Xenia, OH - City looks to upgrade emergency radio system

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N5TWB

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Good tower news for hams, too

The closing paragraphs held good news for hams in Xenia with an increase in allowed tower heights to align with new state law. Wonder when they'll stop allowing new developments to include tower restrictions in their CC&Rs?
 

radioman2001

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I never understood why an area that has been hit with 2 not just one horrendous tornado's in the last 30 or so years would limit the ham community in it's ability to communicate. I felt very bad for a friend who used to have towers on his 4+ acres of property and now has none since he moved into a gated community that not only prohibits towers, but ANY antenna's at all, including TV which is against Federal Law.
 

rapidcharger

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I sure hope some people show up at that city council meeting and explain to the city council that they don't need to join MARCS or spend millions on some DTRS to have a perfectly adequate radio system that works well.
Setting an end-of-life date? Who's idea was that anyway? The motorola salesman's idea?
 

MTS2000des

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A properly built out and state supported system like MARCS is a great thing, when everyone contributes, everyone wins. States that have done it right like Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado, and Ohio understand that to make a statewide radio system an affordable reality, the state has to chip in as do those who want to join. MARCS is a great system, well supported, and well engineered. No secret that many of those in charge happen to have amateur radio licenses and are "RF" people, not IT graduates from some fly by night advertise on late nite TV "university". The system works well.

It may be a win-win, it's always more expensive to strike out on your own. Look at us in Atlanta with 14 going on 15 disparate trunking systems, no ISSI roaming, and tons of counties in outlying areas using everything from VHF conventional to UHF TRBO and NXDN.

How well is being separatists working out for us?
 

rapidcharger

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A properly built out and state supported system like MARCS is a great thing, when everyone contributes, everyone wins. States that have done it right like Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado, and Ohio understand that to make a statewide radio system an affordable reality, the state has to chip in as do those who want to join. MARCS is a great system, well supported, and well engineered. No secret that many of those in charge happen to have amateur radio licenses and are "RF" people, not IT graduates from some fly by night advertise on late nite TV "university". The system works well.

It may be a win-win, it's always more expensive to strike out on your own. Look at us in Atlanta with 14 going on 15 disparate trunking systems, no ISSI roaming, and tons of counties in outlying areas using everything from VHF conventional to UHF TRBO and NXDN.

How well is being separatists working out for us?

I know you've long been a proponent of unnecessary infrastructure and spending money on gadgets when that money is desperately needed elsewhere.
Ask the Alaska State Troopers how well their statewide system is working for them.

I get that it's impressive technology and it's really cool but can someone please remind me why it is that the building and zoning department in Xenia needs to be interconnected to the meter maids in Cleveland? Is that really keeping us safe from Al Qaeda?
 

MTS2000des

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I know you've long been a proponent of unnecessary infrastructure and spending money on gadgets when that money is desperately needed elsewhere.
Ask the Alaska State Troopers how well their statewide system is working for them.

I get that it's impressive technology and it's really cool but can someone please remind me why it is that the building and zoning department in Xenia needs to be interconnected to the meter maids in Cleveland? Is that really keeping us safe from Al Qaeda?

I'm a proponent of getting what we pay for as taxpayers. Cooperative, well planned and managed statewide public safety radio systems, if done right, can be win-win for taxpayers. Instead of passing SPLOSTs left and right to put up closed, isolated non-interconnected systems that are separately managed like little domains, when EVERYONE contributes SOMETHING and the state kicks in the rest, WE ALL PAY LESS. and last I checked, was it not you that complains loudly about raising taxes?

The bottom line is not everyone needs a trunking system, but then not every agency can operate on a single channel VHF analog repeater. Those days are over. Especially in areas like the "outerburbs" where everyone insists on living, more services are required, coordinating them is most efficiently done on self-owned voice radio systems. Or would you rather your tax money go into the bottom lines of Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T and our folks get billed for every second they talk on a radio/phone/whatever? And as you've said yourself, when these great systems get overloaded then what? No FD response for you! "All circuits busy, please try again"

your blanket opposition to modern radio technology confuses me. Is it just because YOU can't listen or buy a $50 scanner or Bafeng that you turn on the hatorade of these state systems? As far as ALMR, last I checked, their users are very happy. Especially since the state and Feds paid for it- no SPLOSTS or local tax increases and they replaced a hodgepodge of old systems that were unreliable.

Or would you rather those Alaska state troopers use two cups and a string? I fail to see your point.

Getting back on topic, Xenia is a town of 25K people, putting an Intellirepeater site or two for the MARCS system would serve them just as well as if they went out and spend the same on some conventional radio solution. And since the STATE has to maintain and support the system (MARCS has it's own help desk and tech support staff: http://das.ohio.gov/Divisions/InformationTechnology/MARCSServices.aspx) the county gets an in to an interconnected state network for the same money they would get buying their own isolated system that they would be solely responsible for.

as far as Interagency communications, the citizens of Xenia and Greene county would benefit, they've had their share of disasters, in fact several F4 and F5 tornadoes have hit this area over the last 40 years. There is no argument that having a reliable, robust interconnected radio system for public safety is essential in response to these situations. Ask anyone in Joplin, MO, specifically the users of the Joplin Astro 25 DTRS fared during last year's F5 tornado. This system was the ONLY thing that worked. The same thing in Dade/Walker county, GA, the new P25 ISSI linked TVRS worked flawlessly unlike all those cellular systems which were wiped off the Earth along with everything else.
 
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rapidcharger

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I'm a proponent of getting what we pay for as taxpayers.)))

Cool. I'm a proponent of spending money wiser.

((( Cooperative, well planned and managed statewide public safety radio systems, if done right, can be win-win for taxpayers. )))
Well I don't know about that but it sure sounds like a win-win for someone such as yourself who has an authorized radio on the system and probably always will. That would be pretty neat to turn on your portable and monitor any agency in the state.

(((Instead of passing SPLOSTs left and right to put up closed, isolated non-interconnected systems that are separately managed like little domains, when EVERYONE contributes SOMETHING and the state kicks in the rest, WE ALL PAY LESS. and last I checked, was it not you that complains loudly about raising taxes? The bottom line is not everyone needs a trunking system, but then not every agency can operate on a single channel VHF analog repeater. Those days are over. Especially in areas like the "outerburbs" where everyone insists on living, more services are required, coordinating them is most efficiently done on self-owned voice radio systems.)))

That's true but like you said, not everyone needs a TRS and eventually if they did need a multi-site statewide DTRS, then eventually maybe they will have the tax base to pay for it without taking loans from Chairman Mao.

(((Or would you rather your tax money go into the bottom lines of Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T and our folks get billed for every second they talk on a radio/phone/whatever? And as you've said yourself, when these great systems get overloaded then what? No FD response for you! "All circuits busy, please try again")))
I would rather money be spent on things that are needed the most, not just buying neat technology because of some irrational fears.

(((your blanket opposition to modern radio technology confuses me. Is it just because YOU can't listen or buy a $50 scanner or Bafeng that you turn on the hatorade of these state systems? )))
That's part of the reason. Maybe if I was in the club like you are I'd feel differently about it. Then again, as many public instutions are shuttered and workers are laid off, I'd probably still see these statewide systems, as truly magnificent and awesome and advanced as they are, as a colossal waste of money that hundreds of agencies never had to spend to begin with.

(((As far as ALMR, last I checked, their users are very happy. Especially since the state and Feds paid for it- no SPLOSTS or local tax increases and they replaced a hodgepodge of old systems that were unreliable.

Or would you rather those Alaska state troopers use two cups and a string? I fail to see your point.)))

I take it you missed last night's episode. The money would be better spent on hiring more officers it sounds like. When an officer is 60 miles away from the nearest other officer and everything coming over their squak box sounds like people have a dozen Oscar Meyer weiners shoved in their mouth, and the person they are attempting to take into custody is armed and has warrants, I think the officer would sooner take a radio that works even if it was on the baby monitor band and wasn't linked up to courtroom janitors in a city 800 miles away so long as backup got the message.



(((Getting back on topic, Xenia is a town of 25K people, putting an Intellirepeater site or two for the MARCS system would serve them just as well as if they went out and spend the same on some conventional radio solution. And since the STATE has to maintain and support the system (MARCS has it's own help desk and tech support staff: Department of Administrative Services > Divisions > Information Technology > MARCS Services) the county gets an in to an interconnected state network for the same money they would get buying their own isolated system that they would be solely responsible for. )))
I'm actually quite familiar with Xenia as I normally visit there at least once a year although I didn't this year. It's a lovely small town but hard to imagine a town like that needing either to be a part of a statewide system or have their own DTRS or needing either in the foreseeable future. They should evaluate their needs better instead of buying into some baloney about needing to interoperate or about not having enough bandwidth.

(((as far as Interagency communications, the citizens of Xenia and Greene county would benefit, they've had their share of disasters, in fact several F4 and F5 tornadoes have hit this area over the last 40 years. )))

It's amazing they lasted this long with the 1950's cold war technology they're using, then huh.
I'm well aware of their tornados there. I was actually in one of them while I had visited several years ago. It was frightening but managed to sqeak through just fine without any DTRS.

(((There is no argument that having a reliable, robust interconnected radio system for public safety is essential in response to these situations. Ask anyone in Joplin, MO, specifically the users of the Joplin Astro 25 DTRS fared during last year's F5 tornado. This system was the ONLY thing that worked.)))
I'd imagine if you threw tens of millions of dollars into any radio system, it would work pretty well too.
Ooops. Unless you're in Las Vegas or Palm Beach.
How long do those systems persist anyway? Isn't it until the "end of life" date that someone picks out ahead of time? You keep talking about saving money in the long run but there is no long run. It's perpetual maintenance and saving up for the next big migration and "upgrade"!

(((he same thing in Dade/Walker county, GA, the new P25 ISSI linked TVRS worked flawlessly unlike all those cellular systems which were wiped off the Earth along with everything else.
Oh please don't get me started on dade/walker county. I'm all out of barf bags.
 

loumaag

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rapidcharger & MTS2000des:

You have both expressed your opinion here (and elsewhere) on large TRS infrastructure. You've done it enough here in this topic. Move on or sit back and stay on the topic of Xenia only, thanks.
 

AK9R

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States that have done it right like Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado, and Ohio understand that to make a statewide radio system an affordable reality, the state has to chip in as do those who want to join.
Does Ohio charge any kind of fees to the local agencies who want to join the system? I ask because Indiana doesn't. The State of Indiana built and maintains SAFE-T, but, as far as I know, the only cost for a local agency to join the system is the cost of the radios.
 

W8RMH

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Ohio does charge a small user fee, though the state pays most of the cost. It takes a lot to maintain these systems and I think the users should pay something. By using the state's system the local agencies do not have to purchase and maintain their own system which saves them a lot of money in the long run and they have a statewide interop system to boot.

Also MTS2000des my previous comments were not directed at you as you seem to have a good knowledge of the Ohio system as well as the industry in general, whereas Rapidcharger's attacks on everyone else are apparently due to his dissatisfaction with the trend of communications in his community. I don't care for this increased use of encryption either but I don't blame the entire world over it.
 
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MTS2000des

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Ohio does charge a small user fee, though the state pays most of the cost. It takes a lot to maintain these systems and I think the users should pay something. By using the state's system the local agencies do not have to purchase and maintain their own system which saves them a lot of money in the long run and they have a statewide interop system to boot.

Also MTS2000des my previous comments were not directed at you as you seem to have a good knowledge of the Ohio system as well as the industry in general, whereas Rapidcharger's attacks on everyone else are apparently due to his dissatisfaction with the trend of communications in his community. I don't care for this increased use of encryption either but I don't blame the entire world over it.

No problem. Ohio has a great system, as does Indiana. Where I live, the good old boy politicking gets in the way of any such reality. I have used both MARCS and Indiana's SAFE-T as case study to try to get the same thing to become a reality in my state, but we lack the leadership (and funding) at the state level to make it happen. Just business as usual in the "dirty south".

I commend Xenia and Greene county for doing it right, Indiana IMO set the standard over 15 years ago when MECA was the building block for SAFE-T. SAFE-T is a great idea of how COMPETENT state government CAN work, as is MARCS, when it comes to public safety radio systems.
 
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