossible) to monitor.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
