GSP Radio System
Come on MTS2000des, give GSP a break. I personally feel the State has some very good, competent personnel overseeing their two-way radio equipment and systems and are doing their best to make good on the two-way radio resources (equipment, frequencies, infrastructure and funding) they have. I think if GSP is installing or has installed VHF P25 capable base stations and mobile radios along with issuing our troopers P25 compliant portable radios then this is a huge improvement over what we have seen in past years with previous administrators and personnel. I think the attitude of "We have got to have a Statewide 800 MHz Trunked Radio System and nothing else will do" may be gone and the personnel who have been put in charge of overseeing the two-way radio equipment and systems in recent years do not have tunnel vision when it comes to a solution. I know they know there are other ways to achieve interoperability with the users of the disparate radio systems operated by cities and counties throughout our State and some very good solutions are in place today.
I just wish the idea of installing VHF P25 Systems had caught on three to five years ago by both the State and all of the cities and counties in Georgia who still operate VHF Systems. This could have been a win-win situation for the State, all of the cities and counties still operating VHF Systems and the taxpayers especially if local and state government and agencies within these two levels had pooled their radio frequency resources to create regional VHF P25 Systems or possibly one large Statewide VHF P25 System like other states have done. Heck, can you imagine what type of system could be built out if one took all of the VHF frequencies licensed to the State that are in use by the Department of Corrections, DOT, GBI, Georgia Forestry, GSP an other State agencies and put these into one system? Now throw in the VHF frequencies licensed to the cities and counties for all services, not just fire, police, sheriff, EMS, etc. and image the possibilities. You and many others out there know that I am not a huge fan of P25, but this would have been a better scenerio than what we are seeing unveil today with the various systems throughout our State. Several cities and counties operating fairly good VHF Systems have elected to switch to 700 MHz P25 Systems or switch to proprietary VHF or UHF Systems like MotoTRBO or NEXEDGE (Yes, you read this correctly, one county has switched from VHF conventional to UHF MotoTRBO in a predominantly VHF state and I hear a couple of others are considering doing the same). Many of these agencies did this because they were convinced by their radio vendor that this was the best way to meet the narrowband mandate and now you see where it has gotten us. Without the intervention of a communications officer/dispatcher to activate a gateway (i.e. ACU-1000, console patch, Motobridge, etc.) our field responders have less control over interoperability today than they did back in the early 1980s. Don't get me wrong, gateways are a good solution to interoperability as long as the responders using disparate radio systems are within the coverage of both radio systems, but if they get outside the coverage of one or both systems then the gateway is an oversided paper weight. I did hear the other day that a couple of counties in Georgia are considering upgrading their VHF analog conventional systems to VHF P25, so maybe if this happens then VHF P25 will catch on in other counties throughout Georgia.
Boy, I really would have liked to have seen all of the cities, counties and State pool their VHF frequencies to at least build out some regional VHF P25 Systems (I truly think this could have been done if the right people had gotten together). I think had they done this they could have reduced and possibly eliminated the problems of not having the "right splits" on frequencies for repeater inputs and outputs or the problem of "not having enough VHF frequencies to create a P25 Trunked Radio System", but the sad part is we may never know because other commitments have already been made. More than likely we will not see this opportunity arise again until there is another major change in technology and shift in spectrum. In the meantime, there will probably be a lot of VHF frequencies that cities and counties will maintain current licenses for that will not be used. What a shame...