I've known for years that the Michigan State Police had changed their radio frequencies and switched to a digitally encrypted system. Local
departments, particularly the fire, EMS as well as local city and town police departments, continued to use the same frequencies with unencrypted
analog signals, the same as they have for decades.
I have always have keep 2-way communications in my survival preps. I had felt that you not only needed to be able communicate with your own people,
but you needed to monitor the real time local situation by scanning the communications of police and emergency response teams. So for years I have
been monitoring what I can, the local fire departments, the public and private EMS services and a few local police departments. I can cover three
counties along a major interstate.
There was always EMS responding to elderly problems like falls, difficulty in breathing, along with fires, auto accidents and criminal activity of
various types. This was especially true on summer weekends with regular coordination with the medi-vac helicopter service as well as the usual
activity.
I would listen on the weekends, esp. the big holiday weekends, but something changed after this last 4th of July weekend. The scanner became near dead
silent in the following months. We've had some good rain storms, so I assumed that my out door antenna had shorted out and failed to receive and
signals. So I switched it over to my CB base antenna, a half wave that was up farther than the other antenna, one that had no problems. I even was
able to pick up clear signal from a hand held transceiver I have, but still radio silence.
After carefully monitoring at all hours I find one local EMS service making a very few brief broadcasts, but no chatter on any other frequency I have
on the scanner. The radio traffic slowed after the COVID shut down, but it was steady and the usual reports were still coming in, but not lately.
This local radio silence is very strange. I suspect they may have switched to a smart phone app, there hasn't been any talk of switching the whole
system to digital signals, I'd still pick that up unless they left their analog frequencies all together.
I have noticed, after searching this subject that many local and state police departments are going digital and interestingly enough, they don't allow
the press (or public) to monitor the encoded signals, for public safety of course. Featured were cities like Atlanta, Denver and New York, I guess you
could have expected that to happen in those cities.
Atlanta[/ur
l]
[url=https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/360/police-scanners-have-gone-silent-in-denver-but-will-the-public-suffer-as-a-consequence]Denver
New York
There is a redit comment about Minneapolis scanner radio silence too, but I can get that to load at the moment, plus I have to get off the computer
for a bit. I'll get deeper with this later.
edit on 13-9-2020 by MichiganSwampBuck because: Messy Links - Can't Fix