hitechRadio
Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2010
- Messages
- 537
What are your thoughts, about Mototrbo use for public saftey.
First things first to me is the lack of interoperability with other agencies.
It interoperates just fine with other agencies.
Most areas have set aside mutual aide frequencies that are analog and carrier squelch.
First things first to me is the lack of interoperability with other agencies. I know it's a buzz word, but it's an important one to me. If my neighbor is using TRBO and I can't talk to him because I'm not, that's no good.
Second is the fact that it's not designed for public safety use. IIRC, there is no provision for an "emergency button" on a TRBO radio, or is there?
That, to me, is not TRBO being interoperable, that is conventional analog being interoperable.
For me, TRBO being interoperable would involve a TRBO user being able to communicate with another agency without having to go through a bridge or some other kind of translation. As TRBO is proprietary and non-Motorola (even Motorola non-TRBO) users cannot communicate with TRBO users, this is an electronic brick wall.
I guess we'll just have to disagree there.
Been using a TRBO portable at my EMS gig for over a year, Analog audio is superior to any other radio I've used, and that includes my XTS5000. TRBO is not "commercial grade" it's technically in Moto's "Expert" teir.
Bad idea. TRBO equipment is meant for commercial/business use. Not mission critical communications where the failure of a radio in a fire or a pursuit could result in the loss of life.
I didn't know if TRBO had an emergency feature, which is why I posed it as a question. Don't get your shorts in a knot over it.
As for interoperability, I can talk on my Smartzone system and on conventional on the same radio. If I want to talk to a TRBO user, I have to go buy a TRBO radio. That, to me, != interoperable. I don't care what anyone else says - by my definition of "interoperable", I should not have to carry 4 radios to talk to 4 different users. Nor should those users have to come off their system onto a conventional channel (as the people championing TRBO are advocating) in order to talk to me. Whether that's the "true" definition of interoperability or not is irrelevant in the field. If I can't talk to them, that makes it useless.
The same goes for iDEN or for wacky trunk systems like MPT1327. I've had to deal with all that kind of junk here, and the end result is the same: No one can talk to one another because everyone is on their own, incompatible system. You can put together a kludgey patch in the comms center all you like, as has been done for iDEN to SmartZone and iDEN to conventional, but it still doesn't work right, because the SZ or conventional user has no way of hearing the iDEN talk permit tone, and often gets cut off.
Going to a conventional channel for talking to other users completely defeats the purpose of paying top dollar for your shiny TRBO system.
As for TRBO being proprietary or not, what other manufacturers currently sell radios that can be used on a TRBO system? Is there a Kenwood TRBO radio? Icom? Bendix-King?
Public safety is all about critical communications that must get through and must be able to be exchanged between multiple parties and agencies at any given moment. I can not and will not be convinced that MotoTRBO is a viable public safety solution unless every user that might be required to talk to public safety in the area is committing to use MotoTRBO.
Give me a common system on a common band any day of the week.
Besides that, the only proven pagers out there do not work in any of the trunked or digital worlds yet, in particular the Minitor V.
I didn't know if TRBO had an emergency feature, which is why I posed it as a question. Don't get your shorts in a knot over it.
As for interoperability, I can talk on my Smartzone system and on conventional on the same radio. If I want to talk to a TRBO user, I have to go buy a TRBO radio
Going to a conventional channel for talking to other users completely defeats the purpose of paying top dollar for your shiny TRBO system.
Are you insinuating that in the future, when I get a P25 trunk established in my area, I am not going to be able to have simplex frequencies
Tons of public safety agencies, especially rural departments, still use this type of paging for alerting their crews and their on-call staff. Are Steve and I both wrong in believing that there is no such thing as a TRBO pager?
You've just made the case for TRBO by stating your Smartzone case.
Substitute TRBO for Smartzone and Smartzone for TRBO and it's the same.
Let me show you:
As for interoperability, I can talk on my TRBO system and on conventional on the same radio. If I want to talk to a Smsrtzone user, I have to go buy a Smartzone radio
Going to a conventional channel for talking to other users completely defeats the purpose of paying top dollar for your shiny Smartzone system.
TRBO radios are analog and digital plus they support a lot of APCO 16 features such as man down and ptt-id.
They'll even support mdc decode.
They offer a lot of bang for the buck and a lot of departments are replacing their old analog equipment with TRBO when it comes due.
FYI.. Vertex is MOTOROLA OWNED... Now that ASTRO junk has been exposed and TRUE P25 is available, The bat has to make another distraction to survive.. If you can't beat em, change the rules.. GO MOTO !!