waterford p25
ok sorry for this being long but there are a few things to point out here.
i run a bc796d at work and i am on the road all over the eastern half of CT specifically newlondon county. just yesterday (friday 22 2010) i passed down thru waterford and i when i do i always flip over to the new system to see if they have it running. i travelled the whole length of rt 32 from the CT college to the highway and i got nothing as far as a control channel. i have gotten before and it set right into the scanner as a p25 trunked system so i do know thats what it will be. trust me on that last one, my scanner is a little b@@@@ when it comes to putting a trunked system in. you have to have it perfect or it wont work. they are however still using their conventional frequency 856.2375. that was alive and active as of all day yesterday and i have that set in the scanner with a pl tone and all so i know that is correct so for the gentleman who hasnt heard anything on it i would make a safe assumption and say check your antenna and cable. ive had problems before where i lost activity and thought the entity had moved only to find a connection went bad.
as far as digital systems go, and this is just judging by the CSP on my scanner and what i hear them say, digital systems work pretty good and when you have one, there are alot more advantages to it. the catch is that just like cell phones if you dont make sure you saturate the area with signal, the system wont preform the way you want it to i.e. - the dead zones on i95 in the groton/stonington areas. im not a huge fan of digital systems but if they work better and the radio service can get their heads out of their lazy a@@@@ just long enough to actually take the time to study the area and work out all the dead zones and bugs out of the system then digital systems will work. as far as the audio in high noise enviroments, once again, just like cell phones 1. you cant deep throat the area where the microphone element is, 2. it will pick up everything possible in the background which does not work in a high noise situation. with a analog system if your in high noise you can talk closer to the mic and be heard over the noise, with digital if you do that it normally will just distort your voice to where its not understandable. then you have the other end of this problem where the operator of the radio has no freaking clue on the science behind operating it and just treats it like kids treat FRS radios when they talk.
fire departments and ems just need to keep their radios simple and stop trying to advance. their main goal is to save lives, not walk around all proud with their expensive toys and try to be important.should they need to be on a system they should always have an analog backup system in place that they use for backup/ and on scene communications. the matter of saving a life is sometimes going to depend on clear communication. they dont need any errors AT ALL whether its operator or radio error. most guys ive heard on fire radios alot of times really do not know how to use the radio or how the thing works. im not chopping down emergency personnel when i say this, what i am saying is there is a huge lack of training on someones part. if you are to do alot of radio communication in emergency situations then i say learn the topography of the area, know all your tower sites, know the basic science behind RF propagation. it doesnt take much to learn all that and from what ive seen of fire fighters in just my area alone most have at least some sort of clue as to whats going on so they already have a head start. sounds retarded to know all of that? not if it means a matter of life and death.
