UC Schools seek P25 TRS

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LAflyer

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I see the UC system has an RFI out and is interested in obtaining a "turnkey" Project 25 compliant, 800 MHz trunking and/or conventional radio system for six campuses (Davis, Irvine, LA, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara) to replace existing Motorola Smartnet Trunked 800 MHz systems nearing the end of their useful life.

Something to keep an eye out in coming year(s).
 

inigo88

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Thanks for the heads up! It's worth noting that the absent schools are already heavily invested in the local regional interoperable radio systems. UC Berkeley with East Bay Regional Communications System (EBRCS), UC San Diego with San Diego-Imperial County RCS (and their own Mototrbo system), and UC Santa Cruz with law enforcement and fire on VHF (and their own NEXEDGE system).
 

LAflyer

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Yes where available joining a local system might make both financially and operational sense.

I wonder here in Los Angeles if they have given any thought to joining someone like ICIS.
With two member cities (Beverly Hills and Culver City) very close by I know the ICIS coverage on UCLA campus is excellent.
 

inigo88

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Yes where available joining a local system might make both financially and operational sense.

I wonder here in Los Angeles if they have given any thought to joining someone like ICIS.
With two member cities (Beverly Hills and Culver City) very close by I know the ICIS coverage on UCLA campus is excellent.

Not only that, but their 470-512 MHz band ICIS mobiles and portables would be able to communicate directly with LAPD West LA Division on Ch 8 and 108, which surrounds their campus on all sides. While you can't priority scan trunked and conventional simultaneously, many public safety radios templates are programmed so you can have channels from both (and even talkgroups from multiple trunking systems in some cases) in the same zone.

Jeez ICIS should be giving us a commission for this! ;)
 

mmckenna

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Keep in mind that these systems are not just for public safety. The campuses as a whole need communications for administrative, operations, maintenance, etc. None of this means that UCPD on the LA campus won't have UHF capability. Several of the campuses are looking at P25 because the local agencies are using it. UCI has a SmartNet system, but their officers can use the Orange County system. UCD is looking at P25 because of their proximity to Sacramento. UCPD on the Berkeley campus is already on the EBRICs system, and UCB is shutting down their SmartNet system. UCSD is on their local system for public safety and has shut down their SmartNet system.

Having the plumbers, electricians, buses, housing and everyone else on the P25 system isn't a cost effective solution, so there will always be -other- systems on these campuses. P25 is just the attempt to keep some level of interoperability between sites. Again, this is just an RFP, the system is looking at the different proposals from the vendors. P25 isn't the slam dunk solution.
 

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it'll probably be a mixed voice Motorola Smartzone system (at least at UCDavis). Also they're looking at p25 at davis because City of Davis uses p25, and Sacramento will switch to P25 eventually.
 

inigo88

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I had no idea they weren't selling those anymore. Wow. learn somethin' every day.

Not only that but Motorola is wrapping up official support for SmartZone (if they haven't already). Everyone is either in the process of building a P25 system, or building a P25 network core and down-converting it back to SmartZone using SmartX while they try to get the funds together to engineer P25 sites and buy new radios.
 

LAflyer

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UCLA says its not interested in ICIS and will stick with its own 800Mhz system.

From ICIS Board Meeting:
ICIS has approached the chief technician of UCLA system to see if they have interest in
joining, especially considering proximity to Culver City. The UCs are working on new
800 trunk system of their own. There was no interest at this time, as UCLA intended to
remain with an 800 MhZ system.



Though not a UC school, I saw that Cal State LA however is in process of getting an affiliate agreement with ICIS under sponsorship of City of Monterey Park to allow them access onto the system. Currently CSU LA Police are on VHF.
 

karldotcom

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Why on earth would they want to join ICIS? They have their own frequencies, and the whole T-Band is still up in the air last I heard.
 

N6AJB

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They also routinely send officers from campus to campus for big events, protests, etc. A radio from the Riverside campus will work at UCLA, etc. If the campuses were all on different bands, this would create an interoperability issue between campuses.
 

bcorbin

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For the most part, the only folks UCLA really needs to talk to aren't going to ICIS and there isn't a whole lot of reason for any of their radios to wander too far beyond line-of-sight with the campus - so they wouldn't get much out of the deal.

Much more interesting possibilities arise when one considers the possibility of linking p25 systems across the different campuses. It would facilitate/streamline everything from routine intercampus transactions to mutual aid deployments to cover regents' meetings and large-scale protests.
 

Thunderbolt

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Much more interesting possibilities arise when one considers the possibility of linking p25 systems across the different campuses. It would facilitate/streamline everything from routine intercampus transactions to mutual aid deployments to cover regents' meetings and large-scale protests.

Likewise, they could also consolidate public safety dispatching into one facility to save money. This has been done at other universities and their satellite campuses in other states. This would be one of the benefits of having a linked P25 TRS at various campuses.

73's

Ron
 

K6CDO

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Likewise, they could also consolidate public safety dispatching into one facility to save money. This has been done at other universities and their satellite campuses in other states. This would be one of the benefits of having a linked P25 TRS at various campuses.

73's

Ron

Considering the size of California and the operating and cultural environments at each of the UC's campuses, that would be difficult. San Francisco is totally different than Davis or Irvine. Santa Barbara is not Riverside or Modesto. Berkeley is ... Berkeley.

Imagine trying to be a dispatcher in a centralized comm center in the S.F. Bay Area trying to picture where Cuzco Hall is when that name is called out on a regional or statewide talkgroup.

There is a reason that the CHP and CalFire operate decentralized comm centers.
 

LAflyer

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I recall reading post 9/11 there was a push to participate in regional systems by UC schools to maximize interoperability with their local communities.

In San Francisco UCSF is on the SF County/City TRS, while San Diego is on the RCS TRS system. Even in Los Angeles, UCLA is now a member of the LA-RICS, so there seems to be ongoing interest in such regional approach.

Maybe ICIS is not the answer for UCLA, but I could see them integrating into LA-RICS once up. LA-RICS even plans a campus radio site on top of the medical center.
 

mmckenna

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I recall reading post 9/11 there was a push to participate in regional systems by UC schools to maximize interoperability with their local communities.

In San Francisco UCSF is on the SF County/City TRS, while San Diego is on the RCS TRS system. Even in Los Angeles, UCLA is now a member of the LA-RICS, so there seems to be ongoing interest in such regional approach.

Maybe ICIS is not the answer for UCLA, but I could see them integrating into LA-RICS once up. LA-RICS even plans a campus radio site on top of the medical center.

While interoperability between campuses is useful, in a real emergency mutual aid comes from the surrounding agencies, not other campuses. I'm the radio guy at UC Santa Cruz, and our PD and Fire went back to VHF after trying out the 800 SmartNet system for a while in the 1990's. Being able to directly talk with mutual aid response that can be on campus in minutes, rather than hours or days is a much more important requirement. This is one of the reasons so many of the UC campuses went to the regional systems.

While the common SmartNet systems and frequencies were a good idea, we rarely, if ever, had non-police mutual aid response on our campus. When we had Police mutual aid from the other UC campuses, there was time to plan it out.

And, it's very true. Each of the UC campuses are very different from the other. Each site has very specific needs. Trying to combine dispatch centers would be very problematic. We keep our own PSAP specifically due to the nature of the campus. It's confusing enough as is without having dispatchers that are not familiar with the campus.
 

inigo88

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mmckenna hit the nail on the head with this issue. I can add that even though the University of California Police Dept is technically one agency, the culture at each campus is so radically different and they are so geographically far apart, that each campus may as well have its own department from a day-to-day organizational standpoint.

K6CDO said:
Considering the size of California and the operating and cultural environments at each of the UC's campuses, that would be difficult. San Francisco is totally different than Davis or Irvine. Santa Barbara is not Riverside or Modesto. Berkeley is ... Berkeley.

Nailed it!

K6CDO said:
Imagine trying to be a dispatcher in a centralized comm center in the S.F. Bay Area trying to picture where Cuzco Hall is when that name is called out on a regional or statewide talkgroup.

There is a reason that the CHP and CalFire operate decentralized comm centers.

Exactly! (By the way, that place sounds familiar. ;) )

mmckenna said:
And, it's very true. Each of the UC campuses are very different from the other. Each site has very specific needs. Trying to combine dispatch centers would be very problematic. We keep our own PSAP specifically due to the nature of the campus. It's confusing enough as is without having dispatchers that are not familiar with the campus.

Not just very problematic, it would be a disaster. It takes a long time for dispatchers and officers to learn their single campus. Imagine consolidating dispatch and expecting the dispatchers to learn all ten campuses (plus satellite housing, labs and facilities). It would be a complete trainwreck and 911 service would suffer tremendously.

mmckenna said:
While the common SmartNet systems and frequencies were a good idea, we rarely, if ever, had non-police mutual aid response on our campus. When we had Police mutual aid from the other UC campuses, there was time to plan it out.

Exactly. What people might not understand is the fact that many of the regional systems the UC PDs have moved to maintain caches of rental radios that can be made available to outside mutual aid agencies. For large events (with a lot of prior planning), San Diego County Sheriff's Dept has a large cache of portables that can be loaned out, and the event can be run on any number of pre-coordinated mutual aid talkgroups. I would imagine the case would be similar for UC officers responding up to UCSC? Or do you guys keep your own cache of portables in house?
 

mmckenna

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Exactly. What people might not understand is the fact that many of the regional systems the UC PDs have moved to maintain caches of rental radios that can be made available to outside mutual aid agencies. For large events (with a lot of prior planning), San Diego County Sheriff's Dept has a large cache of portables that can be loaned out, and the event can be run on any number of pre-coordinated mutual aid talkgroups. I would imagine the case would be similar for UC officers responding up to UCSC? Or do you guys keep your own cache of portables in house?

Yeah, we can buy a few analog VHF radios for the price of one high end P25. As radios get upgraded at the PD, the old ones that are in good shape usually get a trip to the shop then put into cache. Since we are using analog VHF, this makes it pretty handy. Also, since all the local agencies are VHF analog, they all have spare radios. Getting extra VHF radios is not an issue. Our PD is getting ready to purchase all new VHF gear, so that will mean even more spares/cache radios.

I have about 8 800MHz trunked radios in my cache that can be loaned/rented out as needed. Most larger departments have a few spares also. In a true emergency there are radio users that won't be involved, that frees up there gear. In reality, most people that would truly be involved in any sort of disaster already have the radios they need. Also, in a true emergency, radios are handy, but they are just another tool. On it's own, a radio isn't going to fix anything, it just makes fixing things a bit easier.

We can also patch VHF and 800 at the console. On 800, it can either be the trunked system or the analog/conventional back up repeater.

Interoperability doesn't automatically mean it has to be P25. All the 800MHz gear we have, be it P25 or NexEdge, or even the old SmartNet MTS2000's all do analog. A simple analog repeater solves a number of issues and does it cheap.
 

karldotcom

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As a side note, there were a number of radio vendor trucks on top of Parking Structure 8 at UCLA yesterday....I didn't notice what company, but a lot of Motorola logos on the trucks.
 
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