This forum is for discussions regarding System Infrastructure and Related Equipment. This includes but is not limited to repeaters, base stations, consoles, voters, Voice over IP, system design and implementation, and other related topics.
I come to you guys with radio help. I was asked for some advice by a private college with the following request/problem/question:
Our college security uses a standard uhf & vhf radio system. We are having problems of people "jumping calls" including medical calls ... in which we would like to prevent the joe q. student from arriving onscene before we do ... prevent others from knowing who is going by rescue [they are concerned ref HIPPA] ... and all in all, get a tighter grip on who is listening out there.
So, I ask the board, as radios are not my forte ... what is avail, other then a 800 digital system, remember, we are dealing with a private college here, to allow encode/decode?? of frequencies (currently, they only have 2 channels for security) to allow them to lock the listener base down to only those with a security portable/base.
Bottom line is if you don't want the general population
knowing about what's going on, don't say it over the radio.
As for the HIPPA issue, it is best to never give any names
over an open radio channel. Your better off to use a land
line phone or one of the digital cell phones and call the info
in if it is time sensitive. Most of the rescue people and
ambulance squads never give any names over the air. They
use a data terminal or a secuered phone connection like a
digital cell phone.
I wouldn't even give the address info over the air. Another
solution would be to use a digital or Alpha-numeric pager
for your dispatch information. That way there is no info
being sent over the radio about the call except the unit
is enroute and has arrived.
I guess I should have clarrified a bit more. First being a recently retired from PD/EMS/Fire dispatcher for 5 years, I do feel comfortable in saying that there current way of dispatching is just fine without any worries of violations of patients rights.
There are certain people that are requesting the info (which they have no busines doing in the first place) when they hear it on the radio (Address/unit no. etc ...) and calling in to get the scoop. They, the college, is just looking end it period by not allowing anyone to listen in.
Alpha numeric, I personally use it ... they on the other hand, would not go with it.
By law, all radio transmissions made on FM channels by Part 90 licensees who are not radio common carriers (i.e., mobile telephone channels) are in the public domain. So you cannot prevent people from listening to what is broadcast.
What you can do, if you want to go to the effort, is to make what people are allowed to listen to unintelligible.
One way of doing this is by what some folks call encryption. There is a wide range of encryption techniques, in terms of effectiveness, reliability and cost. The "rolling code" method that someone referred to, employing equipment by Midian that can probably be fitted to your portables and mobiles at reasonable cost, would provide some measure of unintelligibility, presuming (as I infer from your posts) that your system is a simplex one. Phase inversion and "rolling code" encryption devices will not work on a voted or wireline repeated system.
The other alternative, as you seem to be aware, would be to go to a digital system. Note that conventional digitial is not encryption, and it could be monitored by anyone with a digital receiver and access (via intelligence or trial-and-error) to the employed NAC (the digital equivalent of PL). A digitial trunked system adds the complication (from the eavesdropper's perspective) that even if the eavesdropper purchased a compatible radio, that radio will not follow digital trunked traffic unless and until it has "affiliated" with the trunked system, and as a technical matter that is something over which the system operator has pretty effective control. However, a trunked system is off your table, both as a matter of cost and because you don't have the traffic loading to warrant one.
In the real world, presuming your units do not travel beyond the range of your owned radio system, the best bet is probably some form of mobile data terminal at the base and in the mobile rigs. A form of radio email, this is, as a practical matter, largely immune from eavesdropping, and the cost is reasonable.
OK, he's already said that they don't have money. Therefore, I suspect going ASTRO or deploying MDCs is rather out of the question.
Dakota - I'd check with both Transcrypt and Midian. They both make retrofit encryption boards... something simple like rolling code voice inversion should be sufficient (yes, it can be decoded by a geek with the right equipment, but not in real time... how long do you want the encoded messages to stay private? never is not a valid answer) and can be done fairly cheaply.
Also, if you are looking at new radios, Kenwood's new x180 series comes with voice inversion built-in. If you want something sexier than straight voice inversion, you can add a plug-in module which gives you rolling-code.
You might try taking a completely different approach. There probably are some sort of nuisance laws/regulations that apply, either on campus or in the city/county in which this is happening.
Put out some articles/ announcements in the local paper, the college paper, other forms of local/college communications means, that th will not be tolerated, and repeat offenders will be charged with (appropriate codes)
(It also occurs, that the next practice excercise you have, would be an excellant time to entrap some of these folks. Just arrange for a fake practice call, and see who all shows up. A little pre planning, of course)
There SURELY are some ordinances that apply, including things akin to interfering with police/fire/emergency, etc, and if there isn't there SHOULD BE.
Otherwise, a radio based solution all boils down to, in the end, money. There is certainly specialized/ encrypted/etc equipment available, but at what cost? Here in the greater area where I live, including the county, all communications is pretty much still done with conventional UHF radio, except in some sensitive situations, additional info is relayed to an officer enroute, or senior onscene, via cellphone. I don't believe, at this time that our city/county has any MDS or MDT (mobile data terminal)
ANYTHING you do, in the form of encryption, is going to have to be carefully thought out, because if something should happen to this system, you could end up with reduced or no communications. This is one reason, of course, that such equipment is so darn expensive.
My POINT is, that even though there are undoubtedly some "chasers" in my area, it has not been a big problem, because violations are dealt with.
440roadrunner wrote:You might try taking a completely different approach. There probably are some sort of nuisance laws/regulations that apply, either on campus or in the city/county in which this is happening.
Put out some articles/ announcements in the local paper, the college paper, other forms of local/college communications means, that th will not be tolerated, and repeat offenders will be charged with (appropriate codes)
(It also occurs, that the next practice excercise you have, would be an excellant time to entrap some of these folks. Just arrange for a fake practice call, and see who all shows up. A little pre planning, of course)
There SURELY are some ordinances that apply, including things akin to interfering with police/fire/emergency, etc, and if there isn't there SHOULD BE.
Otherwise, a radio based solution all boils down to, in the end, money. There is certainly specialized/ encrypted/etc equipment available, but at what cost? Here in the greater area where I live, including the county, all communications is pretty much still done with conventional UHF radio, except in some sensitive situations, additional info is relayed to an officer enroute, or senior onscene, via cellphone. I don't believe, at this time that our city/county has any MDS or MDT (mobile data terminal)
ANYTHING you do, in the form of encryption, is going to have to be carefully thought out, because if something should happen to this system, you could end up with reduced or no communications. This is one reason, of course, that such equipment is so darn expensive.
My POINT is, that even though there are undoubtedly some "chasers" in my area, it has not been a big problem, because violations are dealt with.
Under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, no state or local government has the power to outlaw accessing what Congress has declared to be in the public domain.
We have delt with this very same problem for 40 odd years. Two ambulance companies on the same channel...
So do a little scrambiling, one way was to do the addresses a whole block off, the streets off a couple, and the scanner nuts will probally give up. The ambulance companies gave up chasing the other co's calls because they wound up at the wrong place. Kinda like a "poor mans rolling code"...
440 writes:(It also occurs, that the next practice excercise you have, would be an excellant time to entrap some of these folks. Just arrange for a fake practice call, and see who all shows up. A little pre planning, of course) .
Great idea and do some false calls too and see who shows up.
Many police, fire, ect, departments have used this same "trick" and entrapped the 'listeners'.
Check out transcrypt international at the above web page, they make scrambler boards for your radios that are easily installed in them.
One of our local PDs uses them and they supply the level of security that they are looking for which sounds to be along the line of what your looking for.
Under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, no state or local government has the power to outlaw accessing what Congress has declared to be in the public domain.
You completely misunderstood the intended point of my post.
It may be perfectly legal to monitor radio transmissions, but what DOES NOT have to be legal, is nuisance calls to dispatch or other authorized agencies fishing for information just so someone can be an ambulance chaser. There are all kinds of ways to ordinance this, including declaring it a nuisance. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't quote the laws, but I'll guarantee you, that if I called the local dispatch center very many times asking "where was that accident" or "did anybody spill any blood and guts" there would be problems for me.
Also, it's commonly done that when someone outside the scope of an incident gets bothersome, the PD can arrest them for interfering, etc. A few incidents like that should send a message, and make sure that it gets a little news coverage.
I want to thank everyone who had input both publicly on the forum and via pm. I was able to take everyones suggestions ... do some more research .. and present the director with a couple of options.
Now we will wait and see what the outcome will be.
