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4 NEW 700 Mhz radio licenses ( WQHJ-934, WQHJ-935, WQHJ-936 and WQHJ-937 ) for King County Metro Transit, Snohomish County -- Community Transit and the Pierce County Transit Systems have been granted. However -- a consultant claims that the entire group will use "Highly Encrypted digital modes" AT THE CLIENTS REQUEST. Why the HECK does a transit radio system --- need to be highly encrypted ??? These "idiots" need to spend more money on buying new buses and less money on a Trunked 700 Mhz radio -- with very high security level encryption. Let me guess !!! They applied for "Homeland Security Funding ???? I guess the transit operators think they should be able to give the tax payer --- a ride to the poor house. Take a Taxi -- It will cost you less. Time to make some phone calls. MTM

Be quite citizen!...




We'll let you know what you need to know.

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You missed me -- with that one Ken. What are you trying to say ??

:wink:

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Ken, If you mean to say that I am steamed -- because a Public Agency is stepping on our rights to listen and mis-spending public money --- yes I am. The 1934 Communications Act and Congress made it possible for the general public to be able to listen to public radio channels. Radiowaves are a natural resource. There is no public safety need to use very high security encryption on a public transit radio system. It smells like a dead fish. It walks and talks like a back door pay-off to a cheap Pike Street whore. IF --- IF -- this was a Police radio system --- it might be an acceptable measure. But when the public has no access into the day to day operations of a public agency --- this violates our civil rights and spends un-needed money. And I want to know what "Bozo" came up with the idea and why. MTM

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well dont feel bad about transit going 700mhz secure digital down in king
county.
The public transit system here in Vancouver b.c. is probably going to m/a-com's open sky system in the future and of course its not monitorable by any of the scanners that are out in the market place.

kinda wierd too that our transit is spending tons of money on a system thats is already in place on 800mhz trunked.
Our suburban buses(98b line) to one area of town use the same trunked system the police(plus transit police) fire and amublance use here.
Note: police/transit police/amblance not monitorable here....provoice
digital used by them :(
The local buses use thier own 800mhz voting repeater system.
The supervisors use 410mhz conventional repeater system.
the seabus uses a 410mhz conventional repeater system.
and our subway/skytrain uses a 410mhz conventional repeater system.


which they all operate under the umbrella of TransLink.

If they were smart they would look at combining all transit sevices on the 800mhz trunked system instead... But hey its only tax payers money so lets go shopping for a new radio system.

:( :( :(

just my two cents worth

Not going to be much longer before Police/EMS/Fire will no longer be able to be picked up on a scanner.

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There is a bit of background info about the Metro Transit 700 Mhz system in this document:

http://www.metrokc.gov/oirm/services/re ... Report.doc

Kerwin

MTM- my info is not the same as yours.

xjf79- one of the reasons you don't find transit on public safety trunked systems is that their traffic patter is much different (longer calls) and does not permit rapid turnover of the channels which means the system will handle fewer calls.

Ken- don't know what you mean, but we have had several discussions over the years about how to allow scannerites to keep monitoring.

Wiz

if you looked at the beginning of my post, you'd see we do have some
transit(bus) traffic using a tg id on the police/ fire/ ambulance 800mhz trunked public safety system here already.
its very low use but Im sure other transit tg ids could be added to the system.
look at some other major city's where they have various agencies using the system other than police and fire.. Im sure it could be done to King counties system too for transit?????
yes I know that transit calls may be abit longer but thats why you add more trunk channels on the system to handle the increase of tg ids unless its already maxed out.

Seattle is max'd out and KC/VC is near maxed out and there are no more frequencies available.

Wiz

Wiz and the group .. my point is that there is no need for any public transit system to use a very high mode of security encryption as a regular operation mode. 700 Mhz trunked -- yes -- a must for the Metro King - Snohomish - Pierce County area. But the need for any type of encryption to keep the general public from listening to the day to day operations is a bad call. --- I equally support such encryption -- but only for transit security units and only as a selectable mode -- by any other transit radio user. Dame the Homeland Security Grants. It becomes just another example of government waste of tax dollors. I also dislike that the "transit owners" requested such radios. The Oregon based consultant saw no need to inform the "transit owners" that there was no real need for such radios. It smells like a dead fish to me. Shame on those involved.

You had me till your support...


I do not support ANY encryption of any public system short the Military.

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:D Ken, Ole Fred Thompson & myself are not running for anything. I'm just trying to get the other radio techs - that I respect -- like Wiz, to see "the light" when it comes to the use of highend security encryption -- on public radio systems. Orange County, California has a countywide 800 mhz trunked public safety radio system. While the fire and EMS services are clear analog -- all police and sheriffs communications are encrypted. There is poor interoperability between Orange County and everyone else. Even the CHP has better inter-communications -- and the CHP is on LOW BAND.