Multi Band Radio Pilot Report

[shanny19]

Originally Posted by n2ops

complaints about large and heavy portables.

I bet that makes the wildfire guys who are STILL packing around Bendix King Bricks for the purposes of FPP laugh and sneer. 12 pounds of drinking water? check. 12 pounds of radio? check.

http://www.nifc.gov/NIICD/docs/approved_radios.pdf

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by shanny19

I bet that makes the wildfire guys who are STILL packing around Bendix King Bricks for the purposes of FPP laugh and sneer. 12 pounds of drinking water? check. 12 pounds of radio? check.

http://www.nifc.gov/NIICD/docs/approved_radios.pdf

Yeah, good point. Police/Sheriff officers have a different feeling, though. They already carry enough stuff on their belts, in addition to having to sit in the car with this thing. The newer radios are smaller, lighter and do a lot. They perceive a heavier radio as "old technology".

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by jeatock

How badly does a firefighter on the wet end of a hose need to be able to communicate directly with the State EOC anyway? When multi-band radios are issued they are best put in the hands of those who have moved to complex system and have a legitimate need to talk down to the little people in the weeds.

Excellent point. When we were looking at replacing our old SmartNet system we looked at a number of products, MotoTrbo, NexEdge, P25 and LTR. The "head office" and the head of my department were really pushing for P25, I guess that was the latest buzzword they had learned. I tried to talk them out of it, but they didn't want to listen. It took a consultant to explain it to them. One of my arguments was "Why does the guy in the garbage truck need to communicate directly with a fire fighter or a police officer?".

I'm seeing a lot of large systems being built that seem to be based on the need for EVERYONE to interact, down to the point of the guy driving the lawn mower at the park carrying a $5000 radio. Seems silly to me. Interoperability IS important, but taking it this far is just a waste of money. Based on the way our guys went through MTS-2000's, having to replace a $5000 radio every month or two is going to get expensive.

When we've talked about interoperability with our PD and Fire, we found that the average guy on the street doesn't know much about radio, and really only wants to talk to dispatch and his own officers. The Sergeants, LT's, Captains, etc, would need to talk to other agencies, or the EOC, but the guy on the ground just needs basic communications.

I just can't believe some of the money that is being wasted on these projects.

[blantonl]

Originally Posted by gesucks

This is already being done by the NPSTC PCR Working Group. We are well on the way with buy in from most of the major radio makers

Just to clarify further - what I am envisioning is APCO leading an effort to implement a process where:

1) Multi-band portable or mobile shows up on scene

2) User is given a incident "pin code" or "passcode"

3) User enters said pin/passcode in a menu on the radio

4) Radio connects to an RF network and is provisioned for the incident's communications plan. RF Network could be Bluetooth, RF on common VHF/UHF/700/800 dedicated channels, or higher bandwidth allocations that would support the provisioning of hundreds of radios in a short amount of time.

Other considerations could include expiration of the programming (after 15 days the provisioning expires) etc.

There area lot of opportunities out there for APCO and the vendors.

[blantonl]

Originally Posted by gesucks

There is something in place that was designed for this, it is called CASM. It is very secure and run by the feds and DOD. The problem is that the funding has been cut so future growth has been bad. The other problem is that you can not force people to use it. So for some areas of the country the info is amazing and everything you need, other areas nothing. WIth the work the PCR group is doing, we will be much closer to a working database

As you indicated - CASM is a hit or miss resource. The idea had great potential - but the implementation leaves little to be desired. First, the agency has to dedicate a resource to actually fill out the very complex templates and get them submitted. Second, agency resources and their availability often changes which means the data is out of date the second that assigned resource moves on to the next project. Third, many agencies will hold on to their communications related data like it is top secret compartmentalized information and won't dare share with anyone - even the feds. Forth, from what I understand CASM is run by government contractors, which means they bill an assload, and deliver the bare minimum required to meet specs.

We are well aware that a lot of information in CASM was populated from the RadioReference database, and we're cool with that (because there are a significant set of government contractors that have licenses to use the radioreference database for commercial purposes). But, that was a manual process that probably occurred and it would take significant manual resources to keep all that data up to data with our data. CASM also tracks data that we don't - such as radio caches for emergencies, and subscriber unit/infrastructure details that are complex attributes to track since they often change.

The reality is that RadioReference thrives on a crowd-sourcing model where we literally have tens of thousands of individuals all over the world that submit updates to us. Are we 100% completely accurate? Are we the best resource of radio communications related data? Absolutely.

[mmckenna]

Ya know, the easy solution already exists. Common Simplex channels for emergency responders, and common repeater pairs for wider area incidents.
There still needs to be some cross patching, and of course TRAINING, but the tools already exist. It would be a whole lot cheaper to do this than to start handing out $5000 radios to every police officer, fire fighter, EMT, etc.

But, I guess the big industry won't make as much money that way.

We can patch our VHF channels to 800MHz talk groups and 800MHz analog/P25 repeaters. All we'd really need to do is add a VHF Low band repeater and a UHF repeater, and we'd pretty much have everything covered. I could probably pull that off for $20K, or about the price of 4 multi band radios.

[ab3a]

As many have pointed out, there are loads of things that one could do with minimal equipment. Instead, we have a bloody tower of Babel, with each system claiming supremacy for their way of doing things.

I think scanner enthusiasts with FRS or CB radios or ham radio operators with scanners in their vehicles can solve many of these problems. All they need is a computer with a fresh download from the RR database.

To illustrate that point, our water utility has reservoir guards. The reservoirs border three counties.. They are equipped with scanners so that they can monitor local police and EMS in those counties. They have local radios to communicate back with their security operations center at headquarters. Headquarters has a hotline to the dispatches in each county.

It works. It's not ideal, but it works.

[jeatock]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

There still needs to be some cross patching, and of course TRAINING, but the tools already exist. It would be a whole lot cheaper to do this than to start handing out $5000 radios to every police officer, fire fighter, EMT, etc.

I am always amazed by the number of agencies that have a training session several times a month, but whom only mention radio / communication training in passing every three years, if that. Hand them a radio with more than one knob and two buttons and they're clueless.

Originally Posted by mmckenna

But, I guess the big industry won't make as much money that way.

Bingo!

Originally Posted by blantonl

As you indicated - CASM is a hit or miss resource. The idea had great potential - but the implementation leaves little to be desired. First, the agency has to dedicate a resource to actually fill out the very complex templates and get them submitted. Second, agency resources and their availability often changes which means the data is out of date the second that assigned resource moves on to the next project. Third, many agencies will hold on to their communications related data like it is top secret compartmentalized information and won't dare share with anyone - even the feds. Forth, from what I understand CASM is run by government contractors, which means they bill an assload, and deliver the bare minimum required to meet specs.

Information is only useful if A- it is accurate, and B- is available to the people who need it on a timely basis. We all know that every government program is 100% accurate, and performs flawlessly. (And if you believe that I have some ocean view property in North Dakota than can be purchased very reasonably.)

[jeatock]

Originally Posted by shanny19

I bet that makes the wildfire guys who are STILL packing around Bendix King Bricks for the purposes of FPP laugh and sneer. 12 pounds of drinking water? check. 12 pounds of radio? check.

Careful- the old EPH bricks still are great radios. I have one in my gear, but then again I'm senior enough I don't have to get too far from my Rescue.

[rdale]

Originally Posted by N2JDS

Come on Lindsey, you know what you really mean is a 2-way radio with built in wi-fi and GPS that can access the RR data base to program for that area.

I just took the FEMA COM-Technician class a few weeks ago, and was pleased to see that the first thing they recommend we do after being called for a deployment is to check RR for the freq's in the area we would be going... Impressive!

[902]

One issue I think many of you are overlooking in terms of infrastructure is that infrastructure ends at some point. Let's look at one county which uses 800 MHz and another on VHF. An incident in VHF land occurs and help is brought in from 800 MHz County. The 800 system will only work so far - in many cases by design and NPSPAC requirements. Then we are all back to a disparate band environment with potentially great interoperability in areas where coverage overlaps each other, but absolutely no coverage in areas where they do not. In many cases, there is no additional spectrum or fiscal resource to build out far beyond jurisdictional boundary.

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by 902

One issue I think many of you are overlooking in terms of infrastructure is that infrastructure ends at some point. Let's look at one county which uses 800 MHz and another on VHF. An incident in VHF land occurs and help is brought in from 800 MHz County. The 800 system will only work so far - in many cases by design and NPSPAC requirements. Then we are all back to a disparate band environment with potentially great interoperability in areas where coverage overlaps each other, but absolutely no coverage in areas where they do not. In many cases, there is no additional spectrum or fiscal resource to build out far beyond jurisdictional boundary.

Good point. This is a good situation where a radio gateway system would come in handy, take a hand held from agency "A" and a hand held from agency "B" and link for a localized system.

Or, adjoining agencies need to think about this and have a solution in place for mutual aid. There will be situations where responding agencies will arrive on scene with different band radios. Some areas have repeaters on multiple bands (our agency uses VHF as primary and 800 as a back up.

"Command" vehicles or trailers can have multiple radios on different bands, that is the solution that CHP uses in my area.

The idea that agencies from one county need 100% radio coverage in a different county isn't a reason to issue very expensive radios to everyone. Having a cache of multiband radios, or radios that match your local system to be handed out can be a much less expensive solution.

There will be, however, situations where a multiband radio makes the most sense. Those situations are where a radio like this will be a great solution. There is a market for them, just not in the hands of every single first responder.

[902]

Technology can't substitute for joint planning, training, and exercise Technology shouldn't even attempt to do that, unless it's a joint decision to proceed - and then there are usually healthy or developing relationships between the organizations.

Just before Y2K, a local FBI field office sponsored bringing regional traditional and non-traditional responders together for a morning show-and-tell and breakout sessions, then an afternoon barbecue at a ski resort. As a relatively new guy in the job I was doing at the time, I questioned the wisdom, but enjoyed the sessions. Then it was like someone hit me on the head: the objective wasn't the show-and-tell, the objective was bringing people together who normally wouldn't deal with each other and letting them get to know each other. This kinda happens at a major incident, but given the wrong impressions, nothing gets done. Farming professional relationships gives you a "go to" guy/gal who you're not afraid to pick up the phone or email with, and in a common incident, you already know who you're dealing with, what their capabilities are, and how their organization might work with yours. An ice-breaker social that was worth more than the millions of dollars that could be spent on "stuff" (not that "stuff" wasn't needed and wasn't bought, but without this kind of foundation, that "stuff" is just "junk"). Brilliant.

Given organizational culture issues between agencies that have been rivals for decades or possibly over a century, as we see surface in the media from time to time, we probably shouldn't expect that just having the ability to talk between each other will be used - unless it's reinforced by their respective commands. My past experience has been that FD establishes command at a place close to the incident, usually with pre-planned communications plans (especially if they have "automatic" mutual aid, or a strong mutual aid relationships), PD has a few officers drive up and park near each other, usually away from FD. EMS varies, but in places which have experienced large mass casualty incidents, is also very organized. Emergency management, if there is one - and if authority isn't conveyed to it - has resources, but is by itself... until maybe FD needs 2,000 chainsaws (and then it's "Why can't I get them in a half-hour?").

"Interoperability" doesn't fix any of that. Radio systems and other wireless data technologies are only tools that give the people who use them some kind of utility to leverage the relationships they've built, either face-to-face or through standards and structures (ICS and common training). Infrastructure (even if it's infrastructure-independent subscriber units) is the water. Technology leads the horse to the water. Y'all know the rest.

Everybody talking to everybody else is a charlie foxtrot (engineers don't seem to understand that... salespeople even less... and marketing will create an alternate reality that says you need to do that all the time, every time...). Teams communicating within each other, and then to their supervisor, liaison, or up to higher headquarters, is control. The liaison can have a multiband or multiprotocol radio, but the other members within the TF, ST, or zone won't need that all-encompassing capability, as long as they can talk between themselves.

[ResQguy]

TRUE STORY:

Originally Posted by 902

Technology can't substitute for joint planning, training, and exercise Technology shouldn't even attempt to do that, unless it's a joint decision to proceed - and then there are usually healthy or developing relationships between the organizations.

Just before Y2K, a local FBI field office sponsored bringing regional traditional and non-traditional responders together for a morning show-and-tell and breakout sessions, then an afternoon barbecue at a ski resort. As a relatively new guy in the job I was doing at the time, I questioned the wisdom, but enjoyed the sessions. Then it was like someone hit me on the head: the objective wasn't the show-and-tell, the objective was bringing people together who normally wouldn't deal with each other and letting them get to know each other. This kinda happens at a major incident, but given the wrong impressions, nothing gets done. Farming professional relationships gives you a "go to" guy/gal who you're not afraid to pick up the phone or email with, and in a common incident, you already know who you're dealing with, what their capabilities are, and how their organization might work with yours. An ice-breaker social that was worth more than the millions of dollars that could be spent on "stuff" (not that "stuff" wasn't needed and wasn't bought, but without this kind of foundation, that "stuff" is just "junk"). Brilliant.

[mmckenna]

A radio is a tool. The tool should't be so complicated, expensive, heavy, or rare that no one can actually use it.

The engineering/sales/marketing people look at the radio as the reason the people exist. In their eyes, the people exist to use their product. The sales and marketing people are getting so good that they can convince 30 year veterans that they cannot survive with out this product. They convince city councils, government officials and taxpayers that they will only be safe if everyone is carrying a $5000 radio that talks to everyone, everywhere, every time. Council members, officials and other government people are worried about good old Number 1. If I don't buy this technology, I could get blamed and lose my job.

There is an old-ish saying "No one ever gets fired for picking Motorola" Same thing happens on the networking side, "No one ever gets fired for picking Cisco". If you spec out the most expensive product, and get a marketing person to feed you verbiage to justify it, you won't get blamed for not doing enough to help first responders. In the relm of government, money isn't real. Taxpayers will always give more money when they are threatened with losing first responders. The old battle cry of "What if you called 911 and no one came?" is a strong argument, and taxpayers respond to it.

While I'm all for this level of technology in the right places with the right training, the taxpayers need to say "enough is enough". Taxpayers are not an endless source of money. What money local, state and federal government does get needs to be spent wisely. Unfortunately most of the public is unaware, apathetic, or just not paying attention enough to do anything. I would hope that public safety officials would step up to the plate on this and defend the people they serve.

I see too many times that a big agency will get funding to buy top of the line technology. It's touted as the greatest thing for the agency. What is often missed is that now that they have the top of the line technology, the interoperability is gone. Of course the manufacturers now have a captive market that pretty much is required to buy all new technology, even though the stuff they already have was just fine. These big corporations are raping the taxpayers.

Before someone flames me on this, I'm not against public safety having the right tools for the job. There just needs to be some logic and thought put into these systems. That thought needs to extend beyond your own jurisdictions. Though needs to be given to mutual aid and cooperation.

[902]

Bingo!

[jeatock]

Swiss Army Phones have spoiled us, especially many of the communications decision makers who haven't worked the street. There is a perception of universal perfect coverage, and an ever increasing list of apps and features. "Public safety equipment can be the same, right?"

Those same decision makers fail to consider the tremendous amount of infrastructure it takes to support smart phones. The carriers are profit driven to put up hundreds of sites in a given metro area, but do so only when there is a positive impact on their bottom line. Where I live, there are many areas where there is no phone service at all. Why? User density is too low for an adequate return on investment. "Drive ten minutes and you can have service again, no problem." That is fine for a teenager checking Facebook, but unacceptable in public safety communications.

"But my phone always works!" Really? Calls never get dropped? Signals never get 'digital'? Those of us who work in the industry know that there is no such thing as 100% radio reliability. The present state of public safety infrastructure is at best 90% reliability in most places, and a 50/50 proposition in many locations. That issue is seldom considered. Welcome to radio.

They also fail to consider the economy of scale. Almost every household has a phone for every individual. Many million phones are produced every year, driving down the price per unit. Compare that to the cost per unit of a device with maybe a few thousand produced.

When there is a major disaster, the infrastructure required to support complicated communications systems fails. A local incident saturates the towers with calls, making service unreliable. A regional incident is worse: Joplin had limited voice service, although texting was available. Katrina put large areas out of operation for a long time. The Minnesota statewide system had failures during the W35 bridge collapse. During these disasters, dependable public safety communications are vital.

Communications can always be restored, temporary equipment brought in, gateways established, alternate system implemented, and the troops can be trained to use them. When? Maybe by the end of tomorrow, if we are lucky.

Go outside on a dark night and count the number of red lights blinking on the horizon. The number will astound you. How many of those towers support public safety? 5%, maybe? To have the same coverage for public safety that your phone has will require more infrastructure.

My point here is that the reliability of infrastructure based systems is questionable when the fan starts to spin off brown stuff. That also makes the case for radios that have both advanced and vanilla capability.

That said, when does a radio become too complex for the average user? I'm a Professional Geek and still haven't figured out all the features of my smart phone. You would be shocked by the numer of public safety folks who have radios that can do all sorts of fancy stuff, but who have no idea. For the majority, it is "Black box; push to talk, let up to listen. Use Channel One or Two. My radio has that in it? I'll be switched!"

Here is the evil reality check: How do you pay for it?

The follow-up reality check: Want vs. need, funding vs. vendor politics, training and re-training, and the real limitations of radio are seldom genuinely considered.

There is no easy answer.

[mmckenna]

Preach on, brother!

[jeatock]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

A radio is a tool. The tool should't be so complicated, expensive, heavy, or rare that no one can actually use it.
...
Before someone flames me on this, I'm not against public safety having the right tools for the job. There just needs to be some logic and thought put into these systems. That thought needs to extend beyond your own jurisdictions. Though needs to be given to mutual aid and cooperation.

Amen. Everyone needs a plan, driven by budget, end-user needs, reality checks, and the certainty of impending disaster. Not by politics and impulse, and not requiring things that will only be useful long after the initial mitigation is over.

[jim202]

Let me ask a simple question here.

If your at a multi agency incident, why do you need to have radio system coverage from your home system? Your at the incident to support the incident. Normally the coverage area is only a couple of city blocks in size. Maybe a mile in some cases. This can be done very easily on a simplex channel operation.

Why does everyone keep insisting that you use your home radio repeaters or trunking systems for these localized incident communications. The whole intent is to have communications at the local level. To coordinate activities at the incident doesn't required the activities of a trunking system. It doesn't normally require coverage over several counties.

Why do you think the FCC managed in it's undisputed planning (a real joke)to set aside the "National Interoperability Radio Channels" in most of the public safety bands. Problem is there are few that even know these channels still exist. Even fewer that use them. Even fewer that use them on a regular basis at incidents.

You don't need very smart radios to use a simplex channel. They are much cheaper than these gold plated, rocket driven do all's for the low cost of at least $5000 to $8000 each. Just how many of you have even used a radio on a simplex channel at an incident in the last several years. My bet is very few. Only the smart radio boys from the country may even start to fall into doing this catagory. The city slickers probably don't even know what channels are really in their radio. They never get off the normal main zone of the common talkgroups.