Dbl_naught_spy
Member
I am new here and also relatively new to radios. I've been in Electronics for over 30 years but never much radio work. I recently took an electronics technician position with the local school system. Among other things, I've been put in charge of our 28 schools 2 way handhelds. It's kind of a hodge podge of Kenwoods, Motorola, Vertex Standard, TERAs and some off brand stuff.
We have a FCC license with 25-ish VHF frequencies that have been kind of spread around along with 5 UHF frequencies and 6 VHF frequencies at 50W for repeaters (we have 5 in use at the moment - 4 high schools and 1 middle school). One of the first things that was dropped into my lap was another middle school (using VHF at the moment with horrible comms - Kenwood 5W radios) that wants a repeater. I've been studying what the guy before me was trying to do with this system and it looks like he was moving schools to UHF and away from VHF. My understanding is UHF is better for inside buildings and I've tested a few UHF radios and they seem to work much better. I'm thinking I need to go more that route and away from putting up a repeater for the VHF.
We also have a new school for special needs kids that was recently built and they are using a very small 2W VHF radio and they just flat don't work in this new building. They also want a repeater but again, I don't think that is the way to go. I've tried some UHF radios in there too and they work better but haven't hit on the right one yet. Think I need 5W on that one. I have also found a couple of other schools also already using our UHF frequencies too so I'm pretty sure this was the direction the other guy was heading. I'm guessing I'm soon going to have to modify the license to add some more UHF frequencies.
Add to that a request I got today that the one middle school that is already using a repeater for their VHF radios is asking for another repeater so that the school resource officer (local PD) can use their PD issued radio inside the school. I'm also guessing that if we did something like that for them we would have to add some 800 or 900 Mhz frequencies to OUR license for that.
Any advice or direction would be appreciated. Am I on the right track that we should be switching to UHF for most school comms? Should I just do the repeaters (knowing that more and more schools are going to eventually want them as there are other schools that have comms problems that haven't been formally brought up)? Am I going to run into license problems if it is decided that we do need to add a repeater at the middle school mentioned for the resource officers PD radio?
Much obliged for any help.
We have a FCC license with 25-ish VHF frequencies that have been kind of spread around along with 5 UHF frequencies and 6 VHF frequencies at 50W for repeaters (we have 5 in use at the moment - 4 high schools and 1 middle school). One of the first things that was dropped into my lap was another middle school (using VHF at the moment with horrible comms - Kenwood 5W radios) that wants a repeater. I've been studying what the guy before me was trying to do with this system and it looks like he was moving schools to UHF and away from VHF. My understanding is UHF is better for inside buildings and I've tested a few UHF radios and they seem to work much better. I'm thinking I need to go more that route and away from putting up a repeater for the VHF.
We also have a new school for special needs kids that was recently built and they are using a very small 2W VHF radio and they just flat don't work in this new building. They also want a repeater but again, I don't think that is the way to go. I've tried some UHF radios in there too and they work better but haven't hit on the right one yet. Think I need 5W on that one. I have also found a couple of other schools also already using our UHF frequencies too so I'm pretty sure this was the direction the other guy was heading. I'm guessing I'm soon going to have to modify the license to add some more UHF frequencies.
Add to that a request I got today that the one middle school that is already using a repeater for their VHF radios is asking for another repeater so that the school resource officer (local PD) can use their PD issued radio inside the school. I'm also guessing that if we did something like that for them we would have to add some 800 or 900 Mhz frequencies to OUR license for that.
Any advice or direction would be appreciated. Am I on the right track that we should be switching to UHF for most school comms? Should I just do the repeaters (knowing that more and more schools are going to eventually want them as there are other schools that have comms problems that haven't been formally brought up)? Am I going to run into license problems if it is decided that we do need to add a repeater at the middle school mentioned for the resource officers PD radio?
Much obliged for any help.