Ambos to encrypt

[Mike Alpha]

"THE State Government's drive for secrecy and desire to control information has intensified, with the ambulance service to encrypt its radio network next year."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 5889581990

Might have to move to Melbourne...

Mike

[centralcoastscanman]

The only times i've ever heard patient details mentioned over the air was

1) when the mdt's crashed
2) when they were responding a vehicle that didn't have an mdt in it..
3) when someone forgot to book a job from a hospital and want the ambos to do something on the fly...

very easy problems to fix, and encryption is just a quick fix solution

[Bigfella237]

The thing that most concerns me is how much money these state government funded agencies are outlaying for all this encryption!

Taking a non-encrypted radio and adding a UCM and flashcode options for encryption is a US$1500 per radio cost! I guess Mother would cut them a deal for upgrading a few thousand radios at once but it still works out to be a cheque with a whole heap of zeros on the end?

Yes it's nice not to have people's personal details broadcast but you have to weigh up the cost... is it really worth spending so much money... in my opinion no, it isn't.

Perhaps I should buy shares in Motorola, people seem to love writing them big cheques!

Andrew

[citabria]

Its ridiculous isn't it!

[rustynswrail]

Its ridiculous isn't it!

It could be worse, at least we still have UHFCB and some of the ham bands to monitor!

R

[centralcoastscanman]

The thing that most concerns me is how much money these state government funded agencies are outlaying for all this encryption!

Taking a non-encrypted radio and adding a UCM and flashcode options for encryption is a US$1500 per radio cost! I guess Mother would cut them a deal for upgrading a few thousand radios at once but it still works out to be a cheque with a whole heap of zeros on the end?

Yes it's nice not to have people's personal details broadcast but you have to weigh up the cost... is it really worth spending so much money... in my opinion no, it isn't.

Perhaps I should buy shares in Motorola, people seem to love writing them big cheques!

Andrew

There aren't many times when people's details are read out over ambo radio other than when the mdt's crash...
Since the ambo's are encrypting theirs, i might look at trying to include in my proposal at work to encrypt our comms...

[Mike Alpha]

The thing that most concerns me is how much money these state government funded agencies are outlaying for all this encryption!
Andrew

From what I understand, encryption was part of the P25 upgrade tender, so it is all paid for.

Mike

[criten]

Don't see why... never heard ambos mention names of patients on the radio.

They could be talking about anyone.

Pretty amazing too that they can throw large sums of money at their radio network but still do not employ enough staff and mobilize enough units to provide adequate healthcare to the public.

[citabria]

The thing that most concerns me is how much money these state government funded agencies are outlaying for all this encryption!
Andrew

From what I understand, encryption was part of the P25 upgrade tender, so it is all paid for.

Mike

Weather or not its part of another project or not we all still get to fork out $$$$$$$$$$ for it.

Remember kiddies, this is YOUR tax money at work here

[Bigfella237]

From what I understand, encryption was part of the P25 upgrade tender, so it is all paid for.
Mike

I'm sure it was, my point is that it doesn't matter if it was included in the upgrade tender or paid for separately, each radio would still have cost extra to have the encryption included; I don't want to turn this into a political debate but I bet the average voting taxpayer would have opted out if asked whether they wanted to spend the extra money?

As I've said before, I'm not against agencies using encryption, it definitely has it's place in specialised operations that require a little 'stealth' but the cost of encrypting all day-to-day radio traffic far outweighs the reward.

As for the media getting their information from the ambo's comms, the reporter who said that obviously hasn't listened to the ambulance frequencies for a while, the days of allocating jobs over-the-air are long gone (with the exceptions centralcoastscanman listed above).

You would get far more info from the NSWFB by listening to stop messages... I suppose they will be the next to go encrypted?

Andrew