Why did City of WF change from Motorola to Harris

DavisEddy · Aug 21, 2017

I believe that at one time before 2002 the City of Wichita Falls was using Motorola Radios.
I am curious as to the history and reasons why the City of Wichita Falls changed from Motorola to Harris system.
Thanks!

n5ims · Aug 21, 2017

DavisEddy said:
I believe that at one time before 2002 the City of Wichita Falls was using Motorola Radios.
I am curious as to the history and reasons why the City of Wichita Falls changed from Motorola to Harris system.
Thanks!

The new system is a P-25 Phase II digital system, which is what both Harris and Motorola are now pushing (and associated federal grants generally mandate). Since you state that the old system was prior to 2002, it was probably a Motorola Type II system that is no longer supported and parts are no longer available from Motorola (although used parts are available, this isn't something that should be counted on for a critical radio system).

I have no specifics to back up my guess but most likely their old system was one that Motorola no longer supports and the city had to move to a new system to allow it to continue to perform properly and have parts available when failures happen. Harris has been quite aggressive in their bids to agencies that used the old Motorola systems and with their lower costs, many agencies are almost forced to select Harris over Motorola for their replacement systems.

nd5y · Aug 21, 2017

The first trunked system installed in 2005 was EDACS ProVoice.
Before that I never saw anything but old GE MASTR II and later GE/Ericsson Rangr radios in city vehicles.
I don't think they ever used much Motorola equipment.

The P25 system went on the air in June 2016 and the EDACS system was shut off in Feb 2017. In between the two systems were patched together.

A timeline of some of the old frequencies used is at https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Wichita_County_(TX)_Old_Frequencies.

I don't know if this is true because I was never able to verify it from multiple sources but one person told me that sometime before the WFPD moved to UHF in the 1970s they had only one channel 155.250 simplex. Midwestern State University PD has been using 155.250 for over 35 years.

DavisEddy · Aug 22, 2017

Why did City Go With Harris Radios

I am trying to find out why the City went with the Harris EDACS system over the Motorola EDACS system in 2005.
It seems that every other entity in Texas was using Motorola. Why would the City of Wichita Falls choose Harris over the "standard" Motorola?

garys · Aug 22, 2017

Probably because Motorola never made an EDACS system.

Currently both Harris and Motorola make P25 compliant systems. Often the existing vendor of the legacy system is able to make a better offer than the other bidder. Plus if the city has a good relationship with the current vendor, it weighs in favor of buying the new system from them.

DavisEddy said:
I am trying to find out why the City went with the Harris EDACS system over the Motorola EDACS system in 2005.
It seems that every other entity in Texas was using Motorola. Why would the City of Wichita Falls choose Harris over the "standard" Motorola?

nd5y · Aug 22, 2017

DavisEddy said:
I am trying to find out why the City went with the Harris EDACS system over the Motorola EDACS system in 2005.
It seems that every other entity in Texas was using Motorola. Why would the City of Wichita Falls choose Harris over the "standard" Motorola?

Motorola isn't a standard. Lots of places in Texas used GE from the 1950's until they sold out to Ericsson in the 1980s. I'm sure some places used other brands too.

Here is a partial list of Texas cities that have or had EDACS trunked systems:
Wichita Falls
Abilene
Lubbock
Odessa
Midland
San Antonio
San Angelo
Irving
Richardson
DFW Airport
American Electric Power
Oncor Electric

When the DPS moved to high band in the 1970s they used all GE as far as I know. When they first went digital about 10 or 15 years ago they bought a bunch of EF Johnson radios.

In the case of Wichita Falls, and probably other places, the local officials were fed better tasting kool-aid by Daily-Wells than the Motorola dealers.
As far as I could tell Wichita Falls didn't even request bids this time.

jasday · Aug 22, 2017

Cost is a huge issue with Motorola. My agency is moving to Kenwood tri-band radios at a cost of half the amount it would take to move us to Motorola Apx radios. A lot of agencies in the county are following as well for portable and mobile radios. Motorola has stopped supporting the xts line of radios forcing it's users to have to go with the Apx line when replacements are needed.

garys · Aug 22, 2017

To clarify a bit, when GE decided to get out of the two way radio industry in the early 1990s, they sold it to EF Johnson. From there it went to Ericsson, then M/A Comm, and finally to Harris. I think I got them all. It can be a bit confusing, so sometimes it's easier to just call it "EDACS". I'm not all that familiar with the current or recent radios, but I think some of them can be programmed for EDACS or P25.

nd5y · Aug 22, 2017

garys said:
To clarify a bit, when GE decided to get out of the two way radio industry in the early 1990s, they sold it to EF Johnson.

Wrong.

mancow · Aug 22, 2017

garys said:
To clarify a bit, when GE decided to get out of the two way radio industry in the early 1990s, they sold it to EF Johnson. From there it went to Ericsson, then M/A Comm, and finally to Harris. I think I got them all. It can be a bit confusing, so sometimes it's easier to just call it "EDACS". I'm not all that familiar with the current or recent radios, but I think some of them can be programmed for EDACS or P25.

Wasn't TYCO in there too?

KevinC · Aug 22, 2017

mancow said:
Wasn't TYCO in there too?

And ComNet...

TexScan780D · Aug 22, 2017

The City of Odessa has never had an EDACS system.

nd5y · Aug 22, 2017

TexScan780D said:
The City of Odessa has never had an EDACS system.

My mistake. For some reason I thought Odessa and Midland both had EDACS systems. Or was it Ector county?

TexScan780D · Aug 22, 2017

Probably because of "Low Bid." As most local governments go to the lowest bid. I hope they do a better job than another Texas city that I know.

troymail · Aug 22, 2017

Reading through the posts, it seems like they were using an EDACS system before going P25.

It's pretty common for jurisdictions that are EDACS to stick with Harris for their P25 systems...

There are many reasons for choosing one over the other - comfort with the vendor, costs (big one), disdain for "the other" company, etc.

TexScan780D · Aug 22, 2017

nd5y said:
My mistake. For some reason I thought Odessa and Midland both had EDACS systems. Or was it Ector county?

City of Midland was the only EDACS system in the area and now Harris P25 phase ll trunk. Midland County is P25 conventional and also use the PBRPC Rigonal system , sorry to say that they are mostly encrypting. City of Odessa was UHF conventual then Motorola analog trunk now Motorola P25 trunk with a lot of encryption. Ector County is P25 conventional, but they are making extensive use of the PBRPC Rigonal trunksystem.

TexScan780D · Aug 22, 2017

Believe me local governments will go with the low bid.

garys · Aug 22, 2017

E.F. Johnson wasn't in the mix and they didn't sell to Ericsson, GE merged their radio division. Other than that, that and a couple of the minor players that were merged into other entities, it's correct. It's hard to keep track since the technology changed hands several times over a small span of years.

nd5y said:
Wrong.

motorola_otaku · Aug 24, 2017

troymail said:
There are many reasons for choosing one over the other - comfort with the vendor, costs (big one), disdain for "the other" company, etc.

Unacknowledged semi-collusive agreement between the two vendors ceding the west end of the state to one vendor and the east and south to another, while keeping the middle regions in play... *ducks*

jim202 · Aug 24, 2017

If you can have a well wrote specs that doesn't favor one vendor over the other, my bet is on Harris coming in lower. Motorola has generally been coming in high. They try to slide in proprietary items into all bids they get involved with to push out the competition. That effort is getting old on their part and the fighting they put up in loosing any bid has turned a number of agencies against them.

Today there are a number of vendors that can supply some very well designed P25 equipment that can even do phase 2. So if there are any complaints on the bid winner, then you might want to look close and see who helped to write the specs. It is very important to keep the vendors away from helping to write any bid specs. It is also important to have a good technical committee involved. If you don't have the local technical talent, then by all means get a good consultant to work with you.

On the subject of consultants, let me say this. There are some really good radio system consultants out there and there are some real poor radio system consultants. The best way of weeding out the poor ones is to ask strong pointed questions from other agencies that may have used them. Make sure you get a large list of prior customers to weed through. A short list could end up with some feedback that is biased.

As the old saying goes, "Walk carefully and make sure your on solid footing". Do your homework and you will end up with a good radio system at a reasonable cost. Don't do your homework and end up with a poor radio system that you paid top dollar for.

Why did City of WF change from Motorola to Harris

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