Phase 2 question

In NE Ohio, listening to Lake Geauga and Cuyahoga AND the Cleveland systems.
I am toying with the idea of a Whistler 1065 vs a 1095 ( about a $150 + difference)
Can anybody "guess" if anybody is going to Phase 2 in the next 5 years or so ?


Thanks,
Don, K8ZGW

Geauga County has no plans to upgrade to phase 2.

Last quotation to add P2 software licenses to the Geauga site alone was $ 1,760,000. Unless the cost drops significantly or the State wants to pay for it it's not being considered.

k8zgw said:

In NE Ohio, listening to Lake Geauga and Cuyahoga AND the Cleveland systems.
I am toying with the idea of a Whistler 1065 vs a 1095 ( about a $150 + difference)
Can anybody "guess" if anybody is going to Phase 2 in the next 5 years or so ?


Thanks,
Don, K8ZGW

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I can't give you a good "guess", but can give you some good info that will probably push you toward the Phase 2 scanner. The old Motorola Type II systems are at their end-of-life and parts are no longer available (although they can be found on the used market still) so agencies that use them are going to quickly migrate to newer technology (read P-25 Phase II in many cases). EDACS systems are also being migrated since they've been around almost as long and are generally getting more costly to maintain.

Radio manufactures have gotten used to replacing radios due to the narrowbanding requirement for the older VHF and UHF radios. They like the revenue stream from it. If you listen really hard, you can hear them say ... "Since those lower band radios are now new, it's time to replace those old trunked radios and especially those old (and paid for) systems as well. They're even more revenue than that narrow-band stuff we were selling! We did tell them digital's the way to go and some even listened. Now we can almost force it on them by saying the replacement systems are all P-25 digital (and you can encrypt at minimal cost!)."

In my area, several of the old Motorola Type II systems are going Phase II. Agencies get almost twice the talk paths for no extra cost (ignoring that Phase II costs more, of course). Those extra talk paths are allowing them to add agencies to their systems to help drive down costs (and increase inter-operability as well). Another advantage that some are taking advantage of is that since they're forced into the high-end radios, they can (for a bit more cash, of course) migrate to multi-band radios and provide inter-op capability for more units instead of just for chief's (FD) and supervisors (PD). Many of one system's PD and FD units will be tri-band to provide access to the State Troopers (VHF), Dallas City (UHF), and the various trunked systems (700/800 MHz).

It's almost like that old commercial where they said "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later". Most likely, you'll need Phase II at some time.

k8zgw said:

In NE Ohio, listening to Lake Geauga and Cuyahoga AND the Cleveland systems.
I am toying with the idea of a Whistler 1065 vs a 1095 ( about a $150 + difference)
Can anybody "guess" if anybody is going to Phase 2 in the next 5 years or so ?


Thanks,
Don, K8ZGW

Click to expand...

Based on the recent build outs in Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties, it would seem to be highly unlikely.

Both Lake and Geauga counties had their own trunk systems prior to the merge with the States MARCS-IP. So they had a very good handle on the total potential system users.

Regarding Cuyahoga County, there are 3 P25 systems that have just been deployed. Cleveland's GCRCN, MARCS-IP and Parma P25. I've monitored all 3 systems using Pro96com and Unitrunker. At no time did any of these systems come close to 50% utilization. Also there are no Moto Type II public safety systems left. The only EDACS public safety system which is run by Parma, has only a couple of users and one active TG. So once the last hold outs move to the PARMA P25 they can decide what to do with the left over frequency's. Bottom line is there is more than enough capacity on the current systems to handle the counties needs.

One other note, if a multi million dollar upgrade was in the near future there would be hearings and budget discussions taking place. That's not happening.

While anything is possible, I'd still say that it's highly unlikely.

While my GRE PSR 500 (Whistler 1065) is still a great radio and runs toe to toe with my GRE PSR 800 on Northeast Ohio systems, the 500 (1065) has a major shortcomings. Besides being almost 10 years old it suffers from a huge memory limitation and limited available ScanLists (20). On the other hand the 800 (sort of 1095) has great memory capacity and 200 ScanLists. To me the decision is clear - Whistler1095 or 1080 or Uniden 436 - 536.

phase2 question

Phaser's on stun. Amen, John. Beam me up, quickly.

There's a mattress commercial that runs here, where a customer says she's too poor to buy cheap because she knows that she'll end up buying the better thing in the long run and will have spent money twice. I've done that, it's annoying. If you can, just save up your pennies and buy phase II now that way no matter what your local radio systems do you've future proofed yourself.

marcs

WDZ, I am so sick of having to upgrade scanners, and don't you think there will NOT be a new and improved. It is a cat and mouse game with monitorists and radio/ Govt leaders who want to keeep everything secret. If only what you said could be true, but alas technology marches forward. Look at the progress radio comms have made since trunking. It is inevitable

When/if Phase 2 happens, everything could be fully encrypted by then. Don't even laugh. Radio systems of the future are headed that way.

And then that phase 2 upgrade won't do any good.

If you have a Phase 1 scanner and it performs well, there's really no reason at all to waste money on an unnecessary upgrade at this time.

sspnelson said:

WDZ, I am so sick of having to upgrade scanners, and don't you think there will NOT be a new and improved. It is a cat and mouse game with monitorists and radio/ Govt leaders who want to keeep everything secret. If only what you said could be true, but alas technology marches forward. Look at the progress radio comms have made since trunking. It is inevitable

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It's not just scanners, it's anything technology related. Computers, cell phones, even cars. The more advanced it is when you buy it the longer it will be relevant.

Let me make a prediction her and see what kind of flack it produces.

Motorola sales teams are great at wringing the last penny they can out of new system sales. So in many cases where a new trunking system is sold, the base stations are capable of doing PHASE 2. But in the same sales, in most cases, the systems are allowed to run PHASE 1 so older equipment will function.

Now with that being said out of the way, there have been trunking systems installed if a few locations that they spent the bank on and changed out all their user equipment in the process. Loudoun County, Virginia was one of the first to go to a Motorola PHASE 2 trunking system. They found out in short order that they created an island all by them selves. None of the agencies around them could communicate with them via their radios. So they had to have Motorola come back in and configure the system to allow a few channels to be both PHASE 1 and PHASE 2. Kind of a hack if you ask me. But they did spend the bucks.

I am capitalizing the word PHASE just to make a point of it. If you look around the country today, my bet is that there are only a few agencies currently running PHASE 2. Only because they can. Not because they really need the channel capacity. I would also bet that they are in a good financial position and Motorola took advantage of that when they sold they system.

Bottom line is there are few reasons to go to the PHASE 2 operation unless the region is channel poor. The splitting of the channels in half does cause some technical issues. One of them is bandwidth. With narrower bandwidth comes the requirement to have tighter tolerances in the radios. This causes the radios to operate in a more critically tighter frequency and sync tolerances. Which in turn causes the radio shop to spend more time maintaining the entire radio system. This includes the user radios. So there comes the weak spot in how the radio system functions. Time will tell just how well it all shakes out. But unless you have deep financial pockets, I wouldn't go to a PHASE 2 radio system operation.

jim202 said:

Now with that being said out of the way, there have been trunking systems installed if a few locations that they spent the bank on and changed out all their user equipment in the process. Loudoun County, Virginia was one of the first to go to a Motorola PHASE 2 trunking system. They found out in short order that they created an island all by them selves. None of the agencies around them could communicate with them via their radios. So they had to have Motorola come back in and configure the system to allow a few channels to be both PHASE 1 and PHASE 2. Kind of a hack if you ask me. But they did spend the bucks.

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It's not a hack. The system is designed to do this; when a radio affiliates which is not Phase II capable, the system automatically puts the talkgroup in Phase I mode until the Phase I radio(s) de-affiliate, then goes back to Phase II.

If Loudon County failed to take this into account and configured the system for Phase II only at the start, that's a failure of planning on their part, not a failure of the system.

I am capitalizing the word PHASE just to make a point of it. If you look around the country today, my bet is that there are only a few agencies currently running PHASE 2. Only because they can. Not because they really need the channel capacity. I would also bet that they are in a good financial position and Motorola took advantage of that when they sold they system.

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Pretty narrow and cynical view. It's not just a question of infrastructure dollars and cents, or a question of Motorola "taking advantage," and it's not "only because they can"; it's also a question of the added cost and time expended to do the upgrade later. By going to Phase II from the outset, you get a system that's capable of the best possible capacity with no later updates or upgrades needed, and saves the cost of having personnel run around reprogramming radios to Phase II, thus keeping them available for normal day-to-day work. It's a lot less expensive in the long run to do this up front.

The splitting of the channels in half does cause some technical issues. One of them is bandwidth. With narrower bandwidth comes the requirement to have tighter tolerances in the radios. This causes the radios to operate in a more critically tighter frequency and sync tolerances. Which in turn causes the radio shop to spend more time maintaining the entire radio system. This includes the user radios.

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This is true, but it's also true of Phase I systems; they're much more sensitive to radio alignment issues than analog systems. However, this should not be an issue if an agency maintains the system and radios properly, by which I mean a regular scheduled alignment. The system should undergo a PM and alignment annually, and the subscriber radios should go through a bench alignment at least every two years. It shouldn't be optional, but it's a matter of local policy.

Some agencies treat their subscriber radios as another piece of personal protective equipment like an SCBA, and schedule them for an annual or bi-annual bench alignment. With the newer communications system analyzers (service monitors) capable of auto tune, this takes less than 10 minutes per radio.

Unfortunately, and contrary to the recommendations of system owners/operators, most agencies don't even bother with this until the radio gets so far out of alignment that it barely works. Again, a matter of local/agency policy and budgeting.