James Jackson remembers getting his first police scanner when he was just eight years old.
Jackson’s mother was a sheriff’s deputy in Tuscola County, and the new scanner allowed him to listen to what she and other first responders were up to.
Over time he expanded the reach of that little scanner, buying new semiconductor crystals. It used to be in the old days one could expand the number of channels they could listen to with more crystals, which Jackson could find at RadioShack, another relic of old times.
Today anyone who has listened to radio traffic through Broadcastify or phone apps has Jackson to thank. Those outlets provide radio traffic not by accessing channels directly, but through volunteers like Jackson who have their own scanners and stream it online.
“We don’t turn the TV on. We’ve got a TV, we just don’t watch it,” Jackson said of his family. “We don’t listen to the radio, we don’t listen to country music, we don’t listen to rock and roll, we listen to the scanner.”
For his whole life Jackson has listened to police scanners. He came to recognize all of the dispatchers in the county, not by their names but by their voices. Jackson and his wife would comment when a new dispatcher started to become more used to the job and more confident, a change they could hear over time.
All of that came to an end in April when St. Clair County began encrypting its radio traffic. The change means scanners and radio apps can no longer listen in to police dispatches. Listeners can still hear calls for the county’s fire departments and medical emergencies, though those too are expected to be encrypted sometime in 2027.
The change is part of a statewide effort to encrypt law enforcement radio traffic, and by the end of 2026 most law enforcement in the state will have joined St. Clair County in encrypting its radio messages.
“Over the years, we have seen instances where sensitive activity has been monitored and posted to social media in real time,” Port Huron City Manager James Freed wrote in an email to Port Huron Mayor Anita Ashford and the City Council on April 20. “In at least one case, Special Response Team movements were shared publicly as they were occurring, which created a safety risk for officers and the public. Encryption will help prevent that.”
The mandate for encryption came from a memo issued by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Systems Board on May 1, 2025.
That memo, which was written in response to a 2023 FBI audit that found many Michigan counties did not adequately encrypt their radio traffic, gave many of the same reasons for encrypted communication Freed said, including protection of private information, law enforcement officers and tactical decisions made by officers.
That same memo also warned that a lack of encryption could lead to sanctions for counties that don’t encrypt by Oct. 1.
Jackson has made no secret of his opposition to encryption.
“Never once in almost 50 years of listening to the scanner have I ever heard of any emergency services persons safety being compromised,” Jackson told the Times Herald when the decision was announced.
When he’s not listening to the radio himself, Jackson helps run a Facebook Page, St. Clair County Mi Scanner. The page is followed by more than 40,000 people and allows scanner enthusiasts like Jackson to share info on local emergencies from house fires to shootings. With radio communications encrypted, Jackson’s page has seen a sharp reduction in activity.
The group started small, but over the years became a hub for community members who want to monitor emergency situations in the county. As it grew, Jackson said he would sometimes hear from friends within law enforcement that his page frustrated police and sheriff’s office leadership, but said he has never been contacted about it.
Port Huron Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Young said he was not familiar with Jackson’s Facebook page, but he knew people followed police radios regularly.
“We didn’t have a problem with it,” Young said. “The encryption was just something we had to do by October 2026.”
Since before the encryption was announced, Jackson has voiced his opposition, going to meetings of the St. Clair County Board of Commissioners, but found there was little his voice could change.
“It’s difficult to fight big government,” Jackson said. “When they want to do something, they’re going to do it.”
Jackson acknowledged there is some information police encounter that should not be publicly released. such as a person’s driver’s license number that an officer might take during a traffic stop. He pointed out, however, that when handling that information, law enforcement already have encrypted channels to use.
“The (Port Huron Police Department Special Response Team) uses encrypted channels, the detectives use encrypted channels, the narcotics officers use encrypted channels. The encryption was already there,” Jackson said.
According to Jackson, police had encrypted channels for when they were needed, and any sensitive information could be shared only through those encrypted channels while keeping the public channel accessible.
In the aftermath of the encryption, Jackson came up with a bold plan to keep his Facebook followers informed. He would ask them to follow law enforcement around the community, be they to house fires or shootings or to help someone with a flat tire.
“When encryption is finally implemented I will ask all 41000+ members to become the eyes and ears of the scanner,” Jackson said when the encryption was announced. “I will ask them to legally follow every fire truck, follow every police car and follow every ambulance responding to a call.”
Three weeks after the encryption, however, none of that has come to fruition, Jackson admitted. His once-bustling Facebook group has seen a sharp reduction in postings, and no one has stepped up to follow police around all day.
“The Facebook group is almost nonexistent at this point,” Jackson admitted in a Facebook message. “There are very few posts. I have shared a couple amateur radio related posts but not much activity at all.”
As Michigan joins other states in encrypting its police radio traffic, Jackson’s Facebook page has little hope of a revival, not unlike the the semi conductor crystals and the RadioShacks that sold them when his hobby began. For his part, there’s a whole world of radio signals to explore, from boat traffic to satellite signals so he intends to keep his hobby going.
‘There’s so many different facets to a scanner. It’s not just police, fire and EMS,” Jackson said. “That’s what people talk about because that’s where all the action is, but there’s plenty of signals still undecrypted.”
Contact Johnathan Hogan at jhogan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Encryption ends a 50-year hobby for man who ran St. Clair County scanner page
Reporting by Johnathan Hogan, Port Huron Times Herald / Port Huron Times Herald
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