Is scanning becoming obsolete?

I've been listening to my PD and FD on and off for over 30 years. Back when I was in high school we had a nice little Bearcat 210xl scanner that did everything we wanted. Of course back then everything was a lot simpler. Our PD had it's own freq and our FD dispatch was only for local FD's so we didn't have to listen to a lot of other traffic. Now we are a P25 system and I've noticed that my town is on the same TG as 3 other towns. (Morris County)



I've noticed that it seems like the PD traffic is a lot more sparse than it used to be. I'm not sure if that's a fair statement because they still call dispatch on vehicle stops. But I'm guessing with the computers they have in their car they are not always doing DL lookups through dispatch, but I do hear it sometimes so that has be a little confused.



I'm about to buy another scanner (I have a 536HP for home and I'm going to get a 436HP for mobile use)



I'm a little concerned that encryption might be around the corner and once it is, it's pretty much game over. I've heard of a number of systems in central/south jersey who have plans for encryption. I'm just a little concerned about having $1,000 of scanner gear to hear fire/ems dispatch.



What are people thinking about the future of scanning from this point of view?



Thanks,



Roveer

Is scanning becoming obsolete?