I never thought of directly writing on my screen, that's brilliant! And here I was writing on stickies and pasting them to the screen... talk about hard to see!

I have to edit that last statement to say never been outside North America. Sadly Canada has the same problem, lack of carriers and preposterous pricing plans (none of them unlimited)

you should ask Apple for a free sleeve to make sure it does :)

Break out the champagne!

/sarcasm

I think you might have set the bar a little low... :)

Problem solved.

Winter is inconvenient because its cold and you can't navigate the rutted and icy roads

Construction is inconvenient because its hot and you can't drive on any of the roads

"There are times when discussing a situation on the radio to a supervisor is not acceptable because of the questions relating to which charges should be filled or what city ordinances may relate to a certain situation."

And those are NOT appropriate for the radio why? That is what a unit-to-unit call is for: rather than the whole talk group hearing it, only the supervisor and the cop here it. AND you get it on the nice multi-track recorder, admissible in court, in case any issues arise.

"I know for fact that every department going doesn't use APCO-25..."

And those departments are upgrading as DHS money becomes available. Moreover, I'm pretty sure California is on APCO-25, since they are buying the equipment to test it, and are testing their radios on that equipment.

"You loose[sic] credibility with me when you make remarks that the police abuse people."
And you "loose" credibility when you assert they don't. I'm not saying ALL cops abuse people, but SOME do - this is a demonstrated and adjudicated fact - and many times they use the cell rather than the radio precisely due to that nice multi-track recorder on the comm center.

The cop has to carry his radio - that's a given. There is no reason for him to have a state paid-for cell phone. Even if he needs to make a phone call pursuant to his duty - again, he can make a PSTN interconnect call on the radio (and again, have the advantage that it is recorded in a nice court admissible format).

Sorry if I touched a nerve, but: it is exactly that mentality - "We are the Thin Blue Line, we must protect our own, no matter what" that is causing people to NOT trust the cops. Rather than saying "Use the radio. Be recorded. If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. If you ARE doing something wrong, IA will find you and destroy you, and we will all help, because enforcing the LAW is our JOB." you have folks like you saying "It's OK if we hide things, because, well, BECAUSE, citizen."

Considering that I DESIGN the equipment the law enforcement types use to check out the system, I suspect I know quite a bit more about APCO-25, the uses of it within various law enforcement contexts, and the infrastructure than you do, sir. I doubt you could tell an LDU1/LDU2 from a TERMLC or a PDU, or even know what those acronyms are. I seriously doubt you have ever worked with any LEO comms officers, where I was working with the Phoenix/Mesa project on the first deployment of APCO-25 there a decade ago. I've worked with the FBI, the Secret Service, and several state level LEOs.

Again: there is NOTHING a LEO needs to discuss officially that cannot go over the radio, and be more secure than going over the PSTN, let alone any cellular networks.

"Come to think of it there are a lot of state LEOs that carry cellphones so they can discuss matters not suitable for regular 2-way radio...."

And that is bullshit. Most states are now on APCO-25, which supports encryption up to AES-256 (it also supports encryption beyond that, if you get the appropriate crypto modules from No Such Agency). The only reason anybody would use a non-secure cellphone vs a secure radio is that the secure radio is recorded at the dispatch center, making it somewhat difficult to discuss how best to "accidentally" allow the suspect to fall on his face, repeatedly.

A site seems to be missing from the participants, but I just can't put my finger on it /.