Sadly, no. I have never been to the Spark Museum, but it sounds really interesting and fun. It has been about 40 years since I was last in WA state, sorry - it wasn't me.

No, that's not correct either. There is a switch dedicated to encryption on/off on the radios, but whether the radio honors it or not is based on the system policy set by the customer (the police or whoever owns it. There is no preference or default configuration, all the buttons on the radio are programmable and can be turned on or off or changed to give the operator more or less flexibility or capability, depending on the eventual application of the radio and the expected experience level of the end user.

Most of the systems that are "100% full-time encryption" on all talkgroups are making it mandatory via system policy, that's all. They could, as others do, just designate encrypted specific talk groups, like detectives, drug and SWAT ops be encrypted and everything else like fire and sewer ops in the clear. Then, they will still program the specific encrypted talk groups as strapped that way, but other channels can be in the clear or will use the switch to determine if encryption is needed in the opinion of the user.

As to how many, a LOT is the answer. Motorola is giving away basic RC4 encryption for free with new radio purchases, and charges if they need higher security (DES or AES), It's hard to say no to free!

Of course, Moto sends in the sales Droids and talks up system security and promotes it adding in a few lies and myths like it's harder to jam encryption, or it has better coverage, etc. and they easily dazzle the customers and usually convince them to order the encryption with their purchase.

Where I live (suburb of large city) the police are 100% encrypted except the state-police highway patrol system. Only fire dept. and public works traffic is in the clear. Some of the police agencies have a few delayed feeds of their channel's audio on Broadcastify, but not all. One or two suburban systems are in the clear but those are far-flung suburbs and they probably will be going to encryption next time they upgrade their radio hardware.

LA was special to Motorola. It was used to test the rollout of Moto's first digital attempt, ASTRO. It was basically P25 but but not quite, it used VSELP instead of IMBE vocoding and it was all swapped out a few years later with true P25 once the standard was finalized.

So, LA was kind of like Schaumburg, IL (Motorola HQ's back yard) in that it was a test bed for early digital systems and other Beta and test system deployments.

For varying values of "better".

The digital signal is narrower bandwidth, but crappier audio quality. Some contend digital has a little better usable range than analog, and narrow band signals seems to go a little further than wide band ones.

So, which is actually "better" depends on your yardstick, i.e. audio quality vs, occupied bandwidth vs. effective real-world range and reliability.

The smallest and the largest cities are the last to get encryption, and when they do, they go whole-hog and encrypt usually everything but fire traffic.

The first to get this were the well-funded suburban police, then the small towns started getting it, or hopping onto state-wide systems that are usually encrypted.

The big cities are the last to convert because they have large, expensive multi-site systems they have to retro-fit or replace and more complicated budgets to work out.

That's not true. FYI:

First, the digital repeaters don't care about whether the payload is encrypted or not, it's just a bit set in the headers.

Second, if the system subscribers and console are secure-strapped (preprogammed to ignore the switch) they CAN'T fall back to clear (non-encrypted) mode, ever.

You can still jam the system, but you need a +6dB signal advantage to guarantee FM capture.

Ham radio Motorola Quantar owner and retired Moto design engineer here.

It's a warning. The article is about cars, so anyone using car analogies will cause the thread to self-destruct and implode from being far to meta to possibly exist in the universe.

I loved the Atarisoft original PC version, very true to the arcade version. Or as close as you could get to it with a 16 color palette, and no sound hardware!

Only 1 person in the entire country was able to crack the PC self-booter!

Or even good shareware - Goldwave FTW!

www.goldwave.com

I'm thinking more of using the food products to keep the doors propped open. Just in case you "forgot" where the items were! Stick a frozen pizza in every door and they will get the idea, eventually.

I think you've been watching too much shitty Netflix SciFi movies/series.

Didn't you know the Nazis already have a secret base on the dark side of the Moon?

A scam? No way! I just bought this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... as an NFT from what I'm SURE is a VERY trustworthy bitcoin exchange. I think it was named after a city in some Asian county, what was it, oh, yeah - bankofrugpull.com!

Now no one else can claim _digital_ ownership of it, it's mine mine mine!

You know, for someone so smart, it's amazing you still don't get it.

I sell stuff at a loss for no profit, so I never had to report ANYTHING on my taxes related to that, WITHOUT being a tax cheat. I did not even take the hobby deduction, which I could have, and yes, I know about that too, thank you very much.

Now, I have to keep records and prove that the 1099'd amount was not profit. Since they report gross sales, I have to now BECOME A BUSINESS by keeping records, receipts, etc. or just get screwed and pay taxes on the entire amount, and some of the test equipment I deal with can still cost thousands of dollars even though it's 20-30 years obsolete, so that's not a good option. Some of the items I own were bought many years ago, long before I ever thought I would be reselling them, so getting receipts or even recording the amounts spent on them was not a priority.

I HAD no liability, but now I have to PROVE IT.

Understand now?

Before - nothing, no action required related to my taxes.
Now - I have to keep records and go through most of the hassle of becoming essentially a small business if I don't want to get screwed on the reported "income", which actually isn't.

Sigh. I am done with this.

You are illustrating my original point completely, Now, hobby sellers HAVE to become a BUSINESS instead of claiming a little extra income if they don't want to get screwed paying taxes on sold goods and even the shipping as though they were profits.

Also, I know the "legal" analogy at the end was not quite apt, otherwise I would not have used the "more or less" disclaimer. I do also know how the justice system in America works, thank you.

Not as pathetic as a cowardly cunt calling out others here and threatening them, even. Uh, Oh - we got us an Anonymous Internet Tough Guy (tm).

Well, FUCK YOU TOO!

if you're not the other cunt I already replied to, none of you judgemental assholes know me or my situation, so you don't get to call me out, unless you're sitting on a judicial bench.

Otherwise, you can fuck right off.