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Escambia Upgrades Sheriff, EMS, Fire, County Radio Systems
December 28, 2011
Escambia County has officially switched over to a new a $12.5 million communications systems for use by the county’s law enforcement, EMS, fire department, road department, road prison and code enforcement.
The system was purchased from Motorola under a contract approved in September 2010 by the Escambia County Commission.
Most channels used by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office are encrypted on the new system — meaning that the public can no longer hear most law enforcement communications. Sheriff David Morgan requested the encryption as a public and officer safety issue.
Local media outlets, including NorthEscambia.com, the Pensacola News Journal, CatCountry 98.7, NewsRadio 1620 and WEAR TV 3 lobbied the Escambia County Commission and the sheriff against encrypting law enforcement traffic for media access.
Channels used by the county’s fire departments, EMS and other agencies are not encrypted; the public can still hear traffic on the system using a digital scanner that costs about $400 or more. Traditional analog scanners previously used will no longer monitor most county communications.
In order to meet a Federal Communications Commission mandate for radio communications, the new digital system replaced analog radios that were placed into service in the 1970’s.
Until this change, law enforcement, ambulance service, fire department and other county agencies operated on numerous independent radio systems. This project consolidated all of these systems into one allowing all emergency responders the abilities to communicate with each other easily and more efficiently.
“Since the radio system was placed in service, responders and dispatchers have voiced numerous accolades on the increased coverage and clarity,” according to a statement released Tuesday by Escambia County.
According to Escambia County Commission records, the new system included:
- 163 tower site radios
- 136 receivers
- 27 transmitters
- UPS battery backup at 17 tower sites
- 1,212 walkie talkies
- 534 vehicle radios
- 1,300 Alphanumeric pagers
- 110 voice pagers for the fire department
- 46 desktop radios
- 10 new radio consoles for the Sheriff’s Office
- encryption for the Sheriff’s Office radios
- 10 new radio consoles for 911 dispatch
- replacement of one tower site
- FCC licenses
- disposal of old equipment and tower
The digital radio system was funded as follows:
Comments
18 Responses to “Escambia Upgrades Sheriff, EMS, Fire, County Radio Systems”
If they can’t break the encryption they will clone the radio’s, David is right.
I still believe this will all be MOOT. Where there is a will there is a way.
I hope I’m wrong, because they let a lot of Police, Teachers, and others
that we needed their services go because of budget, and $12 Million I feel could have been better spent.
I have a scanner and enjoy just listening to it., now I will not be able
to do that.
If it IS a problem that criminals can track the police then I certainly
am sorry how I feel about it, because nobody wants criminals
caught more than I do, and I certainly want our LEO’S Safe.
REGARDING:
“Talk to your council members and the encryption could be over turned.”
Sheriff doesn’t take orders from county commissioners.
I think the local media should Not be locked out. There should be some type of screnning process to let the True media listen in. The Sheriff Dept should not have full time encryption on ALL of the channels. The odd thing about this is the Sheriff Dept did leave one channel open. It is the one that warrents and tags are given over the radio. Also all the local County Fire Departments must now pay for a private analog repeater. The county is not going to pay for the analog local fire repeaters. The County Fire would like everyone to use the 3 new digital Fire Tac Frequencies. Before the move Century Fire For example had 3 repeaters they could use besides the Main County Frequency ( Tac 1 = 820 and Tac 2 = 0975 and CD = 145 now they have only one Digital Fire Frequency Tac 1 North = 625 besides the Main frequency . Is this safer by puting all the North End Fire units in one Tac Frequency ?? I don’t think so. Time will tell. It will be intresting if Esc Co, FL gets a new Sheriff in the next election and he or she decides to not have encrypted radios. Talk to your council members and the encryption could be over turned.
Char,
you were right the first time, moot ( Definition 2 not relevant: irrelevant or unimportant Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)
Encryption’s better than that, though. Until they come up with quantum computing it should take a while to break. I’d still think it would be simpler to steal a working receiver which already had decription built in.
me not know
>>If someone can invent encryption then someone can invent an encryption breaker. It is just a matter of time, and was probably started on the minute this
grant came out.
Probably not, unless they are *really* lucky.
If the system used the more common 56-bit encryption, all you would have to do is guess the correct key from 36,028,797,018,963,968 different possibilities. And you would have to do it within a 24 hour period, because the key should change every 24 hours.
If you are that lucky, you’d be better off buying lottery tickets.
“moot” oops probably should have been “MOTE”
You know, I just don’t know. lol
David you hit the nail on the head on all accounts but you missed one.
If someone can invent encryption then someone can invent an encryption breaker. It is just a matter of time, and was probably started on the minute this
grant came out.
12.5 million and it will still be MOOT point !
Am I the only one who thinks this can be a good idea to actually help in law enforcement?
REGARDING:
“Local media isn’t allowed to listen in. What are they trying to hide?”"
They are convinced they would leak information to the suspects just as they are afraid the criminals would monitor their operations if they could. (Don’t worry, some officer will lose or sell a radio and they’ll be listening in. It only takes one bad seed.) All people and entities want to control the information leaving them. it’s part of the nature of humanity.
An interesting example lay in the lead up to the Waco Incident when the news media called the Branch Davidian compound for comment on the task force which was on its way. Kind of let the cat out of the bag. People died.
Not to be outdone, though, the negotiator called the people in the compound just before gassing them to let them know they were about to gas them. This gave them time to put on gas masks. People died.
Caint trust nobody these days.
this has been and continues to be a NIGHTMARE in the fire departments. they dont have the bugs worked out and firefighters are sometimes WITHOUT communication while on emergency calls. we had no communication just last night!
>>It has been this way in Atmore for almost a year now. You can still listen with a digital scanner, but they’re about $350.
Nope. All of the law enforcement in Escambia, Alabama, is Motorola TRBO. It’s encrypted and a digital scanner will not decode it.
It’s less secure than the Escambia, Florida P25 encryption that you flat out will not beat.
In theory, certain scanners (not necessarily digital) and a computer *could* be used to decode Atmore PD, for instance. But there would be a big question as to whether that would be legal.
It has been this way in Atmore for almost a year now. You can still listen with a digital scanner, but they’re about $350.
Local media isn’t allowed to listen in. What are they trying to hide? This, along with the armored car that Morgan purchased is explained in this article here. It’s a humdinger.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html
>>Did the sheriff give media access to the new secure channels by letting it listen in?
NO.
From the article, “Local media outlets, including NorthEscambia.com, the Pensacola News Journal, CatCountry 98.7, NewsRadio 1620 and WEAR TV 3 lobbied the Escambia County Commission and the sheriff against encrypting law enforcement traffic for media access.”
Did the sheriff give media access to the new secure channels by letting it listen in?
This is long overdue. I hope one of these systems will continue to work after a hurricane. Have they taken this into consideration? The old system was accessable to anyone running from the law, terrorists and did not have much clarity and did have lots of static. There are a lot of good reasons for this update. Having worked for Motorola and with them in R & D, I can tell you they have high standards for quality control and produce dependable devices. Don’t slam the new system until we see how well it works.
Sounds like that would pay for nextel a long time?
The ECSO Sheriff’s decision to encrypt the county’s Law Enforcement Radio channels
will only penalize the law abiding citizen’s,media’s(public safety listening ability). Back
in the days of our future sheriff John Powell’s Father,(Ret.PPD dedicated service)..
the police officer’s and sheriff’s deputys were grateful to have law abiding citizens
monitoring the police airwaves to assist them in the apprehension of criminals.
Mr. Reynolds, your story states “most channels used by the ECSO are encrypted on the new system”..Can you clarify if you know what ECSO Law Enforcement (only)
channels are not encrypted..I realize that they will probaly be on possibly an 800mhz
digital..further states”Sheriff Morgan requested the encryption as a public and officer
safety issue”…Can you tell us if you know what the exact public safety issue would be?
It is in the interest of the tax paying public to be able to know (via digitally monitoring)
what,where,and perhaps who (if armed) the bad guy is if one chooses to monitor.
finally Mr.Reynolds..your story states that your “LLC and other media outlets lobbied
the ECC and the Sheriff against encrypting Law Enforcement traffic for media access”;
Can you tell your readers how you will accomplish this task for your on the spot crime
reporting stories.?…and will EC Sheriff Morgan be given your company(LLC) and
other media outlets a Law Enforcement (monitor) only tax-payer paid for radio?.