The lovely wife asked about Christmas gifts and a scanner came to mind.
With the new narrow band movement…what would you recommend for a new scanner? This will be set up in my office and I have a very good antenna in the attic (Railcom).
Specifically, what should I be looking for in specs or a brand/model?
Ed
Best thing I can tell you is to do a search on-line. I found a variety of models touted to be narrowband capable.
In reality, all scanners are essentially narrowband capable - what you lose is volume and range, at least on the current channels.
What you have to watch for is the ability to program the new 12.5 KHz spacing, and looking forward, 6.25 KHz spacing. My two “pocket” scanners will handle 12.5, but not 6.25, and neither is digital capable. But I’ve had them for a while, too…
You should also probably give some thought to digital capability, as the narrower bandwidths are leaning that way, especially 6.25. The public safety community is trending toward the P25 standard. I hear the railroads may go to NXDN. There are other digital technologies as well. Some are still very proprietary and won’t be available for consumer scanners.
The adage “go big or go home” kind of applies here - get the best scanner you can afford (or your wife is willing to spend).
Something that may come into play in the future is encryption. If the railroads start encrypting their communications, which can easily be done when they go purely digital, no scanner will be able to eavesdrop.
Cacole:
What will I do then? Probably take the guitar out of the basement and torture the neighborhood. Seriously, been wondering when something like that would occur. Way too much info out there on the public airways.
Thanks
Ed
MP - The same trend is occurring in public safety communications. Before long you won’t be able to hear on the scanner that Fred Smith’s dog did it’s duty in Mrs. Jone’s yard, either.
Encrypting digital signals is much easier than encrypting analog. In fact, on a digital system, you don’t even realize the signal is encrypted unless you’re trying to listen on a receiver that can’t encrypt it.
At least one public safety agency I know of selected a currently unscannable technology (Harris’s “OpenSky”) specifically because it is unscannable.
While there are some pretty sophisticated encryption schemes available (I know what they are, but I have no idea how to decrypt them), even a simple scheme is going confound the average scanner listener.
I would submit that there will be a time in the foreseeable future when about all there will be to listen to will be taxicabs and fast-food drivethroughs. If that.
There are still lots of public safety agencies using analog systems, and will be for some time. It’s pricy to replace the infrastructure and all those mobile units. Many governments are experiencing serious revenue shortages.
Digital lets much more traffic use an existing frequency, but unless the RR is feeling constrained by traffic volume or other considerations, making the switch may well not seem worth the cost and effort. But when they figure out all the additional info (telemetry, video?) they can shoot down their pipes, the payback becomes much more attractive.
An important factor for local governments is ‘first responder interoperability’. During any large emergency fire and police departments have agreements to support each other. Encryption within fiefdoms could impede this ability unless it could be turned off quickly and easily.
Generally the “interop” channels aren’t encrypted. On trunked systems, those usually consist of common use talkgroups. Interop between trunked and conventional systems usually involves “gateways” which will also be unencrypted.
On some systems, only certain talkgroups are encrypted, generally involving “black ops” (ie, drug busts) or personal information.