Enid possibly going Nexedge

[wx5uif]

LEO buddy of mine is an Enid officer. He got a new NX200 radio.

I read in the Enid News and Eagle this a couple weeks ago;

The department must switch to narrow-band radio communications by 2013, and has had to begin making upgrades to its radio system.

“We have started replacement of handheld and vehicle radios that are narrow-band capable,” the chief said. He noted EPD, Enid Fire Department and city of Enid have completed a 300-foot tower at the city’s service center.

“This one (tower) gives us better communication ability, almost across the entire county,” O’Rourke said. “When that’s complete we will swap over to a digital signal, which will be a clearer communication. It’s going to be much better technology than radio communications.”

The switch to digital communications might affect some police scanners, O’Rourke said, but commutations can be streamed digitally online.

“We could have it streamed live to our website,” he said. “People can find various phone and iPad apps that will allow them to scan our frequency.”



EPD tech: Police add to crime-fighting technology » Local news » The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

[peterjmag]

Lovely just lovely....

[abbadabbado]

excuse my ignorance but does enid police encourage listerners like for regular dispatch ect if so finally a pol dept with honesty an intereguity. people in enid are so lucky especialy douring storm season

[Thunderbolt]

The FCC has granted the city of Enid, permission to operate their new NEXEDGE TRS. So much for interoperability with other agencies around the state of Oklahoma.

73's

Ron

[wx5uif]

Wow. I wasn't expecting a trunked system....


So... If I got my hands on a NX200, and they arn't running any form of encryption, does anyone know if they are easily programmed to recieve the system?

(I was planning on buying a radio to receive the Nexedge, but this just threw a curveball at me.)

[wx5uif]

Actually doing some looking disappoints me about receiving capabilities...

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt

The FCC has granted the city of Enid, permission to operate their new NEXEDGE TRS. So much for interoperability with other agencies around the state of Oklahoma.

73's

Ron

Kenwood NX-200's do Analog VHF just fine. All they do is program a second zone for Analog and they are good to go. We did this with our NX-410s. One zone is set up for Nexedge trunking, the second zone is for our back up analog repeater and analog simplex channel. Kenwood does 2 tone and MDC just fine also.

NexEdge trunked systems can't be monitored with a NexEdge radio in conventional digital mode, so out of luck. You'd have to consider encryption anyway, as activating encryption on a NexEdge radio is a check box and enter your own key number. Since it's so easy to do, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it. We did on some talk groups.

[wx5uif]

I spoke with my friend tonight that is an Enid officer. He said the radios are ready to go. However, the chief is delaying the change due to the fact that he wants to find a way for people to hear who currently monitor with scanners.


Does anyone have any info about the quality of nexedge transmissions? They are promised that the issues they have with their portables signal will be eliminated when switching.

[plaws]

Originally Posted by wx5uif

I spoke with my friend tonight that is an Enid officer. He said the radios are ready to go. However, the chief is delaying the change due to the fact that he wants to find a way for people to hear who currently monitor with scanners.

A little late for that, Chief.

Originally Posted by wx5uif

Does anyone have any info about the quality of nexedge transmissions?

I assume they sound much like P25, ProVoice, D-Star, etc ... digital!

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by wx5uif

Does anyone have any info about the quality of nexedge transmissions? They are promised that the issues they have with their portables signal will be eliminated when switching.

I'm using NexEdge trunked in 12.5KHz bandwidth, and it sounds just fine. It ~is~ digital, so if you listen closely, you will occasionally hear the digital artifacts. The newer firmware releases have some adjustable settings for audio quality, specifically noise reduction, high or low boost settings on both TX and RX. Took me a few tries to get it sounding the way I wanted, but pretty happy with it now.

I've listened to both NexEdge and P25 and can't really tell the difference. It is different that analog, but not a big deal. Think about when cell phones went from analog to digital, we all got over it OK.

[wx5uif]

Police scanners could suffer outage Monday » Local news » The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

[plaws]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

Think about when cell phones went from analog to digital, we all got over it OK.

Speak for yourself. I prefer the slow degradation of an analog signal over the there-one-syllable-gone-the-next of digital. On my telephone, it rarely matters; on public safety radio it often does.

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by plaws

Speak for yourself. I prefer the slow degradation of an analog signal over the there-one-syllable-gone-the-next of digital. On my telephone, it rarely matters; on public safety radio it often does.

Absolutely! Analog is still preferred around these parts. No one in our county can afford to go digital. The only reason why I switched us there was because it made sense in the long term for a trunking system to be digital, especially when it's not primarily a public safety system.

However, being realistic about the needs, and designing the system to meet those needs should mean that you'd never get into a situation where signal degradation becomes an issue. While we are still ironing out some coverage issues, 99% of the time when someone complains to me about system coverage, they are operating well outside the area the system was designed to cover. Any public safety user that runs into a lot of coverage issues on a digital system needs to start asking some questions about the design of the system. 100% coverage will never happen unless the agency can print their own money, doesn't matter if it's analog or digital.

Our PD and Fire has remained on analog, and likely will for the foreseeable future. None of the public agencies in our county can afford to go to digital, so nothing will change any time soon.