Stockton Police has tranistioned to digital communications.

***THIS IS THE ORIGINAL POST I WROTE ON SCANSTOCKTON.COM***
The Stockton Police department made the transition to digital communications early in January and according to the release by the department the last of the upgrading would be done by the end of January and or Early Feb. The Police department has joined Tracy Police, Manteca, Ripon, and San Joaquin Delta Community College in making the transition to digital and no longer using Analog.  According to a report that I read from the City hall files, the ultimate goal is to eventually have all agencies in the County working on a system where there would be interoperability.



The report allocates the cost for each department and what equipment needs to be updated, for example Lodi uses a system that parts cannot be found for and parts are taken from other equipment that is not in use.  The upgrade to digital took place without there being no downtime and even while the Officers were being dispatched and communications were occurring, there was testing going on by Delta Wireless, because the ability existed to broadcast in zones, and the other stuff occurring in the zones would not interfere or cause there to be issues with communications.  During the summer there was a month where a lot of radio traffic was being transmitted that normally would not have been because some of it was inappropriate.  The upgrade by the department did not cause a more complex radio system or a did the department choose to use another radio system, such as trunking.






It was said that the new upgrade did not cost the City additional money, but instead was efficiently done because of the required re-branding that the department along with every other Police, Fire, and Emergency Service department is mandated to be done by 2013 according to federal law.



I knew that digital was coming soon because the Stockton Fire Department had been using and exploring with the technology back in 2005, and so I invested 500 dollars in a GRECOM PSR-500, which has the ability to listen to digital communications, and has many other features.  If  you have an analog scanner you can still listen to the San Joaquin County Sheriffs, Stockton Unified Police, Stockton Fire, UOP Police, and several other Law enforcement and fire departments in the county.



If you do want to buy a digital scanner the cheapest I have seen is around 400 dollars and this was on the RadioShack Website.  If you do not mind spending around 500 dollars there is a new scanner called HomePatrol according to the Uniden Website:
















This scanner takes away all the headaches and confusion of programming and will be able to access the agency for the geographic area in which it is operated. It has other awesome features and I am going to buy one. This would be a good scanner to start out with if you want to listen to the Stockton Police and the other agencies which are rumored to be going to digital in the summer of 2011.