Homeland Security Spends $430M on Radios...

[BMT]

but nobody knows how to use them

Homeland Security Spends $430M on Radios... - ...but nobody knows how to use them

bmt

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Not suprising... DHS should be renamed DHI the I being IN-security.

[GB1952]

Our tax dollars at work.

[mm]

Gee I'm disappointed in them I don't see any cattle prods to shove up thanksgiving travelers butts at the airports?

[Squad10]

"What we've got here is failure to communicate"

"Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men."

Captain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fuDDqU6n4o

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Originally Posted by Squad10

"What we've got here is failure to communicate"

12 years after 9/11, billions spent, yet "inter-operability" has still a reality. Not saying some jusidictions have not gotten it right, but most still do not have a clue, and "DHS" is a piss poor example to follow.

[kb2vxa]

Shouldn't this be in the Community Announcements and News forum?

[Skypilot007]

What a bunch of clowns...are government is pathetic.

[sholt]

That 'reallybig' character in the comments is hilarious.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[FFPM571]

Same topic as this.. Federal OIG Report on DHS' Communications Capabilities Released

[mmckenna]

True interoperability isn't just about the equipment. Any clown can go out and buy a bunch of radios. Where the issue lies is in user training. A lot of public safety people don't have a clue how radios work. It's just another appliance. They know how to turn it on, push the button and speak. Spending millions on new radios won't change this.
Officers are required to re-qualify on their skills frequently. I've never heard of anyone being required to qualify to use a radio. This is a big issue. User training is often ignored, or not given anywhere near enough attention. The push is to buy the radios, get them programmed, and get them in the hands of the users. Attempts are made to "match" the functions of the older radios so users don't have to learn anything new. While this sounds like a really good idea, it usually isn't. I've done this before and it does make it easy in the beginning. They get their new radios, as long as it looks, performs and sounds like the old one, they are happy. If you change the color, size, brand, or way the channels are organized or the buttons are set up, there will be a riot. Some radio programming goes back well into the 70's when hand held radios made the scene in big numbers. A lot of agencies are still using "Color" channels, going back to the time when the radios only had a few channels and their was no display, only colored channel selector buttons. It works to a certain extent, but it has resulted in users who have no idea how to use the radios they are carrying.
This article exemplifies that. They gave DHS members brand new radios with new channels and new functions all with good intentions. The result isn't the radio failed, it was the lack of training that failed.

Easy to fix, but it will be easier to blame someone else.

[drdispatch]

We saw it in my county when we switched to the statewide trunked system. The PD's have all kinds of tactical talkgroups, & mutual aid talkgroups, & every other kind of talkgroup; but when they have a critical incident, they stay on the primary dispatch channel, because "it's too hard to find the tactical TG & switch to it when we're on an incident".

It's all in the training, & changing the "Go ahead....make one more change" attitude. (With apologies to Dirty Harry...)

[jim202]

Radio interoperability has been around since the day radio was first used for public safety. The problem is that people don't know how to use it or where to use it. But the largest roadblock to radio interoperability between agencies is the politics of the management at the top. If management doesn't support it, it won't happen.

A good example is the after math of hurricane Katrina. Many public safety agencies had their infrastructure wiped out. Towers were laying on the ground, stations were flooded out and if you were luck, the mobile fleet was moved to higher ground. But now what?

Well as agencies came in from all around the country, they had a problem. No one could talk to anyone else. The few incident commanders that did stand up and take charge, had a problem on their hands. here they had vehicles from all across the country, but none of them had normal operation channels that could be used between each other. Up pops a savvy radio tech and says, have you tried using the "NATIONAL INTEROPERABILITY RADIO CHANNELS"? Well guess what, most of those that came down to the Gulf Coast did have the "National Interop" channels in their radios. So began the largest use of these channels in the country's history. Mobile command vehicles were used to patch VHF, UHF and the 800 MHz channels together as needed to provide the common radio paths as needed.

Now the next problem that cropped up was that some overly helpful people thought it would be a good idea to just patch all of these channels together with no guidance from anyone. This provided pure jamming until a message was passed to all on the channel to break all patches unless otherwise told different. The incident command slowly took hold and there was controlled communications.

It did take some daily training on the new arrivals as they showed up to help. In the long run, it became a very useful tool to have everyone on the "National Interoperability Radio Channels". Now if we could just get local agencies to drill on the use of these channels. Not only would it make the users know where in their radio these channels exist, it would give them the refresher training that these channels still existed. The drills would force the participants to use their radios on channels they normally don't use. It allows them to get use to other agencies and just how the radios can be used. Plus you don't need a $6000 radio to use these channels. You can get just about any cheap $300 or less analog radio that can do narrow band operation to function on these analog channels. Yup, you don't need a digital radio here. In fact an analog radio will actually function better. It will tell you when your about to run out of rope for the distance your trying to talk back to.

Now if we could just find a way to work around the local politics that stand in the way of using these channels for local incidents that use multiple agencies.

[mmckenna]

Amen!
When I was narrow banding our police department I added the interoperability channels to their radios. Trying to train them is another story, however. Like I said earlier, officers have to re-qualify on a number of their skills, but radio operation is never one of them.
All of this was done with analog radios that were from the early 2000's. MCS2000 mobiles and MTS2000 hand held. My next task is to get their radios upgraded without some well meaning individual deciding they "must have" P25. At least I'm getting them off the Motorola product line and over to Kenwood. That alone will save them a few hundred per radio.

[Boatanchor]

It should read:

Over the last 9 years DHS have spent $430 million on the equivalent of Betamax (P25) radios.
Now that Phase 2 and more spectrum efficient technologies are being released and increasingly used by LEA's and Emergency responders, DHS will have to pay another $1 Billion dollars or more on new multi-mode/band capable radios to ensure compatibility. Of course this will then mean that 97% of staff don't know how to use the new equipment..

Get ready for DHS to open their (your) wallets again..

Headless chickens comes to mind..

If nothing else, this is sure to keep the shareholders of certain radio manufactures and DVSI happy for another 10 years or so.

[mmckenna]

Good one.
Analog = the original interoperability platform!
I have not seen a P25 radio that will not do analog yet. For that matter, I haven't seen any NexEdge, IDAS, MotoTrbo or other radio that won't do analog. Seems pretty interoperable to me.

[WayneH]

Originally Posted by FFPM571

Same topic as this.. Federal OIG Report on DHS' Communications Capabilities Released

Thread closed. Please direct your replies to the above existing thread.