Peeling the lid off the can of worms…again.

[CQPSK]

Interesting article.

http://www.mrt.com/news/crime/article_3 ... 963f4.html

[brandon]

I agree 100% the scanner feeds are killing the hobby. I used to stream a few years ago, but once I saw how many people were listening (especially via smart phones), it really made me think twice and I ended up pulling them from RadioReference. I still maintain a couple ProScan links for out of area agencies, but they are for private use by me, myself and I.

I'm afraid that for many areas the damage has already been done. I understand SBSO has a lot of issues with the feeds (i.e Dorner case) and are going full time encrypted in the next couple years. Also noticed the city of Corona pulled their official feeds from Broadcastify.

[cvrules90]

God Brandon I remember listening to Riverside Police/Fire while studying. Sometimes I listened to Corona, or even Murrieta. I saw Corona Police pull off their feed and for a split second thought they were crypto.

There was even a person who broadcast public safety in the Coachella Valley which I loved to listen to. That feed's been pulled off.

It is depressing how emergency service personel are trying to plug our ears. I guess we should all sell our smartphones and tablets and go for those older flip phones. Instead of making a device that could, for example, predict the next earthquake, I got a device with a million apps that lets me surf the net while taking a drop.

Oh Tupac! Please come out of your grave and write a few raps about this. That would make some good hits.

[brandon]

Scanner feeds were fine when it used to just be us scanner geeks that listened to them. Like the old SBN feeds and ProScan stuff, which could only be done from a computer. I have listened to scanner feeds since the late 90s (remember Real Player anyone? LOL) and never really had a problem with them. But now with smartphone apps having the ability to monitor feeds "on the go", they have been given too much exposure and brought unwanted attention. Now any goofball that heads out to commit crimes and run from the police can download a scanner app to their phone and be on their merry way. Too much potential for it to be abused imo. At least with a traditional scanner it took a little common sense to know how to program a trunked system.

[inlandpatch]

Scanner feeds were fine when it used to just be us scanner geeks that listened to them. Like the old SBN feeds and ProScan stuff, which could only be done from a computer. I have listened to scanner feeds since the late 90s (remember Real Player anyone? LOL) and never really had a problem with them. But now with smartphone apps having the ability to monitor feeds "on the go", they have been given too much exposure and brought unwanted attention. Now any goofball that heads out to commit crimes and run from the police can download a scanner app to their phone and be on their merry way. Too much potential for it to be abused imo. At least with a traditional scanner it took a little common sense to know how to program a trunked system.

Yes i completely agree how live feed ruined the hobby and how many agencies are going enc because of it. I also hate how uniden decided to put the zip code feature on the new scanners and hp-1, it does not "help" scanner enthusiast, we already know how to program radios, this just gives all the criminals a radio with no work attached at all, thats what separated the criminals from scanner enthusiast it was difficult at first to understand. sorry just me ranting

[cvrules90]

Scanner feeds were fine when it used to just be us scanner geeks that listened to them. Like the old SBN feeds and ProScan stuff, which could only be done from a computer. I have listened to scanner feeds since the late 90s (remember Real Player anyone? LOL) and never really had a problem with them. But now with smartphone apps having the ability to monitor feeds "on the go", they have been given too much exposure and brought unwanted attention. Now any goofball that heads out to commit crimes and run from the police can download a scanner app to their phone and be on their merry way. Too much potential for it to be abused imo. At least with a traditional scanner it took a little common sense to know how to program a trunked system.

Yes i completely agree how live feed ruined the hobby and how many agencies are going enc because of it. I also hate how uniden decided to put the zip code feature on the new scanners and hp-1, it does not "help" scanner enthusiast, we already know how to program radios, this just gives all the criminals a radio with no work attached at all, thats what separated the criminals from scanner enthusiast it was difficult at first to understand. sorry just me ranting

I totally agree with inlandpatch how scanner feeds have contributed to the destruction of our hobby. I still have my 396XT, which I could program with eyes half-shut once. I also don't like the ZIP Code thing because it seems they are giving you only so much. They've done it with the HP, and even GRE released a so-called iScanner.

When I wake up in the morning, I'd like to know where I can expect conjestion. When I hear a ton of sirens out my window, it's interesting for me to know why there's so many trucks running down the street. In fact, it was those tid-bits that got me interested in scanning. Ever since I was a kid and learning about police and fire, I would sit in my room and think "What are they up to now?"

I remember there was even a person who used to broadcast LAPD, but they took down that feed chiefly cause he was broadcasting even their tactical channels. Now there's an LAPD feed with their dispatch channels and hot-shots etc...

There are even places where secondary channels (e.g. ops, cars) are encrypted keeping all the dispatch channels open. Fact, Phoenix Police did that lately to keep up with the rest of the county. I guess so they could switch to a TAC channel and keep the media from giving us false information or rather-giving us dirty laundry.

[CQPSK]

Interesting report…especially at 3:00 min into it.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=9509085

Sort of removes the logic from the popular "only encrypt the tactical channels" argument.

[cvrules90]

Yup she was listening to a police scanner. Sad. There seem to be more fire feeds than police feeds.

[brandon]

Yup she was listening to a police scanner. Sad.

Yep. And was STILL caught. Hopefully they throw the book at her. 50 years minimum.

[cvrules90]

The rule is you're not supposed to be releasing transmissions you receive, and you're not supposed to use scanners (or apps thereof) to help hold up a store for example. That's where it becomes trivial. I remember on the EDACS network the dispatcher would also say a sentence followed by break... possibly to make sure unauthorized listeners would turn their radios off.