For decades, many Tasmanians and radio enthusiasts enjoyed listening to emergency services on their scanners, hearing police, fire, and ambulance traffic live on the airwaves. But in recent years, that all changed. Today, those familiar police and emergency service transmissions are no longer accessible to the public with ordinary radio scanners. The reason? A major upgrade to how these services communicate: the Tasmanian Government Radio Network (TasGRN).
What Is TasGRN?
The Tasmanian Government Radio Network, or TasGRN, is a modern, unified digital radio system used by emergency services and other government agencies across Tasmania. Built in partnership with Telstra and Motorola Solutions, this network replaces multiple older communications systems with a single, secure platform for:
Tasmania Police
Ambulance Tasmania
Tasmania Fire Service
State Emergency Service (SES)
Parks and Wildlife Service, Hydro Tasmania, TasNetworks, and more
The network uses contemporary digital trunked radio technology (P25), supported by hundreds of sites across the state, giving responders better coverage, reliability, and interoperability wherever they are needed.
Why Scanning Used to Work - And Why It Doesn’t Now
Before TasGRN, different agencies used separate analog or basic digital channels to talk with each other:
Police used an older 800 MHz EDACS network with both analog dispatch and digital options.
Fire and ambulance used analog VHF/70 MHz systems.
These analog parts were easy for hobbyists and scanner enthusiasts to pick up because they weren’t encrypted. Anyone with the right scanner on the right frequency could hear calls, including dispatch and units in the field.
TasGRN Is Encrypted & Secure
With TasGRN, that openness is gone. The network is secure and encrypted, designed to keep sensitive communications private and protect public safety:
Encryption means only authorised radios can decode the audio. Regular scanners simply hear noise or digital data that makes no sense without the correct decryption keys.
The system does not broadcast as plain analog signals anymore , it’s a digital trunked network where transmissions are directed to authorised users only, with encryption keys exchanged securely between radios and the network.
This is why hobby scanners can’t pick up police, fire, or ambulance traffic anymore, the underlying data is not legally or technically available in plain audio form.
It’s About Safety, Privacy & Security
Officials argue that encryption and security are vital for modern emergency communications:
Protecting sensitive information: Emergency services often discuss private details (address info, personal medical info, criminal matters) that shouldn’t be publicly broadcast.
Protecting operations: Unsanctioned listeners could learn tactics or locations that might compromise response efforts.
Avoiding misuse: Unscrupulous people could use public traffic to interfere with or evade law enforcement.
TasGRN’s secure design helps ensure that emergency services can communicate about critical incidents without the risk of that information being overheard by the general public.
So What Does This Mean for Scanner Enthusiasts?
If you’re into scanning:
Police, fire, and ambulance digital traffic on TasGRN is essentially not listenable with standard hobby scanners.
Some older analog “paging” systems used by ambulance dispatch in the past were once audible, but they’re now replaced or being phased out with TasGRN upgrades.
Trunked digital systems like TasGRN are made to be secure, so no, you can’t just buy a scanner and tune in. You’d need official encryption keys and special licensed radios, which aren’t available to the general public.
In other words, that thrill of listening to live emergency services traffic in Tasmania is a thing of the past, a product of modern communication standards prioritising security and confidentiality over hobby listening.
The Bigger Picture
TasGRN isn’t just about stopping scanners:
It’s part of a statewide upgrade that improves how emergency crews communicate with each other, across different regions and services.
It gives responders reliable, interoperable voice and data networks, meaning better coordination during fires, medical emergencies, natural disasters, and other crises.
For emergency services, those improvements can save lives. For radio hobbyists, it means adapting expectations, and maybe turning towards other interesting parts of the spectrum that remain accessible.
In summary:
You can’t scan Tasmania’s police, fire, or ambulance services today because those critical communications now run on a digital, encrypted, trunked system (TasGRN). That network’s encryption keeps sensitive information safe and out of reach of ordinary scanners, ending the era of widely accessible emergency service listening on radio scanners across the state.
FYI, The new Digitall Trunking Systems is not some what "secure" but if you concider the reliability of Trunking and secure having the reliability of the old days, when (not if) these systems go down as a system you loose everything. Very little info over old open public safety would endanger any operation, but it did make the public safer and the responders much more secure when the public knew what was occuring around them in real time. These systems as a system can be jammed eazier and the sad part is ham radio operators won't know jaming is occuring since they are scrambling what should be in the clear, so they can track down the jammer. And it is fun finding a jammer! If the criminals want to know if the police are close, they just monitor the in puts!
ReplyDeleteContemporary trunked networks such as Project 25 utilise a dedicated control channel to dynamically assign voice/data traffic across multiple frequencies, significantly improving both spectral efficiency and operational resilience compared to conventional fixed-channel analogue systems.
ReplyDeleteFrom a security perspective, P25 supports industry-standard AES-256 encryption. This represents a substantial advancement over legacy analogue FM systems, where communications were inherently unprotected and readily accessible to any suitably equipped receiver. Assertions that these systems are “not secure” do not align with how encryption is implemented or applied in modern public safety environments.
The characterisation of jamming susceptibility is also inaccurate. Conventional analogue repeaters can be easily disrupted by transmitting on a single frequency using relatively unsophisticated and cheap equipment. In contrast, trunked systems require coordinated interference across multiple channels, particularly the control channel, making effective disruption considerably more complex and unpredictable. It is also important to note that encryption does not obscure the presence of RF energy; interference remains detectable and can be analysed and located using standard radio frequency techniques.
In terms of reliability, modern networks are specifically engineered to minimise single points of failure. Systems such as the Tasmanian Government Radio Network incorporate multiple fallback and degradation modes, including site trunking, failsoft operation, direct (simplex) communication, and redundant backhaul (including satellite and Telstra SMS services), ensuring continuity of service under a range of failure conditions.
As for information endangering operations, there are many documented instances where open, unencrypted radio traffic has introduced operational risk. For example, the 2018 Ravenswood siege in northern Tasmania involved an armed offender who was able to monitor police activity and adapt their movements accordingly, prolonging the incident. Such cases illustrate how access to live operational communications can provide a tactical advantage and potentially escalate risk.
Finally, while monitoring repeater input frequencies is theoretically possible, in modern systems these signals are typically low power and geographically limited, substantially reducing their practical use for situational awareness. In some tactical situations, if there is any indication that communications may be compromised, or could be, alternative means, such as mobile phones or other methods, can be employed instead to maintain operational continuity.
So the primary change introduced by modern digital trunked systems is a reduction in unauthorised public access to real-time communications. This should not be conflated with reduced system capability, resilience, or security, indeed, the opposite is the case. (40+ years as a radio tech, working for both Erricsson and Motorola)