Lewis and Jefferson CO NY - New emergency radio technologies costly, but necessary to

[NoCoFire]

WATERTOWN — New emergency radio frequencies will dramatically improve communication among north country police, fire and rescue squads, but at a cost.

Over the past several months, county legislators and emergency service officials in Jefferson and Lewis counties have worked to secure new emergency radio frequencies as part of an overhaul of the region’s public communications system.

Watertown Daily Times | Local News, Sports, Features, and Community Information for Jefferson County, St. Lawrence County, and Lewis County in Northern New York.

 

[jim202]

WATERTOWN — New emergency radio frequencies will dramatically improve communication among north country police, fire and rescue squads, but at a cost.

Over the past several months, county legislators and emergency service officials in Jefferson and Lewis counties have worked to secure new emergency radio frequencies as part of an overhaul of the region’s public communications system.

Watertown Daily Times | Local News, Sports, Features, and Community Information for Jefferson County, St. Lawrence County, and Lewis County in Northern New York.

Great link that shows nothing about the radio system information.

 

[Mtnrider]

I want a little of the 50,000 dollas per frequency.......thats seems like a steal.....(sarcasm)...poorly written news piece ...nothing shocking there

 

[RF-Burns]

Here is what I just wrote on the links page.

Low Band is full of so called, "Garbage" thats funny because Low Band is the absolutely best type of coverage for the mountains. It can be used as a stand alone system without the need for towers in each town like UHF. UHF is totally wrong for the north country. UHF is very limited so you must install towers and repeaters every so many miles. VHF is far more suited for the terrain of Lewis and Jefferson County.
As for radio cost, since when does a UHF Mobile or Portable Radio cost 3,000? I guess maybe if you are going with a FDMA P25 System with Encryption you may hit 3k. But if I were to give these two counties any advise what so ever DO NOT GO P25 due to the mountains. Going to Digital P25 drops almost 25% DB from a signal over analog. The terrain you guys operate you need as much of your signal to go out the antenna not drop into thin air.

I'm from NY and just moved to NC, so I'm not commenting without knowing the area. I also still have a house on Black Lake.

 

[Thunderknight]

I want a little of the 50,000 dollas per frequency.......thats seems like a steal.....(sarcasm)...poorly written news piece ...nothing shocking there

If you are buying old IMTS or paging channels, it can be.

 

[Mtnrider]

There getting sold a basket of BS just like the other counties i am reading about....When all else fails add more techno garbage' to fail

 

[AuntEnvy]

Since when is lowband better for mountainous areas...?? I though it was much more suitable for flat lands.

As for the rest, the new UHF/trunking digital system is about saturation not distance, the way I understand it.

Sure, it does work but there's a lot more that can go wrong as well. As long as they keep the "regular system" in place for backup they should be ok. The taxpayers won't be but the people using the system will!

 

[studgeman]

Love this misinformation in this thread. First, generally Jefferson County is rolling hills or flat. No mountains to speak of. Second, systems are now designed for portable in-building coverage. UHF is the best for wide area coverage AND in-building. Third, Jefferson has to deal with Canada and is close enough that it has to deal with potential interference with Ottawa. VHF-High is tough to come by these days. UHF is simply easier to license and coordinate than any lower frequency band.

Yes, they purchased Part 22 frequencies from an auction license holder.

Now, lets talk about P25. I would love to see any study that shows P25 requires a 25% stronger signal than analog. Please cite your source. I have never heard that before, nor have I have personally experienced that in real life or any statistical propagation model.

 

[AuntEnvy]

Not that this should turn into a geography lesson/argument but...

Lewis county is part of the Adirondack mountains and Jefferson county houses Fort Drum, which is...

NOT the 10th Rolling Hill Division.

As for the rest of your reply I won't disagree.

 

[studgeman]

To explain my logic a little.

Fort Drum is very much rolling "mounds" I wouldn't go as far as to even call them hills. The elevation variation is ~60 feet through most of the property.

I will concede that Lewis County does have a small sliver in the Adirondack park, but that is more characterized by a rise from the black river valley, it can very easily be seen from the Eastern face of the Tug Hill. Once you get into Herkimer County, the terrain changes significantly. Brantingham is not more mountains than Forestport.

I would say that Madison County has more challenging terrain than either of these two counties combined. When I think Adirondack Mountains, I think of the terrain of Northern Herkimer Co. Hamilton County, the changes in elevation have a much higher gradient than the foothills.

 

[AuntEnvy]

Yes, semantically, I will not disagree.

 

[iamhere300]

But if I were to give these two counties any advise what so ever DO NOT GO P25 due to the mountains. Going to Digital P25 drops almost 25% DB from a signal over analog. The terrain you guys operate you need as much of your signal to go out the antenna not drop into thin air.

I'm from NY and just moved to NC, so I'm not commenting without knowing the area. I also still have a house on Black Lake.

Do you even know what a DB is? What exactly are you trying to state with 25% db?

Now, as to P25, I have installed a number of systems that experienced almost a 3DB drop when they went from wideband to narrowband. When they then went P25, they gained that 3DB back, and often even more.

I love low band, but in public safety I would take a well designed P25 V/U/800 system over an analog low band system any day, provided I could afford it.

 

[ProgMan66]

I see most of these new systems as being nothing but cash cows that the taxpayer has to flip the bill for. I can't see why a Pac-RT type of vehicular repeater system couldn't be interfaced with a mobile radio for crossbanding purposes. This is still a common practice in some parts of the country and has worked well for years. Regarding the signal loss involved with the conversion to narrowband FM, why not add more voting receivers to the system and increase the transmitter power if necessary? This would be a much cheaper alternative. Most rural counties do NOT need to spend large sums of money on digital radio systems. They do not have urban-sized populations to support and a new digital system is simply a financial and operational overkill. Unfortunately, the parties involved never seem to have any common sense with their system designs because it would save money. Then again, what do I know? I'm not the one getting a commission when a deal is signed. I'm just the one out in the field that's stuck with paying for and using an overly complex system that doesn't work. I would rather be heard and understood with a noisy analog signal than a nonexistant digital one.

 

[iamhere300]

I see most of these new systems as being nothing but cash cows that the taxpayer has to flip the bill for. I can't see why a Pac-RT type of vehicular repeater system couldn't be interfaced with a mobile radio for crossbanding purposes. This is still a common practice in some parts of the country and has worked well for years. Regarding the signal loss involved with the conversion to narrowband FM, why not add more voting receivers to the system and increase the transmitter power if necessary? This would be a much cheaper alternative. Most rural counties do NOT need to spend large sums of money on digital radio systems. They do not have urban-sized populations to support and a new digital system is simply a financial and operational overkill. Unfortunately, the parties involved never seem to have any common sense with their system designs because it would save money. Then again, what do I know? I'm not the one getting a commission when a deal is signed. I'm just the one out in the field that's stuck with paying for and using an overly complex system that doesn't work. I would rather be heard and understood with a noisy analog signal than a nonexistant digital one.

1, Power out is over rated - your signals are line of sight, making them 100 watts instead of 50 is not going to change the law of physics.

2. Getting higher power is next to impossible in most areas anyways.

3. Vehicle repeaters are not a cure all - in fact in a busy system they can be a nightmare. Add to the fact you are now putting repeaters in the trunks of cars, the back of trucks, etc, they can be a maintenance nightmare.

4. None of these solutions will enhance paging if you can't get power increase approved, and even then, it is still line of sight.

5. Vehicle repeaters do nothing for fire departments that have their members with pagers, or even worse, portables as pagers. If they have portables as pagers on for example a lowband system, then they end up carrying two radios, one for the PAC-RT, the other for the lowband system.

6. Vehicle repeaters mean you need a vehicle. Rough when you are away from the vehicle in a SAR, or in the woods on a brush truck, etc.

I could go on....

 

[KD2DXF]

My 2 cents as a Lewis County native and resident. A VHF system like Oneida County has would have worked, if they got the frequencies. P25 UHF is going to be an interesting change. If its rolled out, and implemented right, it can be beneficial. But then again, the rolling out and implementation is the politics portion.

 

[Mtnrider]

Interesting enough most county's have enough VHF high freqs if they re use what they have. If you pick what each village/hamlet/town and county has. A lot can be done with them. There already in use, Just need to modify what there used for

 

[Thunderknight]

Power out is over rated - your signals are line of sight, making them 100 watts instead of 50 is not going to change the law of physics.

But it will give you 3dB more of in-building penetration.

Putting more "power on the street" is often done to increase in-building penetration and/or overcome noise floor issues.

Unfortunately, for counties near the Canadian border, transmit power out can be limited, leading to the need for more sites.

Interesting enough most county's have enough VHF high freqs if they re use what they have. If you pick what each village/hamlet/town and county has. A lot can be done with them. There already in use, Just need to modify what there used for

This is true sometimes, but not always. Sometimes these are licensed to a town/village at a single site (sometimes just at a highway garage or such). When trying to reuse county-wide at multiple high sites, it's not possible due to interference with other licenses. (and/or Canada).