Our city has been running an APCO-25 digital system since 2000 or 2001. In 2014 the whole thing is being up-graded with this re-banding that's going on. They will be running 700mhz and the whole thing is encrypted. If this is a nation wide thing then the price of scanners should drop like a lead balloon.
Public Safety radios are designed to have a useful life of about 10 years.
Since the government doesn't spend it's own money to replace and upgrade these systems, it is all a part of doing business.
What you need to concern yourself with is a new type of radio system called FirstNet - which is a Nationwide broadband 700 MHz system that the whole country is going to be required to subscribe to by 2024.....
When this happens, all police cars, public safety etc will all have this equipment in their cars and when a patrol officer does a traffic stop - all the public service - everywhere will have access to this information.
If there is any wants or warrants - the person will be detained at that point.
Its all a way to do more with less people.
This is the reason why the FCC took these frequencies away from the television broadcasters and gave them to the public service in the first place.
Once the migration is complete the frequencies the public service previously occupied will be sold to the highest bidder - cell phone people.
Then those frequencies will also be decrypted...
You won't ever have 100% digital on the fire bands - since most fire companies here are volunteer and if you took away the ability for these people to monitor the frequencies with their home scanners - most people would not be able to afford the newer digital equipment and would just give up being a volunteer fireman.
Very little is in the clear nowadays as even most dispatch info is submitted via the ROADS system. (Remote Office And Dispatch System).
