State Radio System Study

[peq387ab]

I stumbled across this yesterday. Looks like the state of ND is doing a study on the current radio and exploring into trunk radio systems. Anyone heard about this at all or what the state is planning on doing?

https://www.nd.gov/itd/files/publications/nd-radio-systems-study.pdf

 

[BisManRadio]

A solution looking for a problem.

Half the time state radio voice channels are dead. Very little voice traffic in the metro/urban areas.
The system they have in place now, seems to work very good.

 

[scannermanner1]

The system they have in place now, seems to work very good.

What system is that ?

 

[BisManRadio]

basically a state wide conventional system.

 

[rapidcharger]

ND is one of the last holdouts.
If my memory serves me ND and VT are the only states remaining without a public safety trunking system.
I wish you luck in keeping it that was as long as humanly possible so you can continue to monitor with ease as long as it's not encrypted.
Just because there's no need for something hasn't stopped cities and towns and counties and states all across the land from wasting millions of dollars buying it anyway.

 

[ofd8001]

Kentucky doesn't have one and I don't think California does either.

As a former firefighter I believe that statewide trunking systems have great value. Not necessarily for day to day incidents, but for those bigger events involving numerous responders a good deal of benefit can be realized. Of course some radio discipline would be in order in these cases.

 

[RadioGuy3007]

All of State Radio is P25 Conventional. When you get into the cities is when everything and I mean everything is encrypted.

 

[rapidcharger]

Kentucky doesn't have one and I don't think California does either.)))

California has LOTS of them. Orange county, Marin, Sacramento, Contra Costa, Alameda, the list goes on and on.

Kentucky! Have you seen the database? It's all in the database! Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green, and on and on.

Like I said, ND is one of 2 remaining holdouts.

(((As a former firefighter I believe that statewide trunking systems have great value. Not necessarily for day to day incidents, but for those bigger events involving numerous responders a good deal of benefit can be realized. Of course some radio discipline would be in order in these cases.

Statewide radio systems are incredible wastes of money. The money could be better spent in areas it is more desperately needed. For instance hiring and training additional responders, and for the millions blown on digital trunking systems, there could be virtual armies of responders. It's preposterous that they are building out trunking systems in areas the firefighters are volunteers. I do not believe that should be a volunteer line of work. I think they deserve to get trained and paid and provided all the benefits. But when you blow the money on trunking systems in areas there are hardly any people living, and the radios cost six grand to join the statewide network, it's safe to say those vollies will remain vollies for a long, long time.

 

[ofd8001]

We might be talking about apples and oranges. The original theme was that North Dakota was the only state without a statewide trunking system. I mentioned that Kentucky doesn't have a statewide trunking system either.

Yes Kentucky does have several cities having their own trunking systems, but coverage stops just outside the city limits.

Here is the problem as I see it: The fire district I served with for 39 years is in Louisville Kentucky. We are right on the county line. Our fire department responds into the adjacent county on mutual aid once or twice a week. The reverse is true - the adjacent county fire department responds into our area. "Our" radio system is a digital 800 trunked system. "Theirs" is a VHF analog system.

So to ensure seemless communications, essential to responder safety, "we" have to have a second set of radios for their system. "They" also have to have a second set of radios for our system. (Patching is crappy at best and cumbersome to set up).

Now if there was either a statewide or regional system, then we could communicate with our neighbors on the same radios.

Thus I submit that NOT having a statewide radio system can result in an unreasonable financial burden. Instead of buying two sets of radios, one just to communicate with our neighbors, one set of radios would suffice.

 

[rapidcharger]

We might be talking about apples and oranges. The original theme was that North Dakota was the only state without a statewide trunking system. I mentioned that Kentucky doesn't have a statewide trunking system either.

Yes Kentucky does have several cities having their own trunking systems, but coverage stops just outside the city limits.

Here is the problem as I see it: The fire district I served with for 39 years is in Louisville Kentucky. We are right on the county line. Our fire department responds into the adjacent county on mutual aid once or twice a week. The reverse is true - the adjacent county fire department responds into our area. "Our" radio system is a digital 800 trunked system. "Theirs" is a VHF analog system.

So to ensure seemless communications, essential to responder safety, "we" have to have a second set of radios for their system. "They" also have to have a second set of radios for our system. (Patching is crappy at best and cumbersome to set up).

Now if there was either a statewide or regional system, then we could communicate with our neighbors on the same radios.

Thus I submit that NOT having a statewide radio system can result in an unreasonable financial burden. Instead of buying two sets of radios, one just to communicate with our neighbors, one set of radios would suffice.

Ok. Well there's lots of states without a statewide system. I don't want to veer off topic but I'll leave you with three parting thoughts. Why should it become the neighboring county's problem that your county decided to leave vhf conventional where changing a channel was all that was needed? Making that county have to spend millions to be able to talk to your county one in a blue moon wasn't nice.

The problems that are coming to the surface with statewide systems is that a lot of places still do not have the money for subscriber units. And despite paying for body worn, in building coverage in completely uninhabited locations, there still will be dead spots. Then what? Back to simplex? All that money and still relying on simplex? Then there's the issue of updates. Unlike the 30 year old repeaters and systems everyone wanted to leave behind, IP and computer based network cores need more frequent costly updates and will not last anywhere near as long as the what budgets are used to. Federal grant money is done. Now what?

They simply are not needed. Now if this was Saudi Arabia and there was lots of money to blow and the police cars were Lamborghinis then an extravagant and insanely expensive and dangerously complicated radio system with a team of well paid full time administrators would be fitting. But it's not Saudi Arabia.

sent via tapatalk on a mobile device.

 

[ofd8001]

Guess this will be an "Agree to Disagree" situation. Good minds can have different resolutions to a given problem.

Yeah it was "un-neighborly" for us to migrate from a VHF analog system, because the cost was loss of easy communication with our neighbors for that twice weekly mutual aid response. But what we gained was direct communication with our local EMS folks -they were UHF. We make EMS calls several times each day.

There are dead spots with the 800 system, but not as many as we had with the VHF system.

 

[rapidcharger]

Guess this will be an "Agree to Disagree" situation. Good minds can have different resolutions to a given problem.

Yeah it was "un-neighborly" for us to migrate from a VHF analog system, because the cost was loss of easy communication with our neighbors for that twice weekly mutual aid response. But what we gained was direct communication with our local EMS folks -they were UHF. We make EMS calls several times each day.

There are dead spots with the 800 system, but not as many as we had with the VHF system.

Ah but only if you spent a fraction to improve what you had you wouldn't have so many dead spots. And I'm betting that was a really old system you had for vhf. If a county or city doesn't get around to updating their ptt system but once every 20 or 30 years,they're in for a rude awakening when their DTRS is going to require updates after 6-8 years. Uh oh! You thought you had dead spots before!

sent via tapatalk on a mobile device.