More agencies opting out of the PCWIN

[mothertrucker]

5 northwest-side fire districts cut radio orders for regional plan

[JPSan]

Most of these departments made this decision quite a while ago.
Media is just now reading into this and had to give a reporter some busy work.
The reasoning for there decision was that there existing comm system has been well maintained, state of art and and all pretty much narrow band compliant now, Why scrap a like new fully reliable and proven system. I see it as a very smart move.Sort of like re inventing the wheel.
The radio's that they are purchasing are for inter op with the PC WIN system for mutual aid situations.

[rpgaun]

After spending the weekend in Tucson I was impressed at the usage of the VHF frequencies by both the area FDs & the Tucson PD. It seems they have the right number of channels for their operation. I had the PCWIN programmed in the scanner but didn't hear a peep
Sun City

Rich Gaun

[FLANO]

Rich,

You didn't hear PCWIN because it is not an active communications system yet. It'll be some time yet ...

We do have a small cadre of folks down here ready for them when they do go live. All are equipped with the PSR-800 and the "beta" software. Ready and waiting

Originally Posted by rpgaun

After spending the weekend in Tucson I was impressed at the usage of the VHF frequencies by both the area FDs & the Tucson PD. It seems they have the right number of channels for their operation. I had the PCWIN programmed in the scanner but didn't hear a peep
Sun City

Rich Gaun

[mothertrucker]

Well.... when the system is active....
I sure hope someone here can maintain a life feed for all us "analog guy's in a digital world".

[JPSan]

As I stated in a previous post there is strong talk behind the scenes to make all law enforcement traffic encrypted on PCWIN. Time will tell.

[FLANO]

There may be a desire to encrypt all LE, but only 400+ radios will have encryption.

Since there are many more users than that on the system, even with the 5 agencies pulling back, unexpectedly the numbers of radios they will buy, it suggests otherwise concerning encryption at such a grandios size.

You are right, time will tell.

[mothertrucker]

The original concept of this system was to promote inter agency communications but.... with the encryption option on the table & more agencies not participating in the program.... it appears that this is nothing more than a very expensive system designed at preventing us from monitoring them.

I see no need to upgrade to an expensive, complicated & unreliable radio system when they already have a regional mutual aid system in place { AKA "Gateway"} & it is not used very often in practical application {other than weekly tests}.

but.. when it's the taxpayers money being spent ..... I guess they can waste as much money as they want.

[JPSan]

Don't have my paperwork here but, I am quite sure Marana opted out quite a while ago on this system. My area is Tucson so I am not sure. A number of ranking officers on Tucson PD want encryption "to keep busy bodies out of police business"

I was recently in a nice dining establishent here in Tucson and there 2 very sloppy looking guys and they had some sort of scanners with the volumes just loud enough that you could hear the traffic we were unfortunate enough to be seated to close. These guys were discussing how they would handle the calls they were listening to and identifying individual officers and details about these guys. The Motorola tech I was with kept glancing over to them and chuckling. His comment was so spot on.." the reason encryption happens" These guys caught the HT's we had on us and asked what brand scanners were those. Motorola. Wow, they make scanners? Yeah, Steve answered APX 7000, About 7 thousand a piece.

Yeah, the orders have been placed and I do not know who is getting what and it isn't my concern. From this point on I just get to sit back watch and wait and see how it plays out. I know what some other agencies that work in conjunction with TPD that are retaining there exisiting systems. ( APX 7000's) I hope it all works the way they think it will.

I think Tucson Fire will be worth watching and see the coverage especially inside buildings and really hilly areas in Tucson. This has been one major long drawn out project, too many 'chiefs' who had no knowledge of what this was all about and the real complexity. A lot of money spent, a lot. And sorry to say some lives lost in the site surveys, too...........TIME WILL TELL........Deadline. I am out of it... I be's a silent watcher now. .....Fingers crossed.