---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:35:23 -0000
From: [log in to unmask]
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [scanner] NEW DIGITAL PROJECT 25 SCANNER

Project 25 scanner expected
in 'about a year'

Uniden America, Fort Worth, TX, expects to manufacture a scanner
capable of receiving trunked Project 25 communications within a
year or a little longer.

"It's something we have been working on," said Jim Cassidy, the
company's product planning manager in charge of scanners and
other products.

Cassidy said that listening to communications carried by a public
safety trunked radio system doesn't violate restrictions imposed by
federal law, which includes exceptions for public safety
communications and for broadcasts intended for public reception.

Aside from many other advantages offered by trunking, some public
safety agencies liked the relative privacy offered by trunking before
trunk tracking scanners were developed. Conventional scanners
cannot automatically follow conversations or working groups as
they switch from channel to channel. But news-gathering
organizations pressured local and state governments to allow them
to purchase trunking transceivers - with the transmitters disabled
- to continue monitoring police, fire and emergency medical
communications.

Many public safety agencies relish the thought that Project 25's
digital signals once again will give them privacy because current
scanners only convert analog signals into intelligible audio.
Development of a compatible scanner would overcome the nominal
privacy given by Project 25's digital nature.

The next step for public safety agencies would be to use Project
25's encrypted mode.

"Once a system is encrypted, it is absolutely illegal to monitor it,"
Cassidy said. "But when enough systems go encrypted, news
agencies will bring it to the FCC's attention and say, 'We can't
deliver the six o'clock news anymore because we can't hear what's
going on.' What will drive that to occur is when we release a Project
25 digital scanner."

Cassidy said that although it is uncertain whether the FCC would
act, it seems certain that news agencies will make a case that they
have the right to monitor communications systems paid for by
taxpayers. He expects news organizations to concede that certain
facets of public safety communications should be encrypted, though.

"I have a feeling that's where the argument will be played out, but
not for a couple of years," he said. "When Uniden produces a
Project 25 scanner, many news agencies will need one because
many systems are going to Project 25 so quickly. Will public safety
agencies choose to spend the money to go encrypted? If they do,
all that can be done is to bring it to the FCC's attention that news
agencies will be unable to hear common transmissions that allow
them to bring citizens the news.

"The first step toward that day will be taken when Uniden comes to
market with a digital scanner," Cassidy said.



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