West Palm Beach, Fl - City decides against OpenSky

[Matthew]

West Palm Beach has decided to seek bids for a P25 radio system as opposed to continuing its effort to deploy an OpenSky system.

West Palm Beach to seek bids for police radio system besides... | www.palmbeachpost.com

[rapidcharger]

Someone needs to take away their checkbook.

[Intimidator21801]

Is the Project 25 that the police depts are going to start using, are we able to listen to them on the police scanners? I have a Radio Shack Pro-164 scanner... Please let me know. Las Vegas was using the OpenSky ( DesertSky ) system. Now they're going to get bids on the P25 system. Currently they are broadcasting on some of the old frequencies & also on the SNAAC frequencies.
Thanks for any info

[Intimidator21801]

Las Vegas police hire consultant, law firm in search for new radio system - News - ReviewJournal.com

[Spitfire8520]

Originally Posted by Intimidator21801

Is the Project 25 that the police depts are going to start using, are we able to listen to them on the police scanners? I have a Radio Shack Pro-164 scanner... Please let me know. Las Vegas was using the OpenSky ( DesertSky ) system. Now they're going to get bids on the P25 system. Currently they are broadcasting on some of the old frequencies & also on the SNAAC frequencies.
Thanks for any info

The announcement for Palm Beach in Florida may not have been the best place to ask about Las Vegas. The Pro-164 will not be able to monitor P25, but there are a few scanners that can. It would depend on the flavor of P25 that LVMPD will decide on going with as I haven't been following those developments.

Check out the announcement and ask around in the Nevada forums. The third link will also provide a brief overview of P25:
Las Vegas, NV - Police dump radio system
Nevada Radio Discussion Forum - The RadioReference.com Forums
APCO Project 25 - The RadioReference Wiki

[radioman2001]

I know anyone who has a OpenSky system has a bad taste in it's mouth, but why chuck the whole system? All the GE/MaComm/Harris equipment is capable of reflashing to P-25. Why throw out perfectly good working radios unless this is just to stick it to Harris. I wonder if Harris is second guessing themselves for purchasing MaComm. They would have been better off just dumping OpenSky from the beginning and just work it out with the customers to convert to P-25, taking a little loss rather than all the bad press that I am sure Motorola is pointing out in their presentations. Both Motorola and Harris make great equipment, but unfortunately Harris's choices are going to cause them to lose customers that they could have had with a little work and taking one on the chin..

[GTO_04]

According to the article, a Harris P25 system would cost $2.3 million more than a Motorola P25 system!
This decision is a no-brainer if they are going with a P25 system.

GTO_04

[radioman2001]

That's probably for a complete replacement, boy is Harris acting stupid. I doubt that it would cost more than 100k to reflash the existing equipment, but I suspect that's because they want 2 systems. One for data and another voice, and I would hope the consultant would show them a better way. Harris I found can be very pig headed when dealing with customers. They have been dealing with the Feds too long, kinda like the Telco's when they started to break them up. Their attitude was this is it period. I know NY Tel lost a lot of business to independents as a result of such an attitude.

[KS4VT]

The issue is that there are 4 other users who want to remain on the OpenSky format. If Harris was selected for P-25, then I would assume that all new base stations would be provided for the system.

Also the City does not have any Harris consoles. They would have to be purchased new.

[KS4VT]

Inspector General’s OpenSky police radio report: 69% of officers reported problems | West Palm Beat blog | The Palm Beach Post