[FedCom] DCS

Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:01:29 EDT

APCO 25 DOESNT USE DCS  THEY USE NETWORK ACCESS CODES

Over the past year, New Hampshire's Law Enforcement community was able to 
secure a grant, putting a big shot in the arm of New Hampshire's Law Enforcement 
communications. During this time, many local and county police agencies were 
able to make some great accomplishments in both equipment upgrade and statewide 
interoperability. 

NH State Police secured a grant to in essence "Give" radios to local and 
couty PD's so that they could begin either migrating to or have access to the 
APCO-25 Digital system. Through Motorola, they were able to provide these 
communities radios making it easier for those communities to offset replacement costs 
and set a standard  to base future replacement costs. One benefit of this 
grant is that it's equipment based, not personnel based, which often causes 
problems with a new position that was funded by a grant. But at the end of the grant 
forces the community to either lay off the person in the position, or absorb 
the cost in local taxes. Being equipment, they can just purchase it and go 
(although eventual replacement will again be required).

The majority of the radios purchased, I've been told, were mobiles to be 
installed in vehicles. Some places that may have already had mobiles, were given 
the option to obtain portables in place of mobiles. The cost of the digital 
technology can be expensive so this grant has really helped some smaller 
communities that just couldn't afford the radios to get them. The capabilities of the 
radios (in digital or analog mode) are a true plus for the communities that 
have received them.

These radios have the capability to operate on the State Police Troop and 
other digital frequencies vastly improving interoperability with state agencies. 
In addition, as more communities build up their APCO-25 capabilities (with 
many going to 24/7 digital), it helps the other communities operate with their 
neighbors. This truly uses ultra-modern and backwards compatable technologies to 
the fullest extent. 
DIGITAL SCANNER ARRIVES:

Much to some peoples dismay, the scanner capable of receiving APCO-25 digital 
voice signals is available. Initial reports are good on monitoring the 
various agencies in NH that utilize digital. One thing of note is that the scanner 
"DOES NOT" show the scanner user the "Network Access Code" (NAC) whcih is 
more/less like a PL on the digital system (it really isn't, but the closest 
relation in what's been known in the past). What this means for New Hampshire's Law 
Enforcement community is that unless a person has connections to someone inside 
the LEC, a less mentally stable scanner listener (sorry folks, most scanner 
listeners are perfectly normal people) with access to digital capable two-ways 
could not obtain the NAC from the scanner, put it in a two-way radio and 
interfere with operations. They have to know someone that knows the NAC's to do 
this. Although for the mentally stable, but more serious scanner buff, it's kind 
of fun to compare who uses what for operations (including NAC's). It makes the 
scanner very useful in that one can listen to the digital traffic without 
getting "Too Much Information", while not forcing police to be paranoid that 
folks will now jump on their frequencies and cause problems. It allows a tighter 
control of who is and is not on the system at the radio shop and agency level. 
Also it only does the voice traffic, not other traffic (MDT's, etc), so 
additional security is in place if needed.

I assume some operations will eventually become encrypted digital (remember 
digital is not and never was intended to be secret or encrypted in it's 
operation). This adds cost to radios with the capability so it would probably be 
limited to operations in true need of secrecy (Drug Enforcement, Major Crimes, 
Undercover work, etc). The scanners on the market will not do encrypted digital, 
nor should they. While I have questioned in the past any need for routine or 
day-to-day police operations to be encrypted, there are situations that require 
full secrecy and no scanner should ever be made to monitor that 
traffic....EVER!! These are truly cases where ignorance is bliss.

Another factor is that these new digital capable radios are pretty darn 
expensive (for the full digital capability). The scanner itself costs over $300 and 
the digital APCO-25 card also costs around $300 making it really a scanner 
for serious scanner buffs and not a likely an option for the vast majority of 
criminals (Most dont have $600+ to blow just to listen to the cops and if they 
do, they're making too much money to have much time to take the college style 
courses they'd need to learn how to use the darn thing). 

 FROM :
http://www.geocities.com/jmarcel66/digiupdate.html