VALDOSTA — For more than a month, news media and civilians trying to listen to police scanners in Lowndes County have heard nothing but silence due to a system-wide upgrade which encrypted the signal.

In July, the scanner in The Valdosta Daily Times newsroom went dark thanks to a $6.5 million upgrade to the public safety radio system shared by the county and the City of Valdosta. “The upgrade was to the P25 digital system,” said Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress. “Basically, what it did was double our capacity. It needed to be done.”

There are more than 1,000 radios used by police officers, firefighters, EMS and other public-safety personnel in Lowndes County, and as departments grow, their radios are increasingly fighting for bandwidth and channels, said Childress.

The upgrade included replacing consoles at the 911 call center and equipment at tower sites and upgrading software on existing hardware.

“Part of the upgrade to the system was the ability to add encryption,” said Childress. “There are two levels. One is free, and the other is a higher level of encryption usually used at the federal level. We chose the free version.”

With the encryption in place, only those who work for a public-safety entity in Lowndes County are able to hear scanner activity. In a recent vote, the 911 advisory board unanimously voted to keep it that way, said Childress.

“I was a proponent and supporter of encryption. We’ve actually hit houses in the past on search warrants on people who were either selling drugs or making drugs, and they had scanners there,” said Childress. “It’s just not safe, and so we decided to go with encryption, which was free and part of the system anyway.”

Childress said most counties throughout the country are switching to encrypted systems for the same reason, but the move has not been without its critics.

“There have been some folks out there who have called me, including members of the news media, who had scanners and enjoyed listening to the police channel,” said Childress. “I understand their concerns, but if you open that flood gate and let one or two people have it, then you get others who say you’re showing favoritism.”

The upgrades were paid for with the latest round of SPLOST funding which split $8 million evenly between Valdosta and the county.

“I’m very proud of the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County and the members of the advisory board who worked with Motorola to bring the cost down. It was first $8 million, then $7 million, and we got that number down,” said Childress.

The entire upgrade is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

Adam Floyd is a crime reporter at the Valdosta Daily Times.