Unfortunately digital trunking is going to involve encryption modes that make scanner monitoring of those transmissions useless. DES is already becoming quite common, and with the advent of Project 25, it is likely that most digital trunking systems (especially those in public service will be runnning high level encryption (256 bit) or cipher by 2010. Given the mandate deadlines for implementation thanks to stupid laws like the HSA, most agencies will have to capitulate in order to keep qualifying for federal funding, or else risk getting left behind and out in the dark for mutual aid ops.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I must've retrofitted thousands of trunked portables in central Washington with DES boards, and that was 5 years ago.

YES...if.

If you can afford a digital scanner, get it.
There are fewer and fewer occasions to get traffic on plain analog radios, except in a few places (New York is still very "analog-friendly".

I find that a good general-purpose scanner is very, very handy, in many situations.
I carry a portable ham radio, which I use more as a scanner, when I travel to listen in to the air traffic when I'm stuck on the ground. You learn more from clearance delivery than you ever will from the gate agent.

I listen to the weather radio channels, I tune in news media, and of course, I like to listen to local fire departments.

Well worth it.

What is a digital scanner?

To my knowledge you can’t decode digital signals if you wanted to with any scanner. And I believe it’s illegal to do if you could. Not that that would stop me as I use to listen to cell calls when they were analog. But once a signal is digital it’s unreadable by a scanner.


PS listening to the news media is illegal, I would never do that……..

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I went with the Uniden BC-246T analog trunking scanner. Plenty of channels, light handheld form factor, DCS/CTCSS, Close Call feature... pretty much the best package I could afford (more or less 200$).

Seems like I should purchase software to program it because, according to what i've read on several forums, it can be a pain to program manually. In the manual, they say that to move from character to character (when inputing names for your frequencies), you need to hold the FUNC button and press 2 or 4 (depending on the way you wish to move the cursor). UGH!

Anyways, sounds like a winner! I really couldn't justify shelling out 500$+ for a digital scanner.

Bzzt!

There are many digital scanners on the market - Radioshack and Bearcat sell them.

http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.j...canner&sr=1

Perhaps you're thinking of encrypted digital, which is a whole different situation.

If you can cite specific law about news media, I'd love to see it.

I can cite tons of laws about radio scanning, and not a one grants news media any special legal protection.

The only thing that's universally illegal in the USA is scanning cell phones.

For the sake of completeness and full disclosure we must mention the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1934 which makes it illegal to DIVULGE (not listen to- divulge) the contents of radio transmissions except for broadcast and amateur.

So recording the transmissions and sending them to the TV news station would be illegal. The news media would have to understand this pretty clearly. They can go to the scene if they hear something on the scanner but they can't use what they hear in the story unless they can get the police to release recordings.

Indeed, that's the case here in Bucks County, PA, where we have a 500 Mhz Morotola Astro system, and as I recall encryption is a trivial addition to the system.

On the one hand, as a civilian, I like being able to hear what's going on, on the other hand, as a responder, it can be a bit frustrating to have "flash crowds" around a call because someone hear the call on a scanner and text messaged a bunch of folks to "go check out the meth lab bust" - so we end up with a lab bust call AND a crowd to be managed. I don't have the people to deal with it.

In Florida, a news person and amateur radio operator are specifically exempted from requirements that do not permit scanners in vehicles. Given the time the section was written and/updated, the intent of the section appears to be that news papers and amateur radio operators provided a public service and could monitor all police frequencies. At the time, all government radio systems would have been "in the clear". There is no specific exemption for "digital" or "encrypted" communications.

Florida State Statues (FSS)

FSS 843.16(1) - A person, firm, or corporation may not install or transport in any motor vehicle or business establishment, except an emergency vehicle or crime watch vehicle as herein defined or a place established by municipal, county, state, or federal authority for governmental purposes, any frequency modulation radio receiving equipment so adjusted or tuned as to receive messages or signals on frequencies assigned by the Federal Communications Commission to police or law enforcement officers or fire rescue personnel of any city or county of the state or to the state or any of its agencies. Provided, nothing herein shall be construed to affect any radio station licensed by the Federal Communications System or to affect any recognized newspaper or news publication engaged in covering the news on a full-time basis or any alarm system contractor certified pursuant to part II of chapter 489, operating a central monitoring system.

FSS 843.16(3) - This section shall not apply to any holder of a valid amateur radio operator or station license issued by the Federal Communications Commission or to any recognized newspaper or news publication engaged in covering the news on a full-time basis or any alarm system contractor certified pursuant to part II of chapter 489, operating a central monitoring system.

^ Yeah, it's so tough for me to keep track of the state laws that I am afraid to bring my scanning ham radios to the U.S., nevermind my "pure" scanners. In Canada, the law is that the airwaves are public domain/property, so anybody can listen to anything i.e. it's up to the source to encrypt if they don't want people to hear...seems fair enough. What can be illegal is disclosing what you hear to a third party, but you can use the info for yourself. So listening to cell phones is allowed, if you can, but most get over that quickly enough.

There are still plenty of interesting and useful "plain analog" things to listen to, at least here. Taxis and towtrucks are a good source of info. EMT, lots of Fire and Police still. All sorts of businesses, etc. The hams and the aircraft, (marine) weather channels. Well, that's just some of what I have programmed in for locally.

Hello there SARbound,
So, how did that Uniden BC-246T work out for you?

I realize that your post was from nearly a year ago. I am considering the purchase of a Scanner myself ... so, naturally, I began searching ETS for information and found your post from 3/2008.

I searched Radioreference.com (as was mentioned earlier in the thread), and it appears that my county police/fire/emergency services are not yet using a Trunking system. But, of course, there is no guarantee that they will not change to that in the future.
A Uniden BC246T or the (less expensive) BC92XLT might do the job for me, at least for now.

So, now that we're into 2009, what's the general consensus from those of you that are experienced with Scanners?
Are they still worthwhile, or are new Trunking and/or scrambling technologies expected to make Scanners essentially useless very soon?