NYC Emergency Services

[opensky2]

Why aren't any emergency services in NYC digital or trunked yet? I assumed with such a large city trunking would almost surely be.

 

[radionerd13669]

I would assume because if its not broke dont fix it. EMS carries Motorola XTS3000 that can do digital but they must not see a need to go that route

 

[FrankRaffa]

Change for the sake of change isn't reason enough. There's nothing wrong with the current setup.

 

[mike4164]

FDNY/EMS just started issuing the XTS5000's.They were issued in SI about 3 weeks ago and they will start with the rest of the service in a few weeks.Yes the radios have the capability to be used in the digital mode,but right now there is no reason to do that for us in EMS.It can be put into digital mode from what I understand IF the T/C decides he needs that,then there is a switch in the citywide console for them to switch to digital.I got this from a friend of mine who is a citywide dispatcher.We used to use the 800 radios for dispatch years ago,I was using it when we 1st started testing it when I worked out of Coney Island on 31A and 31D,they didnt work very well in buildings.But like Frank said,if it aint broke dont fix it.As for the new radios in EMS they have been programmed with the new frequencies we got,they are listed in the RR DB under new EMS frequencies,LOL.There are still old radios being kept in the station for a short time in case there is a problem with the new radios as a backup plan or if there is a major MCI with a recall.If I can get a copy of the new radio plan I will try and post it so you can see who has what in their radios.It's a lot of info broken down into EMT/PARAMEDIC,HAZ-TAC,Lt.,Capt.,Chief's.They each have a different radio plan as to what is programmed in their respective radios.FDNY/EMS does have the new trunked system in the new radios for supervisors,or I should say will have it when it comes online in the near future.

 

[radionerd13669]

Are they upgrading from the 3000 to the 5000? All units had the 3000 last week?

 

[DaveNF2G]

The main reason is probably the sheer size of NYC and its agencies. Most municipalities have to deal with a few dozen, or maybe even a few hundred radios. Any changeover in NYC would involve thousands of radios.

 

[mike4164]

FDNY/EMS is upgrading to the 5000's from the 3000's.SI is the first div. to get them. They got them about 3 weeks ago and the rest of the service will be getting them shortly.

 

[FLA2760]

Why aren't any emergency services in NYC digital or trunked yet? I assumed with such a large city trunking would almost surely be.

Because trunked/digital systems are inferior in performance to a properly maintained standard system. Why change something that works so well?

 

[newsnick175]

When Motorola or Haliburton/Tyco sales people scare city FD and PD boses into thinking that they will be held at fault for not going digital after the next "BIG ONE" hits NYC, then we could see thoes perfectly good radios replaced at great expence to the tax payers!

 

[radionerd13669]

When Motorola or Haliburton/Tyco sales people scare city FD and PD boses into thinking that they will be held at fault for not going digital after the next "BIG ONE" hits NYC, then we could see thoes perfectly good radios replaced at great expence to the tax payers!

They wont need new radios they will only need to reprogam them.

 

[garys]

When Motorola or Haliburton/Tyco sales people scare city FD and PD boses into thinking that they will be held at fault for not going digital after the next "BIG ONE" hits NYC, then we could see thoes perfectly good radios replaced at great expence to the tax payers!

In case you forgot or never knew two FDNY members were killed in a fire sometime before 9/11. The resulting investigation showed that the digital radios in use at the time failed to perform adequately. I forget the details, but I seem to remember that FDNY pulled the radios back and went back to VHF analog. Hopefully one of the NYC area members has better recollection than I do.

Also, the NFPA recommends against digital or trunked radios for fire ground use. One of the FDs in the Boston area (Cambridge) operates on an 800 Mhz trunk, but their fire ground channels are conventional only. I think the NFPA also recommends against repeaters for fire ground operations, but this seems to be less closely followed by FDs.

FLA2760 has it exactly right.

 

[n2nov]

In case you forgot or never knew two FDNY members were killed in a fire sometime before 9/11. The resulting investigation showed that the digital radios in use at the time failed to perform adequately. I forget the details, but I seem to remember that FDNY pulled the radios back and went back to VHF analog. Hopefully one of the NYC area members has better recollection than I do.

There was a case of a firefighter caught in a residential building and running out of air the first week that the digital fireground radios were issued in March 2001. Nobody was killed. The radios were pulled. They were reprogrammed to analog and were undergoing testing by EMS units on Staten Island and part of the Bronx during the summer of 2001. The testing ended and reports were just drawn up a few weeks before 9/11. The radios were due to be redistributed as analog in October, but unfortunately the towers were hit before that could be done.

 

[garys]

There was a case of a firefighter caught in a residential building and running out of air the first week that the digital fireground radios were issued in March 2001. Nobody was killed. The radios were pulled. They were reprogrammed to analog and were undergoing testing by EMS units on Staten Island and part of the Bronx during the summer of 2001. The testing ended and reports were just drawn up a few weeks before 9/11. The radios were due to be redistributed as analog in October, but unfortunately the towers were hit before that could be done.

Thank you for the details, I knew my recollection was a bit fuzzy.

 

[comspec]

With respect to "Trunked" systems. I have been told that NYPD Engineering feels that the system is too busy for a trunked system. The benefit for a trunked system is to share frequencies amoung many users much like a telephone system shares trunks amoung all its users with the idea that only a small percentage of the users are using the system at a time. With NYPD the system is so busy the number of trunked channels needed would be about the same as the number of channels needed on a convential system.

Other users have already commented on the digital concerns. Digital is NOT BETTER, but it is more efficient at frequency use. NYC is big enough not be be pressured into sacrificing performance and reliability for efficiency.

Only the ADMIN type functions with little to no radio traffic operate on the trunked system. Trunked systems do not make sense for very busy agencies with near constant radio traffic. Congradulations to the sales persons who have been able to convince some of these busy agencies that trunked is better. NYPD had in house engineering and they are not easily fooled.

 

[garys]

Only the ADMIN type functions with little to no radio traffic operate on the trunked system. Trunked systems do not make sense for very busy agencies with near constant radio traffic. Congradulations to the sales persons who have been able to convince some of these busy agencies that trunked is better. NYPD had in house engineering and they are not easily fooled.

Good points. What the sales folks never seem to point out is that each dispatch "channel" you add means an additional dispatcher. So, while in theory spectrum might be used more efficiently, the truth is it doesn't help a busy system add capacity.

When I'm in the area, I'll only listen to the citywide NYPD channels as the precincts are way too busy to try to listen to unless you listen to the one or two channels in your immediate area. EMS is almost as busy, but I find it a bit easier to listen to.

From what I've heard, it's the same in most big cities whether they are trunked or conventional.

 

[902]

Because trunked/digital systems are inferior in performance to a properly maintained standard system. Why change something that works so well?

I agree with the second part of your statement, but having managed a medium-sized digital system, need to challenge the first part. Why?

I'm not trying to be a tough guy, or an apologist for poor system design or poor implementation choices. I know first-hand about fireground and wind noise, and that some digital architecture appear to have inflated prices and little proprietary traps that thwart standards. But the assertion that digital is inferior to analog needs some 'splainin'.

 

[902]

There was a case of a firefighter caught in a residential building and running out of air the first week that the digital fireground radios were issued in March 2001. Nobody was killed. The radios were pulled. They were reprogrammed to analog and were undergoing testing by EMS units on Staten Island and part of the Bronx during the summer of 2001. The testing ended and reports were just drawn up a few weeks before 9/11. The radios were due to be redistributed as analog in October, but unfortunately the towers were hit before that could be done.

When my former agency (I have since retired) went to digital radios around that time, we were able to duplicate what we understood to be the situation in the March 2001 failure and how someone using a digital radio on simplex in a basement cannot be heard on the same fireground, but could be heard a distance away. I believe we corrected for it as best we could with three actions: transmit inhibit on proper NAC detect, implementation of the "emergency button" that sends an emergency message at random intervals and is decoded by other radios, and training to do a quick keypress to override the transmit inhibit as a last resort distress message. Maybe you get through the chatter, maybe not. Chatter and span of control during an operation is both a training and implementation issue, too.

The lesson learned for us was that we can't say "a radio is a radio" and stop using the old one at 2359 and start using the new one at 0000 hrs. When a cop gets a new weapon, he or she trains on it and understands how it can fail and what he or she can do if it does. Same thing with a new drug a paramedic carries. They don't just get it and forget it. A digital radio is very different from an analog radio and people need to be trained before using them. We'll see the same transition when LTE hits the streets and our agencies start using two-way radio emulation applications over the LTE network. And we'll have the same discussions about reverting to simplex and analog FM for the sake of familiarity and predictability during on-scene operations.

 

[FLA2760]

The explaining is in the results, listen to the NYPD streams and then listen to the LAPD stream and you decide which sounds better. The garbled voice of inferior digital decoding or the clear sound of analog voice. Don't try to say it is the stream or brand of scanner used because it is the same in the field. Let's not forget that if you are in a fringe area or a "dead spot" there is often some fade with the analog signal but you can often get through, with digital it is either there or not. This is not good if a police officer or firefighter is in a dire situation and needs immediate help. In my opinion digitial systems are not the best choice for public safety. I get the impression that there more than a few individuals with a vested interest in these inferior "new and improved" radio systems are on this forum.

 

[902]

The explaining is in the results, listen to the NYPD streams and then listen to the LAPD stream and you decide which sounds better. The garbled voice of inferior digital decoding or the clear sound of analog voice. Don't try to say it is the stream or brand of scanner used because it is the same in the field. Let's not forget that if you are in a fringe area or a "dead spot" there is often some fade with the analog signal but you can often get through, with digital it is either there or not. This is not good if a police officer or firefighter is in a dire situation and needs immediate help. In my opinion digitial systems are not the best choice for public safety. I get the impression that there more than a few individuals with a vested interest in these inferior "new and improved" radio systems are on this forum.

I appreciate your concern, Steve. To be fair, listening to streaming audio introduces additional distortion in vocoding and sometimes from transmission errors and packet collissions. It's enough to take a DAQ of 4.0 and degrade it substantially. I do prefer analog for fireground and law enforcement tactical operations, but am ambivalent about one over another for operations. I got used to P25 audio and there were advantages to the system that would have been problematic in analog (the vocoder did all the work in detecting signals in areas of simulcast overlap). On the minus side, in a law enforcement environment, wind noise was destructive... moreso than ambient noise. Aside from that, P25 audio on dispatch and operations nets (non-FG and non-tactical) have been acceptable. After a year of use, not one dispatcher preferred the times when the system had to revert to analog. There are some IEEE and other research articles that seem to indicate that the brain conditions itself to digitized audio and audio that has been regenerated into a sine waves (minus other fuller-spectrum components). That was my point on the implementation of P25 without training. It's very different and that difference needs to be recognized.

I do have problems with some digital systems. I can't understand speech through iDEN very well had had a horrible time using it. I also have problems understanding some people on various digital cellular phones. Thing is that most of the newer uses of technology will be digital and will have to work within a very narrow bandwidth. I'm hoping that public safety audio will remain at the P25 level (corrected for the noise issues) or improve rather than slide toward iDEN quality.

BTW, NF2G is right, reprogramming radios is a monumental task. Once the codeplug is created, it's not so bad, but rounding up everyone and tracking down who's sick, on vacation, detailed out, etc. and then getting everyone taken care of without overtime (yours or theirs) is very difficult. I did it with ~500 radios. I can't imagine thousands.

 

[chrismol1]

Not just a monumental task but a monumental budget is needed not just a city budget but more like on a federal scale. My god how many millions? billions?